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Chicago Italian Beef Sourdough 🥖
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Chicago Italian Beef Sourdough 🥖


First time posting here — Chicago Italian Beef Sourdough 🥖

Long-time lurker, first post, be gentle! Been baking sourdough for a while and finally tackled a Chicago-inspired loaf combining the local classic sandwich with my usual process.

The twist: used skimmed beef jus in place of most of the water for the dough hydration, then folded in chopped Italian beef, drained/chopped giardiniera, and diced mozzarella early in bulk fermentation for even distribution.

Quick rundown:

500g bread flour

100g starter

200g beef jus + 125g water

7g salt (dialed back since the jus and giardiniera bring their own salt)

90g Italian beef, 60g giardiniera, 90g mozzarella folded in

Bulk fermented about 8-10 hours in my chilly 68°F kitchen, overnight cold retard, baked in a Dutch oven. Crumb held together well despite the inclusions, and the giardiniera gives it a nice tang against the richness of the beef and cheese.

Any fellow Chicago bread lovers out there — would love feedback or ideas for round two!

by the-guy84

17 Comments

  1. queerandanxious42

    Ooooh that looks amazing. I’m gonna pick up some giardiniera to try as an inclusion sometime!

  2. Artistic-Scratch-817

    I’ve never been so jealous of someone’s food

  3. choc_chip_pothos

    I’m only mad because I didn’t think of it first

  4. ai_girlfriend-scout

    That looks so good oh my god I need that breadddd

  5. Ill-Wrongdoer-2971

    So what would you make with a loaf like this? A sandwich? Is that too much sandwich? I guess one can never have too much sandwich huh.

  9. Odd-Combination-9067

    The filled dough bulked 8 hours room temp. How can that be safe?

  10. science-stuff

    So it looks great, but honestly how was using the jus? Was that at all weird?

  11. face_palm_all_over

    I hate you and want to be you 😭😭😭

  12. mayapple

    The two things I painstakingly make myself. Combined. I’m not sure how I feel about this!

  13. CompetitionHot1666

    And here I would’ve just made an italian beef sourdough pizza.

    Nice work… looks incredible