My friend Jamie messaged me a couple weeks ago with a video clip of a recipe for a layered banana bread/cheesecake. This is something Jamie does from time to time, and it always feels like the Field of Dreams challenge: If you build it, they will come. Except in Jamie’s case: If you cook this, I will eat it.

He knows me too well. I almost always take up the food challenge. Except for the time he sent me a You Tube clip of a Mayonnaise Pie with Doritos Crust from The Vulgar Chef. (I’d add a hyperlink directly to that clip, but that guy doesn’t need any more exposure.) A while back, Jamie implied that I should try to make a liquored-up homemade version of Luxardo cherries, and I did. More recently, he called me asking if I knew a local source for dried beef. Jamie grew up in Pennsyltucky, where they have dried beef at the local deli. You can walk right in and have it sliced to order and grab a pound of fresh scrapple, too! Imagine that. So I dutifully went down the rabbit hole and learned how make my own dried beef from scratch and shared it with him (see photo gallery). Cue the music ... And like a good neighbor, Swanny is there ...

Like most people of a fine vintage, there’s only one dish that comes to mind when you see the sad little jar of dried beef on the grocery shelves: Chipped Beef on Toast aka S*** on a Shingle.

A few weeks before the COVID lockdown in 2020, I had a hankering for good old SOS. But me being me, I had to spin it. I wanted the flavors and the textures, but not just some chunky sauce slopped on toast. So I took the basic ingredients and technique, added beef broth for more beef flavor, diced onion and potato to plant it firmly in the soup category and some frozen peas because my saintly mother, Off Track Betty, used to add to them to her SOS.

But in scaling the original recipe up to about a half gallon of soup, I realized that I would need to use way too much dried beef to give it any presence against the veggies. And it would probably hit your tongue like a salt lick. After a little brainstorming, I hit on the idea of using a relative of dried beef, corned beef. Not the canned, pressed stuff, but the deli variety made from a whole beef brisket. It’s salted and cured in almost the same manner as dried beef, but it won’t fall apart simmering in a broth. And to bolster the umami beefiness of the overall flavor, I added sliced fresh white mushrooms. As for the spices, I didn’t want to get too flashy. I stuck with ground black pepper for a slight heat and nutmeg for the earthy aroma and comforting flavor. Gotta stay true to its humble roots.

In the end, the resulting soup checks all my boxes for the original SOS: chunky, creamy, beefy and satisfying. I even put toast back into the mix by serving it with crostini instead of crackers. If my mushroom-hating roomie is any indicator, he ate TWO bowls of this and said, “That soup changed my mind about mushrooms. It’s really good.”

Well, no S***, Sherlock.

SOS Soup

4 Tbsp butter or 1/4 cup bacon fat

Small yellow onion finely chopped

8 oz package sliced fresh mushrooms

1/4 cup AP flour

6 cups low sodium beef broth OR 6 cups water + 2 tsp Better Than Bouillon beef base

3/4 tsp Ground black pepper

3/4 tsp freshly grated nutmeg

Two medium russet potatoes, peeled and diced 1/2 inch

2 cups deli corned beef, sliced 1/4 thick, and diced (approx 3/4 lb)

1 cup frozen/fresh peas

12 ounce can evaporated milk

In a stockpot, melt butter or bacon fat over medium heat and add onion. Sauté onion for 2 minutes and then stir in the mushrooms and cook for another 3 minutes. Add the flour and stir it in until no lumps remain and veggies are fully coated. Cook for an additional minute.

Add broth, nutmeg and pepper and bring to a simmer.

Add potatoes and corned beef; cook for 10-12 minutes until potatoes are just tender. Remove 1/2 cup of the potatoes into a cup or small bowl. Mash them down completely with a fork and then stir them back into the pot.

Turn the heat to low and add in peas and evaporated milk and let the lower heat gently cook the peas for about five minutes. At this point, taste the broth to check the salt level and salt to taste. Serve hot with buttered toasted baguette slices. Enjoy!

If you want a patriotic trip down memory lane on the etymology of SOS, click here.

Now, about that cheesecake...

Getting back to Jamie’s most recent request, the banana bread cheesecake. The clip he sent me involved making a standard banana bread in a 9“ round springform pan, letting it cool and then topping it with a no-bake cheesecake filling. No-bake cheesecake is a no-go for me. I tested the method twice in the last week, using my standby banana bread recipe and an overnight cheesecake filling recipe and baking them both layered together (see photo gallery). The results were mixed. I gave out pieces to about eight people and some of them loved it, Jamie included. But my feeling was that while the flavors didn’t conflict, the textures did. My buddy Elissa kinda hit it on the head when she suggested that I should either reduce the banana bread and make it more of a crust for the cheesecake or reduce the cheesecake and make it more of a frosting for a banana bread. Back to the drawing board, I guess.

Upcoming and Ongoing

Are you an avid home cook? Do your treats leave people saying, “You oughtta sell these. You’d make a million bucks.” I get that response from time to time, and now I’m going to give it a road test. I’ve put in an application to my local farmer’s market, and I’ll be detailing the steps from your kitchen and out to the public in my column this year —everything from CT state kitchen inspection, planning the menu, packaging, insurance and finding the best sources for ingredients. Coming soon.

Rich Swanson is a local cook who has had numerous wins in nationally sponsored recipe contests. He is also the layout specialist here at The Day.

Comments? Questions? Suggestions? Rich Swanson can be reached at TheSurlyTable@gmail.com.