Spiedo sandwich, first try, pretty good

gdenby · December 2006

<p />Hi all,[p]Awhile back, browsing over recipe sites, I found references to "spiedie sandwiches," a New York/Pennsylvannia boarder speciality. What got my attention was that the cubed meat for a spiedo was marinated for at least a day, and up to a week. [p]I hate it when the weather is nice, and I don't have anything ready to go for the Egg when I get home from work. So I had some bargain chuck roast, and a few thick pork loin chops in the 'fridge. I cubed them, and dropped them in a bowl full of Italian-style marinade.[p]Got home from work, fired up the Egg, skewered the meat, sautéd some onions, and grilled the meat. The recipes I'd read said that because of the long marinade, the meat could easily get over-done. It took me 4 turns at about ten minutes each to cook the skewers. I think the last turn should have been 5 minutes. (total: 35 min.)[p][p]The meat was amazingly flavorful. The beef chuck was probably not the best cut to try. There was a fair amount of gristle in it. The onions, dried tomatoes and roasted peppers were unnecessary, as far as I was concerned. [p]Oh... oil the skewers. Once cooked, the meat was pretty hard to slide off.[p]Eggin' on the near darkest day of the year,
gdenby

eggaholic · December 2006

gdenby,[p]Sandwich made a nic Pic with all the trimmings.

Richard · December 2006

gdenby,[p]A few weeks ago a friend from up north told me about these spiedies and promises to bring me a bottle or two when he comes back to florida in Feb. So Mr Google and I went hunting and this is what I found. Sounds neat. [p]Marinade, Spiedie

Blend all ingredients except chicken in blender. Pour over the chicken. Marinate at least 48 hours. String chicken cubes on a skewer and grill until done. Note: do not overcook or the meat will become dry.
[p]1 lb cubed chicken
*****Marinade*****
1/2 cup olive oil
1/4 cup wine vinegar
1 tsp salt
1 tsp pepper
1 tsp oregano
1 tsp paprika
2-3 cloves fresh garlic
1 red onion, chopped fine

1 The only sandwich with its own festival." All right, probably that line is a bit of hyperbole. Surely with the proliferation of food-related events, there must be another one somewhere devoted to food inside bread. And anyway, at Binghamton’s annual Spiedie Fest the spiedies have to share pride of place with fabulous hot air balloons. Still, between its concession booths and its cook-off tent, the festival offers the best opportunity for the uninitiated to learn the delights of Broome County’s specialty.
2 Most sandwiches are defined by their contents—peanut butter and jelly, BLT, tunafish—but spiedies can be made from just about anything except maybe ice cream. The categories in the festival cook-off bear evidence of that fact: lamb, pork, poultry, beef, venison, even vegetarian. However various the spiedies’ ingredients, though, the method of preparing them is always the same. In fact, although spiedie is pronounced "speedy," the name does not refer to fast food but comes from the Italian spiedo (plural spiedi), or its diminutive spiedino (plural spiedini), "skewer." To make a spiedie, you cube the meat of your choice, marinate it for anywhere between twenty-four hours and a week, stick it on a skewer, grill it just long enough but not so long that it dries out, wrap it in a slice of very fresh Italian bread, pull out the skewer, and eat. No, you may not add onions, green peppers, or cherry tomatoes to the skewer. That turns it into a shish kebab—also delicious, but not what we’re talking about here. As one of the cook-off judges said about the entry of a competitor who had done something similarly iconoclastic, "I could go down to Wegmans and buy that already on a skewer. It looks pretty, but it’s not a spiedie."
3 The spiedie came to the United States in 1929 with Augustine Iacovelli, who emigrated from Italy to work at the shoe factory in Endicott. Ten years later he quit that job and opened Augie’s restaurant, where he featured working-class food from his native Abruzzi. His spiedies caught on so well among the local railroad workers and shoemakers that for years every little corner grocery had a spiedie stand on the street in front of it. According to Becky Mercuri in Sandwiches That You Will Like (Pittsburgh: WQED Multimedia, 2002, p. 55), spiedies in those days were made only with lamb and were probably not marinated but simply basted with a sauce. Augie’s is closed now, but the Lupo family, among others, has stepped in to fill the demand. Steve Lupo took a quick break from grilling lamb in his family’s tent restaurant to tell me that his family has been in the spiedie business since 1954. Over the years they have watched customers’ preferences change from lamb to beef to chicken, now by far the most popular spiedie.
4 The Lupo family sells ready-to-grill spiedies, as well as marinades, over the Internet—mainly to homesick IBM employees transferred away from their favorite local spiedie emporium. Still, unlike Buffalo’s chicken wings, Binghamton’s spiedies have yet to become popular outside Broome County. Steve Lupo said ruefully that there had been several attempts to open spiedie restaurants outside the area, but none had prospered. At one time Rob Salamida had a spiedie stand at the New York State Fair, but he now stays home in Johnson City and concentrates on selling his State Fair Spiedie Sauce over the Internet.
5 Next year will mark the twentieth anniversary of the Spiedie Fest, and a cookbook with all twenty years of winning recipes will be available. Maybe once those books make their way around the country, Broome County’s spiedies will finally find the fame enjoyed by other regional specialties.

Recipe Type
Marinade

Recipe Source
Author: Binghamton Press and Sun Bulletin[p]Source: Internet, 12/08/06

Unknown · December 2006

gdenby,[p]Spiedes have a cult following in the North East. I think that you can get the marinade from either Kroger or Harris Teeter. At least this was the case in Cary NC. One of the absolute requirements is that you use white bread (the whiter the better). If I find where the sell the marinade nationally I will post it.

gdenby · December 2006

eggophyte,[p]Around here, north Indiana, spiedies are unknown. Most of the recipes I found used for mainade a petty standard Italian dressing... olive oil, garlic, oregano, etc. So I used a commercial marinade. Worked well.[p]gdenby

gdenby · December 2006

Richard,[p]I thought it was really good that the recipe called for a long marinade, and then a short cook. While I doubt that a whole week in the marinade would be good, as one recipe suggested wuld be possible, grilling for a short time seemed like a big plus. I thought what i made might finish in just 30 minutes, but it took a little longer.[p]At any rate, the sandwiches were distinctly better than anything I might have had from a commercial sub-sandwich.[p]gdenby

AlaskanC · December 2006

gdenby,[p]Oh my word... I am coming to your house for dinner!![p]Don't get me started on daylight though... sunrise was supposedly at 8:38am, and sunset was at 3:20pm - but I never saw the freaking sun! lol

Spiedo sandwich, first try, pretty good

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