The Mother-in-Law is a South Side tradition offered at select hot dog stands. At its most basic it consists of a corn roll tamale smothered in a meat-based chilli sauce. This is the version that I grew up with, though at my local beef place, Pop’s, it was called a “tamale boat”. I learned of the “Mother-in-Law” from seminal postings on Chicago based food forum website, LTHForum, posted by the intrepid Peter Engler, who has obsessively researched South Side Chicago street food traditions. On the forum I learned that at stands such as Fat Johnnie’s, the mother-in-law was served on a bun with optional Chicago-style hotdog condiments, crazy stuff. You may ask, what exactly is a “corn roll” tamale? It is another Chicago specialty, a factory-produced tube of corn meal and seasoned beef (or corn meal fortified with beef tallow) served in a paper tube produced by Tom Tom Tamales and Supreme Tamales. While not entirely appetizing on paper, I grew up eating these with my dad and have a real soft spot for them. Though spiced with chile and cumin, these tamales are not exactly Mexican- especially in that the traditional masa meal (dried and ground lye-treated corn aka hominy) is substituted for straight up ground yellow corn meal.
The lineage of this product also has an intriguing history that I first learned from, once again, Peter Engler and found further documentation from The Southern Foodways Alliance. Robert Johnson sung about “red hot tamales” in 1936. The origin of the basic format of stuffing prepared cornmeal batter with meat and rolling it into a corn husk is clearly Mexican, though the Mississippi Delta style tamale is an African American tradition. How the idea cross-pollinated is undocumented and subject of debate- perhaps Mexican migrant laborers introduced tamales to black laborers or US soldiers brought the idea home from the US-American War. Or perhaps Native Americans of the region had analogous recipes to their southern counterparts. Regardless, tamales came to Chicago during the Great Migration along with other great cultural institutions of Chicago, the blues and BBQ. Sadly, there are very few (if any) producers of MDS tamales left in Chicago.
Italian beef is another home spun Chicago street food classic. Like a lot of street food traditions, the origin of “the beef” is debatable. It is likely that serving slow cooked, thinly sliced beef in a roll was a way to stretch out rations of meat during the Great Depression. The boiling of the meat in a spicy gravy not only infused it with rich flavor, but also was a cooking method that could render tough cuts of meat into something palatable or even delectable. And then there would be plenty of meat to go around after slicing it and adding it to a roll.
Like Italian beef, MDS tamales are also boiled in a spicy broth (rather than steamed like Mexican tamales), though with a different set of spices than a beef. This similarity got me thinking. Beef is a traditional filling for these tamales (though usually ground) so tender and well seasoned Italian beef might just make a great filling. And all that extra jus produced from cooking Italian beef could be used to actually boil the tamales in, imparting extra beefiness. Why not top this with a spicy chilli and make it a mother-in-law? Everything is better with chilli! And giardiniera- that favorite spicy condiment of mine and traditional topping for an Italian beef- throw some of that on there too!
So, behold, the Italian Beef Mother-in-Law, a Real Mutha For Ya!
This was my first crack at Italian beef, but I’ve ate many in my day and I had a pretty good idea of how to go about it. I began by stopping by Butcher & Larder. The two recipes I was vaguely referencing called for top sirloin. Rob Levitt and Co. regularly do up an IB for a lunch special, so I asked him for his thoughts. He suggested bottom round over the sirloin for a beefier flavor and more fat. I don’t argue with this man.
I rubbed the 1.75 lb. roast with 4 chopped cloves of garlic, about a teaspoon each of dried oregano, thyme, and basil, and a healthy sprinkle of Kosher salt and a couple good cranks of fresh ground pepper. I threw the roast into a pre-heated oven at 425. I roasted it for about 20 minutes on each side, flipping once, to get a good browning on the meat.
From here it went into my crock pot. I deglazed the roasting pan with a splash of white wine and poured over the beef. I submerged the roast in water just up to the top of the meat. I threw in a couple of bay leaves, a half a handful of black peppercorns, a teaspoon or so of red pepper flakes, a tablespoon-ish of Kosher salt, and three cloves (hoping to riff on the famous Al’s beef’s sweet spice note). I simmered for about four hours and cooled it overnight in the fridge. The next day I thinly sliced the cold beef on my mandoline and returned it to the gravy. I remembered from somewhere that the sliced beef should be given a good simmer itself after slicing. This really did the trick, further seasoning the meat and rendering it melt-in-your-mouth tender.
Having never actually sampled a MDS tamale, I deferred to the experts and used a recipe from the Southern Foodways Alliance. The recipe was similar enough to my experiences making Mexican tamales. I started by soaking corn husks for 2 hours.
The batter recipe is as follow, I cut it down by a 3/4 since the recipe was huge and I only had so much meat. This would yield 15 fat tamales:
2 cups yellow corn meal
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
Just shy of 1/2 cup lard or vegetable shortening (I used 50/50)
2 cups warm meat broth (from cooking the meat)
This gets stirred together until incorporated.
For each tamale, I spread about 1/4 cup of the batter in the middle of each husk, about 1 1/12 inches wide and 3 inches long. In the center of that I spread about a fat finger’s girth of beef.
Like Mexican tamales, to roll them, I started by folding the tapered end of the husk to the bottom of the filling. I then rolled the husk around the filling, making sure that the bottom of the husk stayed folded in. I stood them upright, with the folded end on the bottom, to ensure the filling would not leak out, in a tall stock pot and poured the remaining IB gravy into the pot, it was probably 2 quarts. I had to add an extra gallon of water to the pot, filling the pot just to the top of the tamales, which I seasoned with about a 2 tbsp. salt, a handful of peppercorns, a half a head of garlic, and a couple of teaspoons of cayenne. I let them simmer for an hour and some change. I had been nervous about the tamales disintegrating during the simmer. The SFA recipe read cautious about carefully placing the tamales and not pouring liquid directly onto the tamales. I was nervous that a rapid boil might disrupt them and cause the husks to open, so I made sure they never came to a full boil. Several of them did in fact open up and dissolved into the cooking liquid, about 25% of them. I think the major issue was that there was extra room in the pot since I reduced the recipe and not all of the tamales were crowded in to stand vertical in the pot. The ones that came apart were not surrounded by other tamales. If the pot was completely full, all of the tamales could have properly stood on end and perhaps they would not fall away into the cooking liquid. The survivors peeled away nicely from their husks and the cornmeal was supple and tender.
As for the chilli, I had a pint of leftover Coney- style chilli from The International Hotdog Forum in my freezer, which I decided to pull out. I was already fusing Italian American flavors with Southern black cooking techniques, so why not throw Detroit Greek into the mix? I slowly heated it up. The recipe is as follows:
1 lb. ground chuck
1 lb. ground beef heart
1 medium onion, finely diced
1/4 cup tomato paste
1 tbsp. cider vinegar
1 tsp. hot paprika or chilli powder
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. clove
1/2 tsp. oregano
Saute the onions until translucent, add the ground beef and heart and the spices and brown. Add the tomato paste and vinegar, cook for 10 minutes, stirring frequently.
Fast forward to assembling the Mother-in-Law. Pour about a cup of chilli onto the opened tamale. Then, top with hot giardiniera. I like to make my own, but for one reason or another I did not this year, so I used a local product made by The Pickle Guy and found it just fine.
The dish came together really well, my buddies and I scarfed them all down. The creaminess of the cornmeal was a great foil to the spiciness of the chilli and peppers. All said, the beef may have gotten slightly lost, so next time I might add more to the tamale, or bring the seasoning of the IB up and the seasoning of the chilli down (omitting the Greek influenced sweet spices).
I happened to have some Vienna dogs on hand, so we went into disaster round, daring my boy Tom to eat the mother-in-law on a bun, nestling a Vienna wiener. I did not try this, but it was wolfed down in no time.
A Real Mutha For You
The Mother-in-Law is a South Side tradition offered at select hot dog stands. At its most basic it consists of a corn roll tamale smothered in a meat-based chilli sauce. This is the version that I grew up with, though at my local beef place, Pop’s, it was called a “tamale boat”. I learned of the “Mother-in-Law” from seminal postings on Chicago based food forum website, LTHForum, posted by the intrepid Peter Engler, who has obsessively researched South Side Chicago street food traditions. On the forum I learned that at stands such as Fat Johnnie’s, the mother-in-law was served on a bun with optional Chicago-style hotdog condiments, crazy stuff. You may ask, what exactly is a “corn roll” tamale? It is another Chicago specialty, a factory-produced tube of corn meal and seasoned beef (or corn meal fortified with beef tallow) served in a paper tube produced by Tom Tom Tamales and Supreme Tamales. While not entirely appetizing on paper, I grew up eating these with my dad and have a real soft spot for them. Though spiced with chile and cumin, these tamales are not exactly Mexican- especially in that the traditional masa meal (dried and ground lye-treated corn aka hominy) is substituted for straight up ground yellow corn meal.
The lineage of this product also has an intriguing history that I first learned from, once again, Peter Engler and found further documentation from The Southern Foodways Alliance. Robert Johnson sung about “red hot tamales” in 1936. The origin of the basic format of stuffing prepared cornmeal batter with meat and rolling it into a corn husk is clearly Mexican, though the Mississippi Delta style tamale is an African American tradition. How the idea cross-pollinated is undocumented and subject of debate- perhaps Mexican migrant laborers introduced tamales to black laborers or US soldiers brought the idea home from the US-American War. Or perhaps Native Americans of the region had analogous recipes to their southern counterparts. Regardless, tamales came to Chicago during the Great Migration along with other great cultural institutions of Chicago, the blues and BBQ. Sadly, there are very few (if any) producers of MDS tamales left in Chicago.
Italian beef is another home spun Chicago street food classic. Like a lot of street food traditions, the origin of “the beef” is debatable. It is likely that serving slow cooked, thinly sliced beef in a roll was a way to stretch out rations of meat during the Great Depression. The boiling of the meat in a spicy gravy not only infused it with rich flavor, but also was a cooking method that could render tough cuts of meat into something palatable or even delectable. And then there would be plenty of meat to go around after slicing it and adding it to a roll.
Like Italian beef, MDS tamales are also boiled in a spicy broth (rather than steamed like Mexican tamales), though with a different set of spices than a beef. This similarity got me thinking. Beef is a traditional filling for these tamales (though usually ground) so tender and well seasoned Italian beef might just make a great filling. And all that extra jus produced from cooking Italian beef could be used to actually boil the tamales in, imparting extra beefiness. Why not top this with a spicy chilli and make it a mother-in-law? Everything is better with chilli! And giardiniera- that favorite spicy condiment of mine and traditional topping for an Italian beef- throw some of that on there too!
So, behold, the Italian Beef Mother-in-Law, a Real Mutha For Ya!
This was my first crack at Italian beef, but I’ve ate many in my day and I had a pretty good idea of how to go about it. I began by stopping by Butcher & Larder. The two recipes I was vaguely referencing called for top sirloin. Rob Levitt and Co. regularly do up an IB for a lunch special, so I asked him for his thoughts. He suggested bottom round over the sirloin for a beefier flavor and more fat. I don’t argue with this man.
I rubbed the 1.75 lb. roast with 4 chopped cloves of garlic, about a teaspoon each of dried oregano, thyme, and basil, and a healthy sprinkle of Kosher salt and a couple good cranks of fresh ground pepper. I threw the roast into a pre-heated oven at 425. I roasted it for about 20 minutes on each side, flipping once, to get a good browning on the meat.
From here it went into my crock pot. I deglazed the roasting pan with a splash of white wine and poured over the beef. I submerged the roast in water just up to the top of the meat. I threw in a couple of bay leaves, a half a handful of black peppercorns, a teaspoon or so of red pepper flakes, a tablespoon-ish of Kosher salt, and three cloves (hoping to riff on the famous Al’s beef’s sweet spice note). I simmered for about four hours and cooled it overnight in the fridge. The next day I thinly sliced the cold beef on my mandoline and returned it to the gravy. I remembered from somewhere that the sliced beef should be given a good simmer itself after slicing. This really did the trick, further seasoning the meat and rendering it melt-in-your-mouth tender.
Having never actually sampled a MDS tamale, I deferred to the experts and used a recipe from the Southern Foodways Alliance. The recipe was similar enough to my experiences making Mexican tamales. I started by soaking corn husks for 2 hours.
The batter recipe is as follow, I cut it down by a 3/4 since the recipe was huge and I only had so much meat. This would yield 15 fat tamales:
2 cups yellow corn meal
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
Just shy of 1/2 cup lard or vegetable shortening (I used 50/50)
2 cups warm meat broth (from cooking the meat)
This gets stirred together until incorporated.
For each tamale, I spread about 1/4 cup of the batter in the middle of each husk, about 1 1/12 inches wide and 3 inches long. In the center of that I spread about a fat finger’s girth of beef.
Like Mexican tamales, to roll them, I started by folding the tapered end of the husk to the bottom of the filling. I then rolled the husk around the filling, making sure that the bottom of the husk stayed folded in. I stood them upright, with the folded end on the bottom, to ensure the filling would not leak out, in a tall stock pot and poured the remaining IB gravy into the pot, it was probably 2 quarts. I had to add an extra gallon of water to the pot, filling the pot just to the top of the tamales, which I seasoned with about a 2 tbsp. salt, a handful of peppercorns, a half a head of garlic, and a couple of teaspoons of cayenne. I let them simmer for an hour and some change. I had been nervous about the tamales disintegrating during the simmer. The SFA recipe read cautious about carefully placing the tamales and not pouring liquid directly onto the tamales. I was nervous that a rapid boil might disrupt them and cause the husks to open, so I made sure they never came to a full boil. Several of them did in fact open up and dissolved into the cooking liquid, about 25% of them. I think the major issue was that there was extra room in the pot since I reduced the recipe and not all of the tamales were crowded in to stand vertical in the pot. The ones that came apart were not surrounded by other tamales. If the pot was completely full, all of the tamales could have properly stood on end and perhaps they would not fall away into the cooking liquid. The survivors peeled away nicely from their husks and the cornmeal was supple and tender.
As for the chilli, I had a pint of leftover Coney- style chilli from The International Hotdog Forum in my freezer, which I decided to pull out. I was already fusing Italian American flavors with Southern black cooking techniques, so why not throw Detroit Greek into the mix? I slowly heated it up. The recipe is as follows:
1 lb. ground chuck
1 lb. ground beef heart
1 medium onion, finely diced
1/4 cup tomato paste
1 tbsp. cider vinegar
1 tsp. hot paprika or chilli powder
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. clove
1/2 tsp. oregano
Saute the onions until translucent, add the ground beef and heart and the spices and brown. Add the tomato paste and vinegar, cook for 10 minutes, stirring frequently.
Fast forward to assembling the Mother-in-Law. Pour about a cup of chilli onto the opened tamale. Then, top with hot giardiniera. I like to make my own, but for one reason or another I did not this year, so I used a local product made by The Pickle Guy and found it just fine.
The dish came together really well, my buddies and I scarfed them all down. The creaminess of the cornmeal was a great foil to the spiciness of the chilli and peppers. All said, the beef may have gotten slightly lost, so next time I might add more to the tamale, or bring the seasoning of the IB up and the seasoning of the chilli down (omitting the Greek influenced sweet spices).
I happened to have some Vienna dogs on hand, so we went into disaster round, daring my boy Tom to eat the mother-in-law on a bun, nestling a Vienna wiener. I did not try this, but it was wolfed down in no time.