Super Sexy Sunday Night Sloppy Joes

Photo: Lisa Fountain

Ingredients

76 pounds excellent ground beef (this is Wagyu)

1 cup each: diced carrot, diced onion, diced green and

1/4 cup brown sugar

1 teaspoon each onion powder, garlic powder, and paprika

1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce

1 cup tomato sauce

2 tablespoons tomato paste

4 slices emmentaler cheese

russet potatoes and oil for frying

sea salt and cracked black pepper

Preparation

I start by heating up my largest skillet, and swirling a tablespoon or so of EVOO over the medium-hot surface. I also set some oil, a few inches deep, in my wok on the back burner, so it will be ready to fry up my potato chips. (For instructions on how to make these babies, check this old post out.)

In goes my beef, which I break up with the side of my spatula – but not too much! I ate Wagyu beef burgers at someone’s house once, and they had blended and squashed and smooshed and tortured the beef so much in the making of the burgers, the texture was totally ruined: it was dry, grainy, and therefore lost its Wagyu club-card. Not so with this pink mass of palatable protein; by only lightly breaking it up and tossing it with the hot oil, I was able to maintain a lovely marbled texture and lock the flavors in. I brown this for a few moments before…

I add my brown sugar, Worcestershire sauce, and the rest of my dry spices, plus a healthy serving of cracked black pepper. I stir this all well, and let it continue to brown for another 5 minutes or so.

Finally, in go my diced veg. I didn’t want a whole red pepper and a whole green pepper, so I stopped at the salad bar at the grocery store and purchased exactly what I needed: a few slices of each pepper, and a few baby carrots. It was cheaper and easier and less wasteful than buying whole veggies. I blend this well, and let it cook until the veggies are slightly softened.

Now it’s time to ‘mater it up: here is about 1 cup of tomato sauce and 2 heaping tablespoons of tomato paste, which I mix in well, lowering the heat so that everything can simmer down together for the next 15-20 minutes or so. Some recipes call for ketchup, which would also work, but I went this way instead. Why? Because I’m a rebel, man.

As my potato chips fry up in the background, I drag my spoon across my yummy sandwich filling to see that the sauce is thickening up quite nicely. The house smells, in a word, orgasmic.

Each batch of potato chips takes a little longer than I expected — about 4-5 minutes to fry to crisp and golden brown. But they stay nice and warm, and Clayton is on salting duty. He salts one chip for us, and one for himself (which he eats right away), one more chip for us, and one for himself (which he eats right away), and so on…

At the last moment, I drape 1 slice of emmentaler cheese over each of 2 quarters of my joemix, and after slathering my soft buns with mayonnaise (which adds just the creamy, cooling je ne sais quoi to the sandwich that it needs), I put an uncheesed quarter on each bun bottom, draped it with a nutty slice, then scooped out the cheesed quarter to layer on top — giving me a parfait of ooey gooey melted cheese stuffed in and about a warm meaty mess of super-savory, uber-amazing, totally tomatoey Sloppy Joe. I don’t know who the first Joe was, or why he was so sloppy, but he is always welcome at Lolita’s table, especially if he’s bringing home this sort of deliciousness. With my perfectly salted russet potato chips alongside this manly Manwich, we had us one heckuva Sunday nig