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Louis Fowler vs. The Pioneer Woman: The Marlboro Man’s Favorite Sandwich (with Onion Strings)

8:55 AM EST on January 28, 2021

Doing these Pioneer Woman challenges for the past few months, I figured that I was going a bit too far outside of my comfort zone, not only to impress my then-ladyfriend, but, in some ways, to maybe impress Ree Drummond, the Pioneer Woman, as well.

But, now that I’m back at my own shared living-space cooking up these down-home (?) recipes with the mice that scurry around the kitchen, I decided to aim a little lower, this time going for the salt of the Earth grub that she’s famous for: meat, onions and bread, all by and for myself. Yes, I'm taking on the Marlboro Man's Favorite Sandwich.

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Now that should be simple, right? Well, unless you count purchasing all of the (mostly what I consider) unnecessary ingredients, it was. So how did I gently screw it up like I did?

Named after Oklahoma’s famous land-grabbing cowboy (who, judging from the moniker, might have a smoking addiction), this sandwich, as per the name, is his favorite. Made up of mostly halved portions of pan-fried onions and cuts of cube beef done up nicely in my cast-iron skillet, with the exception of the Tabasco, black pepper, lemon pepper and Worcestershire sauce, all added, this part was pretty easy.

The recipe also calls for those long French-style rolls, but the Wal-Mart Neighborhood Market up from my house only had circular Kaiser rolls, but I figured the bread really wouldn’t make that much of a difference. But maybe it did because I can’t follow instructions like I really should, one of my late father’s most disliked traits about me.

Still, the only actual trouble I had though came from the also-fried onion strings; I know I’m not very good at battering and coating and such, and with this recipe, I really feel like I proved that to myself.

After cutting the onions into—well, I don’t want to say “strings,” but definitely “thinner than usual cuts of onion”—a semblance of what they were supposed to be, I let them rest in the buttermilk for a lot less than the requested hour, at least until they were somewhat goopy. I then placed them into the same frying pan, this time with the requested canola oil instead of olive oil. You win, readers.

As I sat back with a small bit of pride, after a second I realized that I had forgot to place them in said flour and spices. Gently scooping them out—only a few minor arm burns this time, thank you very much—and harshly battering them, I place them back into the fryer, with little to no success.

But, you know, that’s okay. I like them (very) lightly battered and fried anyway. At least that’s what I told myself reassuringly as I scooped them out and placed them next to the sandwich.

With a full plate of onion-goodness, I sat at the communal table, by myself, and took a bite of the Marlboro Man’s Favorite Sandwich. While it was nothing like the Pioneer Woman probably pictured, I enjoyed it quite a bit; of course, I was eating it alone and possibly tearing up, which automatically gives the forever-married Drummond a win, no matter how many culinary foibles I’ll make.

Pioneer Woman 4, Louis Fowler 0.

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Follow Louis on Twitter at @LouisFowler and Instagram at @louisfowler78.

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