Exploring the Military Dish SOS: A Recipe with a Complex History

As I welcome back to my channel, today we're going to explore another recipe that falls under the umbrella of hard times. This dish is called SOS, and its acronym stands for various things, including "all on a shingle," which describes the love-hate relationship of this dish. My dear friend brought this recipe to my attention originally, and as someone who has served in the US Army, they understand the significance of this dish.

The origins of this recipe are likely based on something very simple, such as just having some protein and serving it on a substrate. In the military, this dish is known as chipped beef, and the beef source can be various things. However, one type that was most traditional is dried beef. This makes sense, particularly in a forward military setting, as the dried beef is shelf-stable and can be kept indefinitely. The recipe uses dried beef, which contains beef salt, sugar, sodium, and sodium nitrate.

To open this can, I'll use my special opener. Once opened, the jar smells like dried baloney, and it looks almost like salami but with less fat. It's thinner and has a stronger smell of pork. The recipe calls for cutting the meat into strips and fluffing them up slightly before tasting. Oh boy, wow! That is wicked salty! I won't add any salt to this dish, as it's already very salty.

To make the sauce, I'll use half of the dried beef can. Cutting it into strips and fluffing them up a little bit, I'm ready to start cooking. I'll grab my skillet and add some hot oil. Once the meat is cooked, I'll remove it from the pan and set it aside. Next, I'll add half a stick of butter to the pan, which will help make the sauce. I'll also cook some flour to create a roux, a classic way to thicken sauces.

A roux is made by cooking fat and flour together, adding flavor to the dish. In this case, I'm using beef stock and milk to thin out the roux and add creaminess. Adding black pepper will enhance the flavor of the sauce. Now that I have my sauce ready, it's time to return the cooked meat back into the pan and mix everything together.

To serve the SOS dish, I'll place two slices of toast on a plate. Ladling the sauce over the toast will complete the recipe. To finish off this classic diner technique, I'll sprinkle some parsley on top. This adds color and freshness to the dish, making it more appealing to eat.

In conclusion, I highly recommend trying this SOS dish if you're looking for something unique and flavorful. Be aware that the dried beef is very salty, almost too salty for me, so using half of the can is recommended. The flavor profile of the dish is complex, with a smokiness similar to corned beef hash. Serving on top of toast or shingle helps to balance out the sodium content while providing a rich and creamy sauce.

If you're interested in trying more recipes like this one or have suggestions for future videos, please let me know in the comments below. Don't forget to share this video with your friends and follow me on social media for more cooking adventures. Until next time, stay tasty!

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: engreetings my beautiful lovelies it's Emmy welcome back today I'm gonna be exploring another recipe that I'm gonna put under the umbrella of hard times it was brought to my attention originally by a dear friend of mine who once served in the US Army any military service person veteran will know this and it is called SOS so the SOS acronym stands for a bunch of different things including all on a shingle who saved my stomach stew on a shingle and it kind of describes the love-hate relationship of this dish so from my understanding this dish is still served in the military and it makes a lot of sense it's easy to prepare it has all the basic nutritional requirements and it's relatively low in cost so the origins of this recipe are probably based on something very simple like just having saw some kind of protein and serving it on some sort of substrate in this case it's gonna be toast so in the military they call this dish chipped beef and the beef source can be a couple different things this is the one I find that was most traditional and this is dried beef and this one makes a lot of sense to me particularly in the application of using it forward military it's shelf-stable you've got dried beef in a glass jar and you can keep it indefinitely so I've also seen recipes using sausage and I've also seen recipes using ground beef dried beef ground formed and sliced it contains beef salt sugar sodium a Thorat sodium nitrate eight slices of this contains 1200 milligrams of salt which is 50% of your daily intake so how do I open this can maybe I'll use my special opener thank Flyman there it is look at that it's almost like a beautiful rose pattern in there whoa smells like dried baloney let's take this out during Wow look at that this is a five ounce jar so for this recipe I'm going to use about half of this let's unfurl this look at this oh my gosh that's a lot of me so it looks a bit like salami it doesn't have quite as much fat a little bit thinner and smells really different it smells a lot more like potted meat it smells much pork here and then it says after you open it I should refrigerate it like the jar though now I'm going to cut this into strips and kind of fluff them up a little bit let's give that a taste oh boy wow that is wicked salty it's gonna make me of gravy I'm not gonna put any salt whatsoever that is really really salty I would say even saltier than spam spam is another canned meat if you don't know about it it's more of a wet meat though it comes in a canned ham spam and it also is very very salty but kind of a similar flavor more concentrated not surprisingly because it's been dried now I'm gonna grab my skillet alright my pants nice and hot I'm gonna add my meat nice sizzle I'm gonna remove the meat now that's a little bit golden half a stick of butter and up that down and now what we're going to be making is a rue spelled ro UX and it's a classic way to make a gravy or to thicken the sauce you take some sort of fat you add flour to it and you make a paste that you cook and you sometimes toast it and that toasting adds a ton of flavor so a lot about it there and I've got some flour and this is probably about 1/4 cup of flour but I'm just gonna add a little bit at a time little exciting so some brews are cooked very very dark and they're full of flavor and some are kept a little bit lighter depending on what type of sauce you're making basically this is like a French bechamel sauce which is the classic white sauce in that case you don't cook the room too long because you don't want to have such a nutty flavor but you do want to cook it long enough to get rid of that raw flour taste so I'm adding probably 3 or 4 tablespoons of flour here now to our roux we're gonna add some beef stock I was probably half a cup and our milks all right get in there now I'm gonna add a bunch of black pepper it's me that's really essential when you're making a white gravy lots of black pepper yum-yum okay it's really important to use a whiff could make you baby so you can avoid getting warm now we're going to return the beef back into the sauce and give the sister here are my two slices of toast and now I'm gonna ladle my sauce right on top there it is so I'm going to do as they did in the 1950s and I'm gonna take a little bit of parsley and sprinkle it on here this is a classic diner technique it's just give it a little bit more color make it look a little bit more appetizing boom s.o.s not that I've dust it with a little bit of parsley it looks a lot more appetizing after today isn't that amazing the magic of parsley got a little bit of everything there got some dried beef definitely got some sauce and parsley here we go eat the ducky mosque if and when you make this use half the amount of dried beef it is very very salty almost too salty for me so I think I'm gonna take another bite and I'm just gonna have it just a tiny bite of the dried beef there mm-hmm much better that way but still very very salty but the flavor is not too bad it's a little bit like corned beef hash it has a little bit of smokiness lots of salt and the sauce is good it's kind of buttery and milky but also that creaminess goes well with the beef as well there's very little fat in the beef so it kind of richens it and then serving on top of the shingle or the piece of toast works really well too it absorbs the sauce the toast kind of softens a little bit but has a little bit of crispness around the edges and then it takes some of that sodium away as well plus it just kind of fills your belly but yeah it's not bad I could see if you had this every day day in and day out that would be something that you kind of get used to and actually kind of pine for later mm-hmm finally I highly recommend putting a little bit of chopped parsley on top a little bit of greenery brightens things up makes it look a lot more palpable and cheery and yeah let's be honest here this really does look like SOS all right II hope you guys enjoyed that one I hope you guys learn something let me know in the comments if there are recipes that you'd like to see me try or things that you'd like me to taste share this video with your friends follow me on social media and I shall see you in the next video try be don't be wait salty\n"