Tony Luke had his own confession to make. These blast-frozen steaks weren't going to be as good as the ones off the grill at one of his stands, which are also in Hamilton, N.J., at Citizens Bank Park, and in the Borgata casino in Atlantic City.
"I'm going after the Hot Pockets crowd, the Steak-umms people," he said. "They don't want to cook. They don't want it in a fry pan. They don't want to boil it. They want it microwaved."
This created a dilemma for the culinary part of Tony Luke's brain.
The best results, he said, come from boiling the pouch of meat, and toasting the roll in the oven.
But the quickest and easiest results come from nuking the meat, and then the roll.
We decided to try both.
The pouches are made of microwavable plastic, the sliced Black Angus sirloin (chosen because it has more fat-marbling than the ribeye) lined up, slicked with a little oil and seasoning, and topped with a white slab of American cheese. The rolls are in separate wrappers.
Method I (Nuked): After two minutes and 10 seconds, the meat was done in the puffed-up pouch. It wasn't equal to the Tony Luke's griddled style. But it was moist and beefy, flavorful but not greasy.
The roll? Fuggedaboutit! It was ruined. It was just what the hair-trigger critics suspected - a squishy, doughy, droopy, sorry excuse for a roll.
Method II (Boiled and Toasted): Boiled in the pouch for four minutes, the frozen cheesesteak was a different creature - the cheese more fully melted; the meat tenderer and juicier, even hinting vaguely - strangely? - of the grill.
The specially formulated roll came out of the 250-degree toaster oven after a few minutes crisp and warm, tastier in that sense than the unwarmed one at the stand.
Every one of the dozen or so samplers voted this method superior.
Every one of them was surprised that it made for a credible steak, far better than they'd imagined, as much as they - skeptics all - hated to admit it.
Not one said "gross," or "nas-tee," or "blecch." They did miss the traditional onions, mushrooms, and peppers.
The Luke-Rastelli juggernaut says it's getting on that, developing kits of add-ons, plus broccoli rabe.
They might look into including a Tony Luke's Pronto beer mug.
All that salt leaves you with a powerful thirst.
Contact columnist Rick Nichols at 215-854-2715 or rnichols@ phillynews.com. Read his recent work at http://go.philly.com/ricknichols.
