Maid-Rites?
 

I grew up in the quad cities in Illinois and our big treat was to go to the Maid Rite for sandwiches. I would love to have the real recipe for these sandwiches. They are loose ground beef and served with the "standard" of mustard, onion and pickle. I think the gr. beef was steamed with coca cola or something. Such a yummy sandwich and every time we go "home" I must visit a Maid-Rite restaurant.

If anyone has the recipe for these sandwiches I would love to try it.
Sandy

Google recipe maid rite. You will find the recipe.

Sandy

Sandy, being from the midwest, have you had a Maid Rite? I've googled and found that some recipes say beef broth and others say chicken broth. I think that I will use the beef broth and see how it is. I think that the last time we were there I saw a dark liquid being added to the steamer. Thought that maybe someone on here had found the PERFECT recipe.
Sandy

I've never been to the Mid-west, but I watched the TV show Roseann. She had a shop that made sandwiches like that. I made up my own recipe. Just seasoned ground beef with onions. The family loved them.

Ahhhhhhh....... Didn't the Maid-Rite originate in Marshalltown? I used to get the sandwich in downtown Des Moines when I worked at Capital Square in the mid 1980's. :-)

I saved the following recipe article as printed in the Des Moines Register during that timeframe.

LaRue Grubbs of Perry, Joy Bricker of Earlham and Dott Barney of Des Moines shared their recipes, which taste like REAL Maid-Rites. Bricker and Barney sent the same recipes.

MAID-RITE-STYLE BEEF from LaRue Grubbs
4 pounds ground beef
2 onions, chopped
1 tablespoon salt
1 teaspoon pepper
1 quart tomato juice
6 eggs, beaten
1/2 cup mustard
1-2 cups soda cracker crumbs
Cook beef and onions until done, but not completely brown; add salt and pepper. Blend tomato juice, eggs, and mustard. Simmer 30 minutes; remove from heat. Add to meat mixture and add crumbs. Mix.

MAID-RITE-STYLE BEEF -----from Joy Bricker and Dott Barney
2 pounds extra lean ground beef
1 small onion, chopped
1 (14.5 ounce) can chicken broth

Cook beef and onion until pink is gone. (Barney addes 2 teaspoons oil for browning meat.) Add broth and simmer until broth is absorbed.

---------------
There are some recipes I have saved from various parts of the USA where I have lived. The above was copied from the actual newspaper clipping. :-)

hope this helps
the Maid-Rite sandwich's meat is not formed into a patty, making it similar to a sloppy joe only without the tomato-based sauce.
http://www.food.com/recipe/maid-rite-sandwiches-109699

Being from Central IL, I have had many many maid rites. I believe it is beef consomme, not beef or chicken broth. I think there is a little pickle seasoning (not relish), and steamed over water. We have never tried coke. Our little maid rite closed and they had the best ever! Good luck!

Roseanne was married at the time to Tom Arnold & they owned a house outside of Fairfield, Iowa. She loved maid-rites & opened a restaurant near there but described her sandwiches as "loose meat" sandwiches. Lol! Just a bit of useless trivia. My in-laws lived in Fairfield at the time.

I tasted one years ago. I like White Castle much better. I grew up in the St Louis area. Maid Rite was not in my area. i ate one in Rolla MO...college town, rural. White Castle...I ate them in my late teens and twenties, in the wee early hours of the morning...after the bars closed. We needed something cheap to soak up the beer. Not sure I would eat one in the daylight now and my bar hopping days have been over for 30 years, thankfully! Ah....youth.

Sandy

Isn' t there one in Peoria??

A friend of mine got the recipe from someone at the Maid-rite store in Greenville, Ohio years ago... I don't have it in fron of me but it is quite similar to the one on food.com. That place is a hoot. VERY tiny and there is a tradition of sticing your gum on the outside of the building which I thought odd.

I also lived in the Quad cities, Ill I love maid rites. my daughter says she has perfected it so I will ask her. I have one sometimes when we go to visit her and family. the best one ever was in Aledo Ill just south west of QC. they were one of the original ones... also anyone from Joliet area and remember the jet's hamburgers in little shop on jefferson street. they were the best similiar to a white castle so every once in a while when I find a white castle I have to have couple just to almost satisfy my taste...

I grew up in Quincy Il and the Maid Rite is still there I do have the recipe but it is at home and we are in Fla for the month of Feb. I will try to remember to look it up when I get back home and send it to you I wish I could remember it off the top of my head but I can't. There is nothing like the Maid Rite and when we go back to Quincy we always stop. There is also a Maid Rite in Hannibal MO.

Sandy,
I was raised in Waterloo, Iowa and the recipe for these wonderful hamburgers was given to me by one of the owners of a MaidRite restaurant when I left for the "big city". I hope this is what you are looking for.


1 lb hamburger
1/2 cup beef broth
chopped onion
dill pickle slices
salt and pepper to taste

How to make it

crumble and cook hamburger in pan (drain)
add broth.
boil until liquid reduces (10 15 minutes)
While broth is reducing,
chop onion for topping
gather pickles for topping.
spread hamburger buns with yellow mustard.
Spoon hamburger on to fresh hamburger buns
top with dill pickle and chopped onion.

I grew up 30 miles from Marshalltown and was always a treat to eat there and have a chocolate malt. Still stop in when visiting Iowa.

We had a shop here in our town a while back.. I stopped in for a sandwich and saw them using a portable elec. mixer to stir/mix the meat mixture. Perhaps that is the secret to getting it "loose."

I have lived in the mid west all my life and the only wayI have seen maid rite sandwiches cooked is they just steam the ground beef, put it on a bun and add pickles, onions, salt, pepper and hat ever you like . I take a kettle, boil some water and put a spatter screen on top . Put ground beef on top and keep crumbling and working it back and forth until cooked. VERY GOOD and VERY HEALTHY, no grease.

I have never heard of Maid Rite. It sounds interesting. Thanks Solstice I didn't realize theere was one near here. My quilt guild retreat is near Greenville,OH. I was planning on stopping there to go to the KItchen Aid outlet. Now I know where I will go for lunch. MMMM! I lok forward to trying it. White Castle hamburgers are Yummy once in a while. I also used to eat them in college after the bars closed. They do seem to taste the best when you are drunk. I am years past that but I do stop in about once a year.

sandyl....just moved from the Quad Cities last year and there are maid-rites still going strong, and I agree that the steamed crumbled hamburger is made with some coke syrup but I've never known the receipe....hope that recipe pops up here ..I usually resort to making sloppy joe's but it's not the same.

Oh I am glad you posted this. I had forgotten the great taste of Maid Rites. I was raised in MO. We ate there all the time when I was a kid. Yummy!!!! I will have to try the recipes you all have put on here. Thanks again! I am really hungry now...

There are at least two in Peoria, Metro Center has a 50's style maid rite, and out Rt. 150 in the Sam's Club strip mall, another one. There is a little one called Bob's Dairy Dipper in Astoria, IL, and at least one in Springfield, IL. Illinois still has several! The maid rite is actually a franchise. If you have a similar "loose meat" sandwich, you have to call it something else. Our little drugstore had "huffyburgers", another version. I, too, had a White Castle during college days in Chicago. They were great in the middle of the night to soak up the suds! ha ha ha!!! Maid rites are great anytime!

Oh my gosh.
My dad's family is from the Greenville area. Although I never had my first Maid rite until my dad had passed, and his youger brother took me there. We discussed that it was probably because it is advertised as a bar and grill, and my mother was rabid about her children going to a bar. The last time I was in Greenville was last summer for a 90th birthday celebration for a relative, and we went to Maid Rite. We have a couple in Colorado now, but I have not been there yet. And, yes, the gum has to be power washed off the building in Greenville about once a year according to my Uncle.

I had never heard of Maid Rites until we visited friends in Iowa and they took us to a county fair. There was a food booth selling, as they called them "loose meat sandwiches". I thought it was supposed to be a sloppy joe but they forgot to put on the barbeque sauce! The other food offered was flat egg noodles in milk gravy poured over mashed potatoes. I was told that was a very popular dish at church suppers. I thought on that they forgot to add any meat. To me the name should be "starch mixed with starch poured over starch"! I experienced White Castle sandwiches in St. Louis and understand why they are called "sliders"! :) Each area of the world has their own types of foods.

And in central Illinois they have a sandwich called a "Shoe" and a smaller version called "Pony Shoe" ....slop!!! Disgusting pile of greasy food topped with cheese fries.

Sandy

My husband is from Muscatine Iowa and that was his going out food too! I actually went back there and got to try it also. Good food.

Solsitce3 It's a small world I remember moving to Greenville w/ my 2 children in the 70's & seeing all the gum on the wall of the drivethru. Have been looking for the Maid-rites or a recipe ever since we moved back to Wisconsin!

There is a Maid rite down the street from me !! now everyone talking about it makes me want one with a rootbeer !! i think i will have that for lunch and ask the owner how he makes them while i am there

I've never heard of Maid Rite (all the variations sound so good!) but I've enjoyed reading all the comments and the many memories the sandwich brings to those of you lucky enough to have enjoyed one.

Sandy, I've never heard of those sandwiches and since reading your post called an old friend who lives just outside Springfield. He has lived there for over 30 years and his wife is a native of Springfield. Neither has heard of those named sandwiches. Could you give more info. as to what else is included and in what types of restaurants they are served please?

We just returned from our fifth trip to Hawaii and there I enjoy eating malasads, long rice, locomoco and of course the ubiquitous Spam!

I live in Ohio and we have a Maid Rite restaurant in Greenville, Oh and they claim to be the original. Don't know how true it is but they've been there "since bully was a calf".

Pockyscorner, just saw your post.....the gum wall is still there and growing!

I've never heard of Maid Rite, but used one of the above recipes last night. Not sure how it's supposed to taste! but my son and I both liked them. The meat kept falling out of the bun, it seemed a nice change from sloppy joes. Maybe next time I'll put some cheese on them.

Maid-Rites were served with a spoon/fork just because the meat spilled out. I have a t-shirt from Tom & Rosanne's Loose Meat Cafe in Iowa.

Here's what I did and they were great: for 1 lb of gr. beef, I cooked but not browned. Break it up really well. Drain. Then, I added 3 TBSP of hydrated onion flakes, 1/4 c of beef broth and 3 TBSP of water, S & P. Simmer until most of the liquid is gone. That's it! Pile the meat on buns with mustard, and dill pickle slices. Prepare to fix a second one. You'll want it. If cheese is put on the meat on the bun it's called a Cheese-Rite.
Sandy

Maid rites in Greenville,Oh are very popular and just a few blocks down the street from Kitchen Aid. At meal times the drive thru is back up out on the street. Enjoy your visit!

We just had a new Maid-Rite diner open up in town. I think the owner is from Iowa. There use to be one in Rochester , but it closed down.

Sure wish they'd come to Buckeye country!!

The original Mid Rite was in Muscatine, Ia. William Angell was the founder. I used to live next to his widow, Bea. I now luve in Marshalltown where Taylor's Maid Rite ships sandwiches all over the country.

Well I found a link to the official Maid-Rite corp.
http://maid-rite.com/index.php

I remember several places in Iowa calling their loose meat sandwiches maid rites and also taverns. These were not franchises. I didn't know there was a place called Maid Rite, it just seemed like a regional name for the loose meat sandwiches I knew as a sloppy joe. However at the site they list locations of franchises and there is one in Ohio listed at Piqua. I also saw a wikipedia listing with some of the history of it.

P.S. I just happened across this old post as I was searching for something else.

If you need to find a recipe and only know some of the ingredients then try Super Cook: http://www.supercook.com/

I grew up in S. California, Del Taco had a Taco Burger. Quite delicious. Basically taco filling on a bun instead of a tortilla. It's loose meat and you had to be careful of the meat falling out. I like to eat sloppy joes with a fork. I think eating one of them like a sandwich would be really messy. Arn't these type sandwiches basically a maid rite?