The all American sloppy joe

The Boy, as you know, will occasionally send me recipes he finds that he thinks are interesting, or that he would like us to try. Quite a while ago, he found a recipe on Facebook for a Philly cheese steak sloppy joe, which basically means, sloppy joe with a piece of cheese in it!

Recently, I decided to try my hand at making it and I followed the recipe. I found the recipe to be rather bland and then added some cayenne pepper to it to spice it up, but it turned out too spicy and not like your typical sloppy joe, or so The Boy said, as I have never had a sloppy joe before.

The next time I tried it, we were having some friends over and because (1) I didn't know if they could eat spicy food and (2) I wanted to make it a bit more authentic but still tasty, I varied the original recipe yet again and came up with something that was just delicious.

Here is what I did:

Ingredients:

• 1 lb ground beef
• 1 small sweet onion chopped
• 1 green bell pepper seeded and chopped
• 1/4 cup steak sauce (like A1 or Worchestershire)
• 1 cup beef broth
• 1 teaspoon paprika
• 2 teaspoons garlic powder
• 2 teaspoons beef stock powder
• 2 teaspoons of corn flour mixed with a little bit of water
• Provolone cheese
• Sliced pickles / gherkins
• Olive oil
• Hamburger buns

Instructions:

• Crumble the ground beef into a skillet and add the chopped onion and pepper. 
• Begin to cook, when the beef is about half cooked, add the spices, broth and steak sauce. 
• Cook until all items are done and allow to simmer. While simmering, add in corn flour mixture to thicken sauce and continue to cook down/thicken.
• Heat a pan on the stove with some olive oil drizzled right around the pan
• Slice open buns and place the flat side on to the pan and toast the bun till it is golden brown. It's okay if it gets a bit burnt! You may have to rotate the buns to get them toasted equally.
• Heat your oven to 180°C.
• Place buns toasted side up on top of a baking / cookie sheet lined with foil and fill them with the meat mixture. 
• Top each one with a slice of provolone cheese.
• Place in the oven or under the broiler / grill for 3 minutes to melt cheese.
• Once cheese is melted, top with a few slices of the pickles / gherkin and serve.

The extra 2 teaspoons of beef stock powder really adds a robustness and depth to the flavor of the sloppy joe, as does the other spices, so don't skip those. Oh, and don't forget to serve with the pickles or gherkin slices as they really do add a lovely counterpoint to the rich beefy flavors.

This turned out to be super tasty and since I made a double batch, I ended up with leftovers which was super easy for me to heat back up in a pan and cook up for another meal.

Of course, they were also a success with our very Aussie friends, who had never tried such an American dish before.

If you do make this, be sure to post pictures for me to see either on Instagram - be sure to tag me with @langshipley or on my Daz In The Kitchen Facebook page.


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