Shit on a Shingle- The Breakfast of Chubby Champions!

The day after Thanksgiving and Christmas meant one thing to me growing up: CREAMED TURKEY ON TOAST!  This was one of my Dad’s few signature dishes and it was my favorite. Leftover turkey and boiled eggs, chopped up and blended in a thick white gravy poured copiously over chunks of toasted bread. I could eat my weight in this stuff! It was one of the few foods that really excited me as a kid, and I mean FEW. I loved this stuff so much that I wanted it all the time, not just on post-holidays, and I pestered my Mom endlessly about it. My Mom’s response to this course of abuse was to introduce me to the dish that would become my favorite breakfast of all time: SHIT ON A SHINGLE!  Of course, she called it Creamed Chipped Beef on Toast, and it was many years before I learned it by the SOS moniker.

SOS was love at first bite for me. The saltiness of the dried beef gave this dish a lot more zip than the old Creamed Turkey, and slopped on slabs of toast and topped with a generous dusting of fresh cracked black pepper, well, quite frankly it was the most perfect breakfast food ever created.

Here’s a little of what I’ve learned over the years about Creamed Chipped Beef:

The dish first appeared in the military universe in the 1910 edition of the “Manual for Army Cooks.” It was beef stock and evaporated milk thickened with a roux, seasoned with parsley and pepper. The chipped beef was added just before serving, so that the salty taste of it didn’t overly dominate the sauce. By the 1940s, the sauce recipe had become thicker, and the parsley was dropped.  Army cooks, even though not directed to do so by the recipes, would apparently often soak the beef overnight in water to leach some of the excess salt out.  It was a dish made with ingredients that didn’t require refrigeration and didn’t easily spoil, and therefore was simple to transport and prepare anywhere and anytime.  A solid charge of fat and carbs to fuel some mighty fine killin’ or latrine diggin’ machines.

In the American Navy, they called Creamed Chipped Beef  “Creamed Foreskins on Toast” (aka CFSOT, pronounced “sif-sot”) or just “Foreskins on Toast (aka “FOT”).  Don’t ask what’s for breakfast and I won’t tell you?  The American navy also tended instead to use the term “Shit on a Shingle” for a minced or ground beef and tomato sauce with onion and nutmeg in it, served over toast. The sauce would be thickened with flour or cornstarch.  I haven’t tried this one yet, and I’m not so sure I will.

Stouffer’s has a pretty decent frozen version, though it’s a bit thin for my taste. 

Some people make a version using a can of cream of mushroom soup as the sauce, adding only part of the milk that the soup called for, then adding the chopped dried beef bits. This version just doesn’t quite match the texture of the original, but it will do in a pinch.  Canned soup tends to be salty by itself, and combining the dried beef with it really kicks up the sodium content!

Creamed Chipped Beef was also served at school cafeterias, or so I have read. It was never served in any of mine.  I’ve also read it’s a staple breakfast item in many restaurants, though I have yet to find one that serves it.  Some restaurants advertise SOS, but it’s just extra thick sausage gravy.  Sausage gravy is NOT SOS.  Sorry.

Beginning in the late 1960s, some parts of the US military began to use hamburger as well for the dish that people called “Shit on a Shingle.”  The army version with ground beef with a cream sauce, made from evaporated milk and beef stock thickened in a roux. You fried the ground beef, drained excess fat, stirred flour into the ground beef, letting its fat interact with the flour to make the roux, and then made the sauce from there, either with evaporated milk or reconstituted powdered milk.

Emeril LaGasse makes it with beef pot roast, shredded, and served in thick brown gravy with wine and sauteed onions and mushrooms.  It’s hard to call that Shit on a Shingle, just sayin’.

I make two versions, depending on how fast I want it. The good way, the method Mom taught me, was to make a thick bechamel- equal parts butter or margarine and flour, fried until the flour just starts to cook then thinned with milk to the desired consistency.  The quickie version is to heat the milk until almost boiling, then thicken to desired consistency with a paste made of cornstarch and cold milk. Either way I add the beef early in the process to cook the salt out into the sauce. I like lots of fresh cracked pepper and sometimes even a dash of Cajun seasoning in mine. If I am making it for others I will usually add a couple of chopped up boiled eggs to the mixture to extend it further and make it heartier. I’ve even added canned mushrooms a time or two.

In this day and age of healthy, low fat, low carb foods, SOS seems a bit out of place.  It’s high in fat, sodium, and carbohydrates.  It’s also damned tasty!

Cold Day Roast Beef Enchiladas

It’s blustery, grey, wet and cold (well, by Texas standards anyway), and I have a big ol’ hunk of leftover roast beef that must be used for something other than the umpteenth sandwich (as good as the sandwiches were).  I decided to make ENCHILADAS out of it!  Here’s how I went about it:

First I took that roughly 2.5 lb hunk o’ beef and cut into manageable hunks, then chucked ’em into the old trusty-dusty Cuisinart and made a big ol’ bowl of beef dust.  Seriously- check out the pix!

Beef Annihilation Process

 Then I took a nice big fresh jalapeno pepper and a coupla nice little onions fresh from our garden and treated them to the same Cuisinart annihilation.  I then fried this mixture up with a coupla cloves of fresh minced garlic in a large deep skillet with fresh olive oil.  In gotta tell ya, the fumes comin’ off that skillet almost required me to file an Environmental Impact Statement…  well they did bring tears to my eyes!  Seriously, only fry onions and jalapenos with adequate ventilation.

Veggie Annihilation, Burning of the Eyes, The Tasty Filling

Where’s the beef??  HERE’S the beef!  I chucked the beef into the skillet with the onion mixture, one can o’ chicken broth, one small can o’ tomato sauce, about three tablespoons of good chili powder, one tablespoon of cumin, a shot o’ rubbed sage, garlic salt and onion salt, and a packet of Sazon Goya con Azafran.  I brought it to a boil, reduced heat and simmered about an hour, then let it cool.  If we had any neighbors closer than 100 yards they’d a come knockin’ if they smelled this cookin’.

Now the sauce… my basic red enchilada sauce starts (naturally) with about three cups of Texas Red Chili (recipe in another blog here, or you could use a can of your favorite storebought crap in a pinch), mixed with one can of Rotel tomatoes and an equal size can of tomato sauce (sorry, I don’t really measure when I cook).  Combine in a sauce pan and bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer about twenty minutes.  Remove from heat.  (Depending on the chili you use, additional spices may be required to taste).

White corn tortillas are what I used to wrap this batch, sprayed with cooking spray and heated on a cast iron griddle to soften them up.  I plop some of the meat mixture on the tortilla, sprinkle a bit of cheddar cheese, then roll it up.  I pack ’em into a greased casserole dish, spoon on the red sauce until they’re thoroughly immersed, then sprinkle on some shredded colby-jack cheese.  Slide that dish into a 350 degree oven and wait until the cheese melts.

Final Assembly and it's Ready for the Oven

These things are so good your mama would shave her legs just to eat ’em!

Stuffing My Chili

When I cook up a batch of good ol’ Texas Red, I always make lots of extra, which I use in a variety of ways- chili dogs, chili burgers, frito pies, nachos, you name it; and while a big steaming bowl of Texas Red Chili is fabulous all by itself, sometimes I want a bowl of chili that is a little heartier, like a whole three course meal in a bowl. I scratch that itch by making what I call STUFFED CHILI, and here’s how I do it:

First I grab up one good sized onion and about four fresh jalapenos- I dice ’em up and chuck ’em in a pot with some olive oil. While they fry on medium heat, I dice up a nice big fresh red tomato and chuck it in there with ’em. When the onions soften up a bit, I drain a can of corn and a can of beans (kidney, pinto, whatever) and chuck them in there and let it all cook together for a few minutes.

Then, the fabulous Texas Red (recipe in another blog here) is added, about a quart or so will do just fine. Cover that pot, reduce heat and simmer about a half hour.

Serve it up just as you would chili or stew. I tell ya, a big ol’ bowl of this stuff will satisfy the biggest, meanest appetite… and it’s a pretty damned healthy meal to boot.