Emeril's Sloppy Joes

Although traditional Korean cuisine mostly dominated our dinner table growing up, my mother also made sure to cook lots of traditional "American" dishes like lasagna, shepherd's pie, burgers and chicken pot pie.  But there is one dish that my mom never made and it constantly intrigued me - Sloppy Joes.  I know, it sounds bizarre but I'd see kids eating Sloppy Joes in movies, TV shows or commercials.  It looked pretty good to me but there was no way my mom was making something that seemed so messy and unappealing to her.

The other night, I had the Food Network show Unwrapped on TV as background noise and when I heard the host discussing Sloppy Joes, I was intrigued once again.  I decided that after twenty-nine years of curiosity, it was time for me to get my first taste of Sloppy Joes.  I remembered a recipe that I had flagged from Everyday Food and I decided to give Emeril's Sloppy Joes recipe a try on Sunday night.

First, I gathered my ingredients.  I was feeling a little under the weather on Sunday so Bret graciously went to Whole Foods to get some of the ingredients we didn't have on hand:

• 2 tablespoons plus 2 teaspoons olive oil
• 1 medium onion, diced small
• 1 large celery stalk, diced small
• 1/2 green bell pepper, diced small
• coarse salt and ground pepper
• 3 cloves of garlic, minced (original recipe calls for 2 teaspoons minced garlic)
• 1 3/4 pounds lean ground beef (original recipe calls for 1 1/2 pound lean ground beef)
• 3 tablespoons dark-brown sugar
• 3 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
• 2 cups prepared tomato sauce
• 1 cup beef stock
• 2 teaspoons hot-pepper sauce (optional)
• 4 potato buns, split (original recipe calls for hamburger buns)

Bret and I got to work dicing up the onion, celery and green pepper.  In my Dutch oven, I warmed up the olive oil over medium-high heat.  I added the onion, celery, bell pepper to the pan and seasoned the vegetables with salt and black pepper.

I cooked the vegetables until they were softened and then using a garlic press, minced the garlic cloves into the vegetable mixture.

I then added the beef and used my spoon to break up the beef.  I browned the beef in the Dutch oven and this only took a few minutes.

Then Bret added the brown sugar, Worcestershire sauce, tomato sauce and beef stock to the pan.  I mixed everything up and continued cooking it until everything came to a boil.  Once the Sloppy Joes mixture was boiling, I lowered the heat and let the mixture simmer for about twenty-five minutes while I occasionally stirred it.  I also took several tastes along the way and additionally seasoned it with more salt and pepper as needed.

The final step was to add the hot pepper sauce and continue letting the mixture simmer while Bret got to work on the potato buns.

Bret brushed the inside of two potato buns with olive oil and baked them (cut side up) at 350 degrees for three minutes before turning them over and broiling it on low for about two minutes.

When the buns were done, we generously spooned the Sloppy Joe mixture using a slotted spoon onto the bread.

This was DEFINITELY sloppy and I can understand the appeal for kids since it is a lot of fun to eat.  For families, it is pretty easy to make and pretty economical since the ingredients aren't too expensive.  The original recipe says that this makes four servings but I'd say that this makes double the amount of servings, which is perfect for freezing! 

We ate the Sloppy Joes with a side spring salad to lighten up the heavy meal and it definitely made for a fun Sunday evening dinner.

Since craving them as a child, I'm glad I finally decided to try out Sloppy Joes in my own kitchen.  Do you have a similar dish that you always wanted to try as a child but your family never ate while growing up?