A few weeks ago, my friend Starr blogged about making chicken-fried steak. This is one of my favorite foods, although I seldom eat it. Not all chicken-fried steaks are created equal, for one thing. I don’t eat gravy, which often comes on chicken-fried steak and can mask one that’s otherwise dry or flavorless. The breading/batter makes a big difference as well. I know Starr makes good food, though, so I decided to give hers a try, and just leave out the gravy (which I know borders on Southern heresy).
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To bump up the Southern-ness of the meal, I decided to cook my green beans in bacon grease. I also made buttermilk biscuits. The biscuits were nothing special. They were from the Bride and Groom Cookbook (affiliate link), and I don’t feel like going to find the recipe right now, particularly since I’m not really recommending it.
I started with some cube steaks. As Starr did, I dipped the meat into a mixture of one cup flour with 1 teaspoon garlic powder and ¼ tsps each of cayenne and black pepper (and a little salt). I then dipped the steaks into a mixture of 3 eggs, ½ cup buttermilk, salt, pepper, and ¼ teaspoon sriracha. Then the meat was dredged with the flour mixture again, and went into hot oil.
I haven’t (deep) fried something on the stove in a long time, so I was a bit nervous about this. I did have a little too much oil in my pan – it did cover the steak when I put it in the pan, but it sizzled from the hot oil. I don’t think it was quite hot enough to do it justice, though. So, my steak ended up a little less crispy than would have been ideal. I only cooked them for about 5 or 6 minutes each, but unfortunately my pan is small so I had to fry them one at a time.
Alex and I both really enjoyed this, and I’m going to try it again. I thought this was good as it was, even though it wasn’t thoroughly crispy. Even so, I’ll use a little less oil and have it hotter so that I can try to have a crispier steak. Also, since I don’t eat gravy with this, I’m going to increase the spices a little bit. I had a lot of the buttermilk mixture left after making 3 steaks, so I may use less in the future.
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