Posts tagged Fooooooood

In my previous foray with chicken fried steak, I found that round cuts, at least, unaltered, made for a poor dish. After consulting some recipes, I found that a much longer tenderizing period could be a solution, or using a “needling device” to create your own cube steak. In opted, for my experiment, to use cube steak purchased from the local supermarket.

A few tips I can share: get the cube steak patty slightly wet, salt and pepper, flour, egg wash, and put it back into the flour. But here’s the kicker: use your hands. Be gentle, but pat the mix in. Make sure it’s evenly coated. This stuff isn’t glue, it will unevenly coat unless you do it properly.

My only objection, I’m afraid, is that my sawmill gravy was a little thin. I made it with leftover oil, flour, chicken broth, and whole milk, but I suspect I used a little too much broth or a little too little flour. Either way, it tasted great, it just was too thin. Nonetheless, the dish was an overwhelming success.

Image hosted by Flickr

As a many-decade-devotee of Kraft Macaroni and Cheese Deluxe, aka “Kraft Dinner,” I have always hesitated to make my own Mac n’ Cheese. It’s hard to top what’s already damned close to perfect.

Turns out I was wrong. I modded a few recipes out there and ended up with a damned tasty dish. Jenn and I tore through 4 servings in 2 days, and last night I made another massive batch. 6 dudes ate 10 servings and 2 asked me for the recipe. Creamy mac and cheese, I now know, is overrated. Real baked and mac and cheese is light and cheesy and doesn’t leave you feeling like you just ate a brick. I’m still perfecting it, but when I think I have, I will post the recipe.

Mac n Cheese, originally uploaded by firsttubedotcom.

Tonight was my first shot at making “Country Fried Steak.” Normally, I can just kind of imagine a recipe and it comes out good enough, but this one slipped, I admit. So here’s my advice if you choose to go for it with Country Fried Steak:

1. Use Cube Steak. If you decide to go with round, use meat tenderizer and give it plenty of time to sit. I used round and tenderized it with a mallet and it was still really tough. It needs to be very soft to almost crumble apart.

2. You will need to coat it in either buttermilk or an egg wash, but if you do use buttermilk, let it sit in the buttermilk for some time. The crust was too weak and broke apart, sadly, while still in the oil.

3. Think about gravy BEFORE making the steak. It’s not too hard to put together either a white or brown gravy, but it’s very hard to it after the steak is ready… at least, if you want to serve it while the food is still warm.

Overall, I’d rate this a 6/10. It was good enough overall, but it was bad chicken fried steak. Next time, perhaps.

Country Fried Steak… sorta, originally uploaded by firsttubedotcom.