eGullet's Brightest and Best!

[malarkey]

CFS is one of those things that can be a lot better than you might imagine.

yes and vengroff you nailed it ;-) I grew up eating this in the midwest, and I ate it at least twice when back there in August. Gravy on french fries does it for me. oh-ohh-oh.

[Jinmyo]

And while you're at it...how about the "Thin sliced"pork chops?

Tonkatsu?

You got it in one, Suzanne! That is the one and only purpose we have found for the thin-sliced pork chop.

No, no, no. Tonkatsu should be made with thick loin chops or tenderloin.

As for the thin chops:

Curries. Or deep-fried Chinese style pork.

[maggiethecat]

Vengroff:  Thank you so much for your detailed description of CFS, the recipe and its raison d'etre.  Next time the hated round steak is on sale, we definitely going to try this.  Buttermilk.  Hmmm.

Jaymes: Any comments/additions, darlin'?  Have you eaten one recently? A girl has to keep her strength up when debating a certain immovable object!

Acht-ooly, had one last night. At a great little roadside joint in Blanco, Texas - the Sunset Restaurant & Bar - on the way back from Mexico.

Yum.

Ah hah! I think that we have decided what round steak wants to be when it grows up!

BTW Jaymes...did you get that bean recipe? Would they go well with Chicken fried steak?

[maggiethecat]

(Sorry...stupid double post due to confusion caused by cat walking on keyboard.)

Edited January 6, 2003 by maggiethecat (log)

[Jaymes]

Vengroff:  Thank you so much for your detailed description of CFS, the recipe and its raison d'etre.  Next time the hated round steak is on sale, we definitely going to try this.  Buttermilk.  Hmmm.

Jaymes: Any comments/additions, darlin'?  Have you eaten one recently? A girl has to keep her strength up when debating a certain immovable object!

Acht-ooly, had one last night. At a great little roadside joint in Blanco, Texas - the Sunset Restaurant & Bar - on the way back from Mexico.

Yum.

Ah hah! I think that we have decided what round steak wants to be when it grows up!

BTW Jaymes...did you get that bean recipe? Would they go well with Chicken fried steak?

Got the bean recipe. Actually, several versions. Went into the restaurant (La Fogata) and ate the beans and my companion and I flirted shamelessly with the waiter and we thought we got the recipe, and we did get "a recipe."

But then, the next morning, went for breakfast at the little hotel where we were staying and we were telling the waiter our story and he asked what recipe we got and we told him and he smiled and said that he had previously worked at that restaurant and that they ALWAYS were asked for the recipe and the waiters had been told to leave out at least one or two things.

So, we asked HIM what the recipe was and he said, "Oh, I cannot tell joo, because it is the secret of my kitchen." To which we pointed out that he no longer worked there so it no longer WAS "su cocina" and so he could tell us, of course.

And he gave us a recipe that was identical to the other one, but WITH a couple more ingredients. By then, all the waiters and most of the customers were chiming in with their recipe for charro beans. And the owner of the hotel restaurant was all miffed because we had asked for the La Fogata beans instead of the hotel restaurant's beans.

So we decided we'll just have to experiment with all of the suggestions and come up with our own approximation as to how La Fogata (the original place) makes them.

At which time, I'll be happy to share.

And, no, charro beans are really not good with CFS. With CFS what you want is mashed potatoes so that you can put that cream gravy all over the CFS and the mashed potatoes. Although some people do like French fries and gravy with their CFS.

[awbrig]

I made CHicken Fried steak tonight with cube steak with Cajun - however my gravy really sucked...too bland, no flavor, not the right consistency..anybody have a good recipe for the gravy? thanks!

I browned flour in 2 tbls of the leftover oil from the CFS I then put in 3/4 cup milk and 3/4 cup water...and simmered...very poor!

[Nick]

When you're looking at thinly sliced roast beef at the deli counter of the local supermarket (or in the sealed plastic elsewhere), you're looking at round.

[Jinmyo]

When you're looking at thinly sliced roast beef at the deli counter of the local supermarket (or in the sealed plastic elsewhere), you're looking at round.

Ew.

[maggiethecat]

And while you're at it...how about the "Thin sliced"pork chops?

Tonkatsu?

You got it in one, Suzanne! That is the one and only purpose we have found for the thin-sliced pork chop.

No, no, no. Tonkatsu should be made with thick loin chops or tenderloin.

As for the thin chops:

Curries. Or deep-fried Chinese style pork.

My Exec Chef admonished me on this one. He's with you, and has only made it with tenderloin.

But well-bashed "thin pork chops?" I'll give it a try.

[snowangel]

When I do stir fry, I usually marinate the thin strips of beef (round steak) in soy, cornstarch, and perhaps some sugar or whatever.

Food scientists -- does this tenderize it at all or just provide flavoring?

[mamster]

Just flavor.

[Dana]

I never thought about a gravy "recipe", but here's what I do:

Pour out all but 2 or 3 TBLS from the frying pan (the one you fried the steaks in) and pour in maybe a cup of water and 'deglaze", scraping up all the browned bits from the bottom of the pan. In a small jar with a lid, shake up some (2-3 TBLS) of flour (Wondra is good) with some milk(1/2 cup) until it's lump-free. Pour flour/milk into the boiling water/oil mix slowly, stirring all the time. As it thickens, add more milk, or cream, till it gets to the thickness you like. Season with a heck of a lot of ground black pepper, and salt while it simmers. It will need to simmer 4 or 5 minutes to cook out the flour - less time if you use the Wondra.

[maggiethecat]

Dana: Thanks for the gravy formula. That was the bit I was running through in my head.

And from this, and another thread, I guess I must buy some Wondra!

[howard88]

Take three thin pork chops. Spread a stuffing mixture of

bread crumbs seasoned with garlic, onion, dijon, olive oil

and parsely on two of them. Stack three together and hold

with a long toothpick or short skewer. Saute in olive oil

and bake at 350 for 25 minutes.

[bushey]

When I do stir fry, I usually marinate the thin strips of beef (round steak) in soy, cornstarch, and perhaps some sugar or whatever.

Food scientists -- does this tenderize it at all or just provide flavoring?

Here's a hint: use a pinch of baking soda in the marinade to tenderize the meat. When you add it there's a little mini-volcano in the bowl.

One of most loved and well-used Chinese cookbooks (Black softcover, by Rose Cheng, I think) calls for about 1/2 tsp of baking soda in most of the beef marinades and it really works.

[maggiethecat]

Howard: Thanks for the excellent pork chop idea. We will try it.

Bushey: Very interesting! What I don't learn here at eGullet!

[Nick]

When I do stir fry, I usually marinate the thin strips of beef (round steak) in soy, cornstarch, and perhaps some sugar or whatever.

Food scientists -- does this tenderize it at all or just provide flavoring?

Why the cornstarch?

[snowangel]

Food scientists -- does this tenderize it at all or just provide flavoring?

Why the cornstarch?

[Nick]

Because I've always done it that way....

I can't help but throw this story in here -

A woman was putting together a pot roast for herself and a friend and before putting the meat in the pot she cut off a piece and threw it away. Her friend asked why she had done that and she replied that it was the way her mother did it.

So the friend went to to the woman's mother and asked why she cut off the piece of meat and threw it away before putting the meat in the pot. The mother replied, "That's the way my mother did it."

So the young man went to the grandmother and asked why she had cut off the piece of meat and thrown it away.

The grandmother replied, "Because the piece of meat was too big to fit in the pot."

[snowangel]

I knew there was a reason I have always done the cornstarch in marinade thing for Chinese food (yes, my answer, in retrospect was rather silly; what I meant is that I have always done it that way because that's how I was taught by a little old Chinese lady who spoke no English). I quote from Barbara Tropp's Modern Art of Chinese Cooking: "Used in the right measure, it performs at least three important jobs in a Chinese kitchen. One, it binds the liquid ingredients of a marinade to each other and to the meat, poultry, or fish being marinated. Two, it protects fragile food against the heat of the pan or the oil, often creating a crispy coating around it. Third (and lease used in my own kitchen), cornstarch thickens a sauce so that it clings lightly to the food, a feat it can achieve agreeably enough if it us used in moderate amounts."

[Nick]

Thanks, Angel. I'll be giving cornstarch a try in the next marinade that's right for doing that.

[project]

  Jaymes:

 

  For your question:

 

  Wow -- I mean, regarding your somewhat unusual

  "style."

 

  Are you beaming that down from the Mother Ship?

 

  Well, something like that. Here's how that goes: The

  visible irregularities in the 3 K microwave background

  radiation show that in the large, two beams of light that

  start parallel neither converge nor diverge which means

  that on the large scale the geometry of our universe is

  'flat'. The rotation of galaxies has long shown that

  there is more mass there than is visible; so there is

  some 'dark matter' there which interacts at most very

  weakly with ordinary matter and which has mass several

  times that of ordinary matter. The big bang was a very

  sudden expansion of space itself so that pairs of

  particles were soon separating much faster than the speed

  of light -- possible because they were not traveling

  through space faster than the speed of light. This

  expansion together with flatness shows that there is some

  missing mass, 'dark energy', with total mass about twice

  that of the sum of ordinary matter and the dark matter,

  and with 'negative pressure' which caused the expansion.

  Recent comparisons of the apparent brightness of

  astronomical standard candles and red shifts show that

  the universe has been expanding more quickly recently,

  which is more evidence of dark energy.

 

  Well, my Internet connection passes through dark matter

  and energy, and resonances during the transit cause the

  characters to be converted to monospaced fonts!

 

  That's one explanation!

[Nick]

Ah, and so it looks like this under those conditions. My

own connection now seems to be passing through the same dark matter and

energy with sypmpathic resonances. But, I think I like things

the other way so I'll reset my doppleganger port to null.

There, that's better.

[Jaymes]

The big bang was a very

       sudden expansion of space itself so that pairs of

       particles were soon separating much faster than the speed

       of light -- possible because they were not traveling

       through space faster than the speed of light.  This

       expansion together with flatness shows that there is some

       missing mass, 'dark energy', with total mass about twice

       that of the sum of ordinary matter and the dark matter,

       and with 'negative pressure' which caused the expansion.

 

So, THAT'S what the "big bang" theory was all about.

And here I always thought it had something to do with that really wild and trampy fat girl I knew back in high school.

[Toliver]

While this may be an old thread it’s nostalgic for me, too, reminding me of my childhood comfort food.

Round Steak was one of three dishes in our home: Chicken Fried Steak, Swiss Steak or, rarely, a Poor Man’s Beef Stroganoff.

The Chicken Fried Steak was the star dish as far as I was concerned. For CFS, the round steak did get pounded with a mallet or passed through the butcher’s tenderizer (as another poster mentioned). The steak was cut into little individual “steaks” which were then dunked in an egg wash (with a little bit of water added to stretch the eggs to last through both slabs of steak). It was then dipped into a mixture of mostly corn flake crumbs & some flour (seasoned with garlic powder, onion flakes, salt & pepper). Then they were pan-fried in Crisco until crispy brown on both sides. Unfortunately, from there they were put into a pan, covered with foil and put in the oven for a half hour, completely “sogging” the formerly-crispy coating. And she wondered why her coating never stuck to the steak…

It wasn’t until just recently that my oldest brother (aka the Gourmet Black Sheep) showed her how to coat the steaks with flour before the egg wash to help the corn flake crumb mixture stick better. As an added bonus he showed her that if the steaks were pounded thin enough they wouldn’t need the sauna in the oven to complete the cooking. She was delighted and amazed and said “Old Bohemians can learn new tricks!” (her parents were from the Old Country). She would always save the piece that had the bone in it for me because she knew how much I liked the marrow.

The Swiss Steak was from a recipe that was in the booklet that came with her Presto pressure cooker (very 50’s!) which she received as a wedding present. The pressure cooker would make the steak fork tender. It also made an excellent (if thick) gravy for mashed potatoes (which all four of us brothers would fight over before it was gone). I’m not sure of the recipe since she has it memorized and doesn’t have to get the recipe booklet out anymore (it’s buried somewhere in one of her kitchen drawers). I know the round steak is coated in seasoned flour and browned in a little bit of Crisco inside the pressure cooker. After that’s it’s a mélange of tomato sauce & green peppers and I’m not sure what else (I do recall celery salt but not much more) and on goes the lid. She still uses the, by now, 47 year old pressure cooker though she did have to call Presto and order another gasket (They had it in stock. Way to go Presto!).

If anyone is truly interested in the totally retro Swiss Steak recipe, I am sure she won’t mind me excavating through her kitchen drawers to find it.

As for the Beef Stroganoff, it was thinly cut strips of round steak in a delicious brown sauce/gravy with mushrooms and some sort of (egg?) noodles and I’m not sure what else. We knew it was a “la-dee-da” dish because she would add sour cream (not an every day item back then for us) into the dish just before serving. Plus, instead of serving the usual ubiquitous brown-and-serve dinner roll with the Stroganoff, she would have my dad slice soft rolls (a kind of egg bread?) in half, dip the cut sides in butter and brown them in a skillet. They were delicious when used to sop up the “gravy”.

Yes, I am truly a fan of round steak.