French dip sandwich
- Preparation and cooking time
- Total time
- + chilling
- Easy
- Serves 8
- 1kg beef topside
- 2 cloves garliccut into slivers
- olive oil
- 2 onionshalved and sliced
- 500ml American pale ale
- 2 bay leaves
- 6 black peppercorns
- 4 sub rolls or long soft rollshalved
- for spreading Dijon mustard
- 16 slices emmental
- kcal400
- fat17g
- saturates9.7g
- carbs22.2g
- sugars4.9g
- fibre1.9g
- salt1.2g
Method
step 1
Heat the oven to 150C/fan 130C/gas 2. Heat an ovenproof casserole. Make incisions all over the beef with a small, sharp knife and push in the slivers of garlic. Rub the topside all over with oil then season well.
step 2
Put in the pan and brown on all sides, until it has a really deep colour. Spend a bit of time doing this, as it will all help the flavour of the gravy. Lift out of the pan and add the onions with a pinch of salt. Cook on a fairly high heat until the onions have started to break down and turn golden. Add the beer and bring to a simmer. Add back the beef with the bay and peppercorns and cover with a lid. Transfer to the oven for 3 hours.
step 3
Take the beef from the gravy, trim away any fat or other straggly bits, cool to room temperature and chill for 2 hours (this will make it easier to slice, see note). Once chilled, slice the beef as thinly as possible. Strain and warm the gravy, before serving.
step 4
Warm the rolls in a low oven, then split and spread thinly with mustard. Drop the beef into the gravy for a few minutes to reheat then stuff it into the baguettes along with a few slices of cheese. Serve the rest of the gravy on the side in bowls for dipping.