Food with Finesse

Named #1 product at the 2008 Fancy Food Show by AOL Food Editor and named Best of Show at the 2009 Fancy Food Show by FOODANDHOME.COM. Zip-It Steak Sauce--beef’s ultimate dipping sauce. Made with only the finest ingredients, Zip-It is all natural. Zip-It is cream-based so it really sticks to the meat giving you the opportunity to create your own flavor intensity from bold to mild. 1940's Detroit area chop house recipe.

It was a discovery just waiting to happen.  A few years ago, while going through some boxes in the attic left to him by his grandfather, Tom Shea found a recipe for a steak sauce.

“Lots of Zip!” Grandpa Shea wrote on the top of the yellowed 3”x 5” card.  Curious, Tom made a batch.  “Right away I knew I was onto something big.  The sauce had a flavor profile unlike anything out there,” said Tom, founder of Great Lakes Gourmet, “so I started making it for friends and family.  And the response was always the same—people flipped over it!”

Being from Michigan, Tom figures Grandpa was exposed to other warm steak sauces which were popular at chop houses in Detroit in the 1940’s.   “This area is kind of known as the birthplace of unique warmed sauces for steak” Tom adds, “but all of those are either broth, tomato or gravy-based.  Zip-It is cream-based. Depending on the amount of butter you add, you can create your own flavor intensity from bold to mild.  And Zip-It sticks to your beef.  You can slather it on, but this gourmet sauce is so fantastic it’s become more of a dipping sauce for filets and other high-grade cuts."

“Friends and family kept asking me to make more of it as I flavor-tweaked it,” said Tom.  “So I decided to make a LOT more of it, and present it to the world to enjoy.  I think Gramps would be proud.  Real proud."