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Tony Luke Jr. discusses the tragedies and triumphs of the frozen cheesesteak
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Tony Luke Jr. discusses the tragedies and triumphs of the frozen cheesesteak
While a personal commitment kept me from attending last night's CineFest event opener, nothing will stop me from catching the rest of the flick-ering fun. (Check out all of CP's CineFest coverage.) And while we�ll start tonight with Tony Luke Jr. and The Nail at the Prince Theater � discussed in this here feature � some of you might not care about a Luke movie other than say, this one:
That's because that video tells you how to best prepare his Tony Luke Frozen Cheesesteak. That's the product that ate up 3+ years of Luke's life, trying to find the right meat (sliced Black Angus sirloin instead of the fat-marbled ribeye he uses at his stand on Oregon Avenue), the right rolls (in separate wrappers) and how to get the cooking process just right � whether you dunk it in water or nuke the whole thing in microwave-safe pouches.
Getting the sandwich absolutely right was crucial to Luke and Ray Rastelli III, the vice president of South Jersey's Rastelli Foods Group, which distributes Tony Luke Frozen Cheesesteaks. Rastelli also happens to be a big benefactor when it came to the money end of The Nail. "The guy�s a saint," says Luke of his partner in crime.
Before he started the process seriously and wound up happy with the product, he found that � Luke said this to very loudly � "you cannot, under any circumstances, take a full and complete sandwich � a loaded sandwich that is frozen � put it in a microwave or in an oven and expect that the sandwich will taste good. By the time that the heat gets to the center of sandwich, the rest of the it is completely overcooked or is dried out." The first thing he had to do? "I had to separate the two � the meat from the bread. I cannot put the sandwich together."
Luke did try to Cryovac meat from a microwave and it tasted like garbage � "it was dry and it was rubbery." He added and subtracted stuff from the packet. "It was burnt and barely OK � and inconsistent."
That is until his partner Rastelli made a comment: "It's not in the packet. It's in the meat."
Luke can�t comment more. He has a patent pending on this. He has this process. He got industry experts to sign confidentiality agreements. When they said it couldn't work. Luke said "humor me." He loves that saying. He says it a few times, as if to humor himself. "I'll pay you. Just humor me."
After Rastelli and Luke devised what they came up, they believed they'd revolutionized something special � making a frozen cheesesteak that was good. "People have to do a little bit of work to knock this out," he explains. "You're gonna cook it. But not much � in fact, you can either do it in microwave which is easier or in the boil-in bag where you toast the roll and quickly boil the meat in the bag."
Funny thing was, Luke was going to try to something more like a Steak-Umm. He got the best meat. Got a focus group. Everybody fried it and tried it. Everybody got the roll. Everybody ate it. "Everybody in the focus group loved it ... 95 percent said it was fantastic. So I said, 'Will you buy it?' and 90 percent said 'Absolutely not.'"
He laughs hardest at that.
Why not?
"Because we gotta cook it. These people are used to throwing something in the microwave and two minutes later eating their dinner. ARE YOU KIDDING ME?" he yells.
A lot of people this time around don't get the sous vide "boil in bag" process where the 180-degree water bath breaks meat down and creates a juice that's phenomenal. "Three minutes in a bag � let it rest so that the cheese doesn't stick to the bag. It's ready in 3-4 minues. Shake it a second and you�ll find that the juice from the meat is so flavorful you will lose your mind. Take that roll. Put it in a toaster oven 3, 4 minutes. It comes out crisp and soft. Put it together � amazing."
He laughs after having read the blogs and the responses to his process. "You�d a thought I set off a bomb in the middle of Center City. But all I�m trying to do is represent the cheesesteak and Philly better than it has been by bigger companies."
"let it rest so that the cheese doesn’t stick to the bag" not so fast. The bag with 'cheese' stuck to it tastes even better!
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