Metallica??? Damn you are hard core, bro
Best pit beef they ever had? It had to be the Amoroso rolls, right?
Let's get into it here...
You remember Steve and Sandy from the pre-tailgate tailgate on Redskins Rd. I know you have met them. They were there early every game. They would come down from Lancaster County, PA. Took them about an hour and a half. So one time, we decide to do steak subs, and Sandy says she'll take care of the sub rolls. She was insistent. So the following game, she brought these Amoroso sub rolls, and they were the best roll I had ever had. It makes a steak sub taste like it was made at a really good steak sub place. It was like night and day. This was like 10-15 years ago. So yeah, she was right! My understanding is, the Amoroso rolls are the go-to rolls at any Eagles tailgate.
So from that point forward, I made it my mission to get a connection to them. They come from Philadelphia, you know, and they're not readily available anywhere in the DC area that I could find, back then.
I finally found a grocery store in the Baltimore area called Shop Rite which regularly stocked them. But it was in Glen Burnie, right there on Crain Hwy, Rt 2. A bit of a drive for me, 45 mins, but worth it.
That store eventually closed down or moved or something, but fortunately, Aldi began opening stores at right about that time. In fact, I think they opened one right across the street from Shop Rite, so maybe that's why they closed. Anyway, Aldi's were stocking them! There's one in Layhill which is a lot closer than Glen Burnie, so that's my go-to now.
However, I've never had or even seen Amoroso Kaiser rolls. I get the Amoroso Club rolls. It's the only ones Aldi stocks.
However, there's a trick to using them. You must heat them up. Ideally, one would bake them at 350 for eight minutes. This will give them a certain crunch, and also bring the aroma and flavor out. That's what makes them so great.
So if they're great for stead subs, naturally, I'm gonna use them for pit beef, when I make pit beef at home.
I have lived most of my life in Maryland, but I have never heard of Pit Beef until around 2013. They don't have pit beef in Montgomery County. Not then and not now. But I saw a recipe for Baltimore Pit Beef in the WP back in 2013 and I was intrigued enough to cut it out and put it in my recipe scrap book. Here it is, but there's probably a paywall.
I never did make it.
So then a half dozen years later in 2019, the WP did a bunch of reviews on what they thought were the best pit beef places. The vast majority of them were right around Rt 40, in or just outside of Baltimore, east and west.
I finally decided it was time to go on a little adventure, so I figured out the closest place that looked pretty good, and that was Pioneer Pit Beef. Drove out there alone and tried it. Wow I was blown away. It was so juicy and so tender and so amazing. So when I got a chance, I brought non-FB Anne up there and she loved it as well. Next thing you know, we were bringing our daughters and our friends. And then THEY were bringing their friends.
There is always a line. If there's some place which serves food and there's a line - you know it's good. Pioneer always has a line.
A really cool thing they did back then was they'd offer you a long dangling piece of meat right after you ordered.
So you tell 'em you would like a pit beef sandwich, medium rare. They'll start slicing the beef based on your request. And then they'll pull a dangling piece of meat out of the pile. This thing will hang like four inches from the cook's gloved fingers. He'll dangle it in front of you. So you take it from him right there at the counter and put it in your mouth. Then you give the cook a discerning look of approval, he smiles, and goes about finishing loading up your sandwich. See - it's kind of like being in a nice restaurant and the waiter offers you a taste of the wine to sample, and you swirl it, smell it, taste it, consider it, and then hopefully approve it. It's kind of like that. I thought that was the coolest thing ever, to have them hand you that meat like that to sample. Who does that??? And it wasn't a small piece of meat either! Pretty awesome.
So then the pandemic came and they stopped that practice. I hoped they'd bring it back, but they never did.
So from there, I've tried other places. And none of them are as good as Pioneer. Jake's Grill is close. The others, meh.
What gives Pioneer the edge, besides being juicy and tender, is that the sandwich is drippy. You don't dare eat it in the car because you're gonna mess up your shirt for sure. The sandwiches at the other places aren't drippy like Pioneer.
So then I decided to try cooking it at home. Anything that's this delicious needs to be made at home too. But Pioneer is going to be my reference. I won't be satisfied unless my cook is as good as Pioneer. And that's kind of my opinion about burgers too. My burger has to be at least as good as Sunshine or I'm not satisfied with my cook.
And so my first attempt was actually Meathead's recipe! I am a big Meathead fan and have a lot of respect for him. He doesn't just tell you what to do, but he explains why. Here's his pit beef recipe.
If you've dreaded the stuff that passes for roast beef and wished you could find the real deal then this Baltimore pit beef recipe is for you.
amazingribs.com
The cook was good, but not as good as Pioneer. The meat wasn't as tender. And I wasn't sure why. I tried it several times. Not as good. At the time, I blamed the Meathead recipe.
Long story short, the problem, apparently, was that I was using a London Broil back then, which translates to a top round.
I eventually tried Adam Witt's method. He uses a large Bottom Round. A bottom round has slightly more fat in it. It's also generally a larger hunk of beef. I think both these things are beneficial to the final product.
As I recall, Boone tried this same method, the Adam Witt YT method, and described it as "insanely delicious."
So that's my go-to now. Bottom round with a toasted Amoroso roll. My pit beef sandwich is now just as good as Pioneer. Mission accomplished.
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