Last night, my sidekick Frankie Antipasto and I created a culinary masterpiece. Earlier in the day, I posted a picture of a plain roll on facebook with the following caption:

Ladies and gentlemen, may I have your attention please. Over the next 12 to 24 hours, I will have a major announcement (with photo) that will take the New Jersey food world by storm. On this giant, fresh bakery roll will be a brand new, never before done type of meatball sandwich, containing some items which may shock you...But I assure you all, they will pair perfectly together for a culinary delight that will wow the senses. I am re-teaming with my sidekick, the one and only Frankie Antipasto who co-invented this creation with me, and we will debut it at our next event sometime this month and continue with it for this festive season and hopefully beyond. Stay tuned my friends, you will never guess what we have up our sleeves this time. Let’s just say, it will be a new Italian-American classic!!!!

Ok, I’d like to say I am the master of suspense, but I could not wait 12 or 24 hours, and as soon as I had all my ingredients ready, it was time for the execution and the big reveal. About six hours later, I posted a picture of our creation which got hundreds of likes and comments along with this status update:

Let it be known to all the world through the wonderful social media site of facebook serving as public record, that on this day Nov. 4, 2013, the brand new sandwich invented by Johnny Meatballs & Frankie Antipasto has officially been born. We have successfully kicked up my original meatball sandwich several notches by including a piece of Italian sausage and a piece of braciole on the roll. Yes, all 3 together in the same super sandwich. The Sunday Gravy Pot / Sunday Sauce Pot On A Roll is here folks!!! It will be available for sale in New Jersey at our next event... Check back soon for where and when!!!!

Because one cannot really “trademark” or “patent” a recipe, food concept/idea, I expect plenty of folks to come out of the woodwork and say that they already “invented” this idea, along with a multitude of copycats making it and selling it. Frankie was skeptical of putting this information on facebook at first for those reasons, but I explained to him that the day we start selling this sandwich in the streets will be the day that the copycats will began trying to capitalize off of it. And although by posting this info on facebook (and now on this blog), I probably don’t have any legal recourse if someone does bite off it (no pun intended), I would like to say that it established this creation as our intellectual property and stamps us as the innovators.

Plus, I am the kind of person who just cannot keep a secret and I get so much joy by sharing this stuff to my thousands of fans and followers and cannot wait to serve this delight to you all! We hit it out of the park with this one, and plan to offer a money-back guarantee if you don’t agree that this is the number one sandwich of 2013.

Now, let us get a few things out of the way first. I am sure, at some point in time, someone put meatballs, sausages and bracioles all on bread and ate it together. But in the extensive research Frankie and I have done, nobody in the state of New Jersey (or elsewhere to our knowledge) has sold this in the streets at a feast or fair. So for that reason, we consider ourselves to be the true pioneers in bringing all the meats contained in that big pot of red stuff into a portable sandwich form. And it’s called the “Sunday Gravy Pot” or “Sunday Sauce Pot” sandwich because people call the red stuff both names and you know what, that’s just fine with us. Food is meant to unite, not divide, and I have seen too many hostile debates caused by this silly discussion.

For the record, I consider the red stuff both sauce and gravy. It’s sauce when you are talking about just a quick mix of tomatoes, spices, garlic, maybe onions…See to me, that’s a condiment for macaroni, made in a shallow pot or pan. A marinara (ma-dee-na.) Now, I know in Italy there is no word for “gravy” and it’s still sauce to many even with the meat. And yes, of course it’s still a sauce, but to distinguish, I also call the meat-based version a gravy. Why? Because just like when making a meatloaf or chicken or any roasts, you are utilizing the extracted meat juices as the “base,” regardless if the color is brown, tan, gray, white or red.

When you are making a true Sunday gravy using meats—along with neckbones and even pork skin (gaw-dina) for some—the tomato is no longer the star of the show, it’s just another vegetable component for flavor like when you make a turkey gravy starting with a mirepoix of carrots, onions and celery. With a turkey, your thickener is your roux of fat from the bird and some flour. With the Sunday gravy, your thickener is basically a roux of fat and tomato paste – fried in the oil and then enhanced with the rest of your tomatoes, basil, a splash of vino and whatever else you add in. Therefore to me, the “argument” really has nothing to do with whether you are from Italy, New Jersey, Brooklyn, Australia or wherever else. It’s really not a territorial or regional discussion; it’s a culinary one if you really break it down as I did. Well now that we cleared that up, let’s get back to the stars here which are the braised meats. Fried veal/pork/beef meatballs, Italian pork sausages and beef bracioles are the stars!

Now, those stars have jumped out of the pot and onto a roll.

This will not replace my original meatball sandwich, but this is a deluxe version to be sold in addition to my original. I bought a 3-pot tabletop electric stove which we plan to use at upcoming November and December events—with each pot containing each meat. In the prototype model of the sandwich, I chose to go with beef braciole rather than pork, since there is pork in the meatballs and sausages. To those who may not know, a braciole is an interpretive classic Italian-American dish which is always going to vary from region to region and family to family. In its simplest terms, it’s just a very thin, flattened out piece of meat (pork/beef) with “stuffing.” You fill the middle up with whatever you like (grated cheese, parsley, garlic, etc.) and then you roll it...tie the sides with strings or toothpicks and cook. You can get as creative as you like with the filling...Hard-boiled eggs, pignoli nuts, raisins...To cook, you just sear it off in an olive oil heated pan to crisp all the sides, then slow cook in the gravy/sauce pot all day until it shreds apart like butter.

So inside this fresh-baked, foot long roll, you get 2 meatballs, a large sausage link and a piece of braciole. It’s “layered” so you get a taste of everything in each bite. We plan to also offer it parmigiano style with some melted mozzarella. Who knows, this may be the start of many other future “combination” sandwiches. (Maybe a chicken / veal /eggplant parm combo sandwich next??)

Continue to check this blog and my facebook page for updates on when and where we will debut this. We are excited to offer this in time for this festive holiday season, and hopefully if it takes off, will continue to do so for 2014 and beyond. Judging from the crazy amount of positive feedback I have been getting just in the past 24 hours alone, I think we may have the next big thing on our hands here. Hopefully it’s not just a fad like the cronut and truly revolutionizes how we eat our Sunday Gravy. Or Sauce.

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If you own a bar, club or restaurant, contact me if you may be interested in us hosting a “Johnny & Frankie” night during happy hour. We have done this before at various north Jersey venues where we will bring hot trays of food and personally serve guests. Even if your establishment has a full menu, this is a unique addition which will bring a huge buzz to your bar. For more info, e-mail me at [email protected]