Tonight I made "Loosemeat" sandwiches, just like the ones "Roseanne" made in her restaurant. I looked at a lot of recipes online before deciding on this one - from the comments, it seemed the most authentic. (Apparently a lot of folks were raised on these.) Here's the recipe as I found it - I'll note my changes afterward. (It came from Recipezaar.com, so the links embedded in the recipe are theirs, not mine. Too much of a headache to take them out.)
Blue Mill Tavern Loosemeat Sandwich
30 min | 10 min prep
SERVES 4 -5
- 1 lb of real good ground chuck or ground beef round or ground sirloin
- 1 tablespoon fat like lard or Crisco (if meat is round or sirloin)
- 2 teaspoons salt, just enough to lightly cover bottom of your skillet
- 1 onion, chopped fine
- 1 tablespoon prepared yellow mustard
- 1 tablespoon vinegar
- 1 tablespoon sugar
- water, to cover
- salt and pepper, to taste
- Get out a cast iron skillet-they are the best for loosemeats-or other kind if you have no iron skillet.
- Melt fat over medium heat and lightly salt bottom of skillet.
- Break ground beef up in skillet and start crumbling it with the back of a wooden spoon-this is very important-the meat must end up being cooked up into small crumbles.
- Add chopped onion while browning meat.
- Keep working with the back of spoon to break up meat.
- When meat is browned, drain off any fat and return meat to skillet.
- Add mustard, vinegar, sugar, and just enough water to barely cover meat in the pan.
- Cook, at a simmer, till water is all cooked out-between 15-20 minutes.
- Adjust salt and pepper to taste.
- Heat your hamburger buns-they're traditionally steamed for loosemeats-I like mine toasted lightly-do it the way you like it.
- When buns are warm, put yellow mustard on them and add some dill pickle slices-I put on lots!
I used ground chuck, so I didn't add extra fat. After following recipe exactly, I found the meat mixture too bland for my tastes. I added another Tablespoon each of mustard, sugar and vinegar. That was better but something was still missing, so I added about 2 T. Worchestershire sauce. (Other loosemeat recipes I found used Worchestershire sauce, so I didn't just pull that out of the blue.) That was what it needed. I thought the sandwiches were tasty but nothing special. The rest of the family loved them, further proving that taste is subjective. The Kid pronounced them awesome and inhaled THREE of them. Also, we didn't add any mustard or pickles to the sandwiches - just the meat mixture on warmed buns.
With the loosemeat sandiches I served sliced tomatoes from the garden (I almost have too many to know what to do with), and Simply Potatoes hashbrowns.
Totals:
$1.59 - ground chuck (purchased on sale at Food Lion)
$1.25 - buns (5 out of 8/$2)
.75 - hashbrowns
free - tomatoes
$3.59 for dinner for 3, with enough meat mixture left over for another sandwich for lunch tomorrow (if The Kid lets it last that long)
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