When I started teaching, I became friends with a teacher who became sort of a mentor in non school things. He made wine, smoked meats and threw great parties. One annual party was his birthday party and he smoked a whole pig for that occasion. About as often as not I was the bartender. At one party, I overheard two other teachers tell him that their years long quest was to find the restaurant that made the best Country Fried Steak. I can't describe what I thought about that but Don Quixote and Sanjo Panza who set out on a quests with little chance of reward came to mind. Now decades later my son has started that same search for the Chicken Fried Steak they had at the high school cafeteria and I am old enough to understand why people crave food they had while growing up. I found a reciipe that had the right taste but still something was not just right. Charlie found a school cafeteria cookbook with Country Fried Steak in it. The revelation was that instead of using a cheap, tough but tenderized piece of meat, they used seasoned ground beef pressed out on sheet pans and baked, then cut into individual sizes. It was seasoned with salt, pepper, dehydrated onions and some flour.
I am baking hamburger paddies and then treating them like the recipe below. Probably the last thing to do is find the right thickness for the meat. So far it has been too thick for his liking, but otherwise it seemsllike we are on the right track.
Chicken Fried Steak recipe from Threadgills -
Recipe By : Threadgill's - The Cookbook ISBN 1-56352-277-2
Threadgill's meat seasoning mix
1/2 cup kosher salt
4 tablespoons black pepper
2 tablespoons white pepper
1 1/2 teaspoons cayenne pepper
2 tablespoons granulated onion
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cumin
4 tablespoons granulated garlic
2 tablespoons paprika
Mix ingredients well. Store in a glass jar or plastic container. Keep tightly
sealed. Shake before each use to prevent settling.
8 6 ounce tenderized beef cutlets -- at room temperature
2 eggs
2 cups milk -- at room temperature
3 cups flour
2 teaspoons Threadgill's Meat Seasoning
2 cups frying oil -- preferably canola
Whisk eggs and milk together in a bowl and set this egg wash aside. Combine
the flour and meat seasoning in another bowl and set aside. Heat the oil in a
heavy 14-inch cast-iron skillet over medium heat to 350 degrees F. Use a 550
degree thermometer to check temperature. The oil should pop loudly when a
drop of egg wash is dropped in.
Dip each of the first 4 cutlets in the egg wash mixture. Dredge them in the flour,
then dip them back into the egg wash, and very gently place them in the hot oil.
As you carry them one at a time from the egg wash to the skillet, hold a plate
under them to catch the dripping egg wash. There'll be a regular explosion of
noisy oil a-popping.
Cook for 3 to 5 minutes, until breading is set and golden brown. Gently turn
them with a long-handled meat fork or long metal tongs. Be careful. Cook
another 3 minutes.
Carefully remove them from the skillet and drain on a platter lined with paper
towels. Let oil reheat and repeat process for other 4 cutlets.
Serve with White Cream Gravy and Mashed Potatoes.
