What makes the perfect cheesesteak? This is the POP’s secret recipe for cooking the best cheesesteak you have ever tasted.

CHEESESTEAK BREAD

Cheeseteak perfection begins with the bread. Lets talk about the bread for just a minute. Our bread is baked in Philadelphia by the Amoroso baking company which has been in business since early in the 20th century. Amoroso recently perfected a way of having their cheesesteak bread flash frozen. The bread can be shipped anywhere in the world. It flies for about four hours and it is just as fresh as if it were made at their bakery that very morning. We feel very fortunate.

Of course it costs a lot of money to buy bread in Philadelphia and have it shipped to Las Vegas, but we figure that the bread is such an important ingredient of the cheesesteak that we insist on having only the best.

What makes Amoroso bread special is not only the family recipe that the Amoroso family keeps guarded closely, but the Amoroso taste can’t be duplicated even if you had the recipe in Las Vegas. The taste could not be duplicated for two simple reasons.

Number one is the mineral content of the water is different in Philadelphia than it is in Las Vegas. The water and the minerals and how they interact is a key component of the way the sandwich taste and the consistency and so forth.

Number two is the elevation. Las Vegas being at an elevation of 2200 ft presents some inherent problems in the baking process that you don’t have when you are just a couple of hundred feet above sea level as they are in Philadelphia.

We serve a nine inch Amoroso roll and we go through something on the order of about 75 cases or so of bread every week at our store. The case has 4 dozen rolls to a case. That’s about how many sandwiches we serve at POP’s.

We cut the bread after it arrives at POP’s and just before we serve the sandwich to the customer. One of the things to keep in mind as a customer if you’re ever ordering a cheesesteak or hoagie sandwich is to ask if the brad is pre sliced or just pay attention and if the bread is sliced just before the sandwich is prepared. The reason is that if the sandwich bread is sliced early before the sandwich is made then the bread tends to be dried out a whole lot more. Even if the bead is sliced hours before the sandwich is prepared, the bread tends to get dry and crumbly and you don’t want that on your cheesesteak.

You should insist that the bread be kept in a whole loaf until just before the sandwich is served, which essentially means at the same time the meat is being cooked in front of you on the grill, the bread is just being cut.

You also don’t want your sandwich cut too deep. You don’t want the hoagie roll cut too deep. If it is the hinge, the part that opens up, will break. Our cheeseesteaks are dripingly delicious so that hinge becomes moist not only from the steak itself and the marinade that’s coming from the steak, but from the cheese and the vegetables that we incorporate into the steak. You don’t want that hinge to break because then your sandwich has fallen out of control everywhere.

You don’t want your cheesesteak served on two pieces of bread. You want it served on one piece of bread that has an open sandwich that its put into like a pocket of sleeve so you can enjoy the sandwich .

We also warm our bread on the grill prior to serving. This gives it just the right warmth for the sandwich. Cheesesteaks are a comfort food so our warm sandwiches are warm and our cold sandwiches are not warm.

The bread is sliced, the sandwich is made, then the bread is wrapped or if you are going to eat it there it is served in an open basket. We double wrap our sandwiches just to keep them fresh longer and to prevent the bread from drying.

The bread should be kinda crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside. It shouldn’t be crumbly. The consistency should not have dryness tasting. There’s only one perfect cheesesteak bread, as far as we’re concerned, and we literally have tried dozens and dozens, a number of local bakeries, and nobody can duplicate the Amoroso roll . That’s why we use them.

CHEESESTEAK MEAT

The second key ingredient is the meat. Just because we mention it second does not meaning that it’s not as important as bread, because it absolutely is. To achieve cheesesteak perfection you’ve got to use perfect meat meat.

At POP’s, the meat comes in what they call “commodity style”. This means that it is very thinly sliced. It comes in 10 lb boxes and there are two stacks is each box. I am going to say that there are roughly 130-150 slices per stack.

The steak is sliced so thin. It is not much thicker than 2 or 3 sheets of regular paper right on top of each other. The secret to the Philly steak is in the way the steak is sliced.

There are a number of different types of meat that can be used. We use a sirloin product. Some people use a rib eye product. The reason we don’t use a ribeye is because ribeye contains a streak of gristle, and we can’t be on the look out for it. If we’re cooking sandwiches, we can’t catch everything. If they can’t catch it at the factory then we can’t catch it on the grill. If you ever bite into a piece of that gristle from a ribeye steak sandwich you will never want another cheesesteak from that place. Believe me I have done it. There are places in Las Vegas who serve ribeye and invariably if you eat enough cheesesteaks there you will catch one with the gristle in the ribeye.

The way the meat is packaged is that it is chuncked informed and tumbled then it is marinated and it is frozen. We have a special marinade specification that we specified to the manufacturer in Philadelphia. Our meat is cut in Philadelphia, it is marinated in Philadelphia, and it is packaged in Philadelphia, then it is shipped to us in Las Vegas. Again an extensive process as I said.

The slicing is the key and of course there has to be not a completely frozen state, but it can’t be thawed either because you can not slice a piece of thawed or just cool meat to the way that the thinness that Philly cheesesteaks requires.

Cutting the meat requires again a special cutting blade, a special type of slicer and it has to be just in that perfect state of not totally deep frozen, but kind of a semi frozen state to be sliced properly.

Then the marinating process is another important aspect. Ours actually goes through a two marinade process before it is shipped to us and then once we receive it and cook it, it goes through a third marinade process. In total we have three different marinade processes and they are all customized to our exact specification.

Not all cheesesteaks are created equally and they all don’t taste the same because the meat is not prepared the same way. It’s not the same meat. Not only is it not the same quality but it’s not the same cut of meat. There is a famous cheesetak company in Philadelphia and all they use is Australian beef. I am not going to say who they are but they are all over. I have never heard of anyone making cheesesteaks out of meat from Australia, although I understand that they have really good beef down there (not that I have tried it). They have a really good steak down there.

Our standard serving size is an 8 oz portion, and we don’t weigh our meat on scales either. At POP’s our people are taught to go by eyeball (and to always over-estimate), which is kinda the old way of doing things. Our cooks are experienced enough so they can eyeball it so they can get the right amount of meat into the sandwich so that it looks right, it tastes right, and we can stay in business with your support of course.

The meat is cooked at 350 degrees and then it is maintained at our location for periods of usually 15 to 20 minutes in the final marinade process. When the cheesesteak is ordered it is pulled from the marinade and re-heated on the grill just to warm it up. Remember it was only cooked 15 to 20 minutes ago and placed into our marinade.

It’s super important that the meat goes through that final marinade process. One of the things to keep in mind; some steaks are not marinated at all and have different levels of marinade, different types of marinade, so you have to find the one that you like and we found the one that we like and the one that our customers really enjoy. That’s very important.

I’ve seen marinades which actually break the steak down once you put them in the marinating pad they will break the steak down almost to a state of starchiness and you definitely don’t want that.

There’s also in the industry what they call a break away steak. I don’t prefer these and we don’t serve them at POP’s. It’s a convenience item, and generally people that use them don’t serve a lot of cheesesteaks in their restaurant. They can be kept frozen until they go on the grill and once they go on the grill they are guaranteed to fall apart and become semi steak looking within 90 seconds. They do look like a little tiny steak when they are out on the grill, but if you were able to watch them being prepared you will see they fall apart and it’s just not the same way we prepare them.

Because we use the commodity style of steak, which is a flat paper thin steak, we use a “hold and pull” technique in order to pull the steak apart as opposed to a choppy technique. If you go to a cheesesteak restaurant and you hear the spatula going, “Chop! Chop! Chop! Chop! Chop!”, and clanging against the grill, then you’re not in the right place because that’s not the way the professionals do it. It’s a pulling technique so you don’t hear any “Chop! Chop! Chop!”

CHEESESTEAK CHEESE

All of POP’s cheeses are Wisconsin and New Jersey cheeses. Our cheesesteak cheeses include: provolone, white American, cheddar, swiss cheese, and of course the original Kraft Cheez Whiz, which is manufactured in Philadelphia and shipped here.

All of our cheeses are from Fummins. They are among the best quality cheese. They are more expensive but they taste better. Look for the name Fummins. Fummins cheeses are the finest you can buy. They supply many local delicatessens with their meat and all of our meats from our sandwiches are also from the Fummins brand. You have our assurance that they do deliver a terrific product.

CHEESESTEAK VEGGIES

All of our accouterments such as the green bell peppers, mushrooms, onions, fried onions are all prepared there on site and are cooked with your sandwich. They are all made freshly there with your sandwich. The lettuce and tomato of course we get from a local produce company as well.

Everything is fresh with the exception for the mushrooms. The reason that we don’t use a fresh mushroom is we have found that there is actually a better consistency and better quality in a canned mushroom as opposed to a fresh mushroom. Also there are less issues with food safety as opposed to a fresh mushroom, and it is less labor in terms of washing the mushrooms and slicing the mushrooms. We have tried the fresh mushroom and the canned mushroom, but unfortunately there is a bigger waste with the fresh mushroom because they don’t last as long. They do tend to draw up a little more because they haven’t been in that container where they package the mushroom. The water that’s in that container tends to get into the mushroom and prevent them from shrinking so much as a fresh mushroom will on the grill. Occasionally we do use fresh mushrooms, it just depends on when you catch us.

Sometimes if the red bell peppers, orange bell peppers, and the yellow bell peppers are in season we get those to introduce some color into the sandwich. You can see some of these sandwiches in our photo gallery, how they look with all of the ingredients on there. We feel like proper preparation and presentation of the sandwich equals culinary exuberance. What else can I say?

We have never had a complaint about how our sandwiches look or how our sandwiches taste. We have never had one come back and someone say, “Hey I don’t like this sandwich, or I can’t eat this sandwich.”

Now we’ve had people say, “You’ve made a mistake. I wanted mushrooms and you put peppers on it.” We have a very unique situation in that our grills are not hidden from the public. When you walk up to our restaurant window and you order a cheesesteak, what you’re going to find is that you’re standing about 2 ½ to 3 ft away from the cook. The cook is standing right in front of you with the cheeseteak and all the ingredients. The full sandwich being prepared so you can reach right through the screen and touch it yourself. You can smell it on the grill when the steam rolls out, it is such a wonderful aromatic experience. I would encourage you to obviously buy cheesesteaks where you can see them being prepared. It cuts down on mistakes, errors, and misunderstandings.

HOW TO ORDER A CHEESESTEAK

Of course the way our process works could be another tab for the website. The process is that you walk up to the order window which is behind a screen and you tell the cook directly which number of steak you want, and whether you want it with or without onions. All of our steaks are available with or without onions. The way that we instruct people to do it is the same way they instruct you in Philadelphia.

If you want the cheesesteak with onions you say, “wit!”, and if you want the cheesesteak without you say, “witout.” Then you get your choice of cheese and that’s all by number. If you don’t understand the number system that’s ok. Our cooks will help you in terms of understanding how to order the steak.

As the cook repeats the order back to the customer, the cashier then hears the cook as he repeats the order back to the customer and then rings the sandwich up. The cashier is also instructed by the cook as to whether the customer wants french fries, chili cheese fries, sweet potatoes, onion rings, what beverages they want, chicken wings and so forth. The cashier prepares those items. The cook is there for one reason and that is to prepare your sandwich. The cashier will prepare the side items that go with that.