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Chex Mix
Lidey Heuck
242 ratings with an average rating of 4 out of 5 stars
242
1 hour, plus cooling
Published Dec. 6, 2023
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Prepare your dredging station: Place the flour, paprika, garlic powder, onion powder, cayenne pepper, 1½ teaspoons salt and 1 teaspoon black pepper in a shallow dish or pie plate, and stir well to combine. Taste a little bit of the flour mixture and adjust seasoning as needed. In another similar dish, add the milk and egg, and beat until well combined. Place a sheet pan or a large plate beside you as a landing place for the meat.
Season both sides of the steak with salt and pepper. Place each piece of meat in the seasoned flour, shaking off any excess. Dip in the milk mixture, and then again in the flour mixture. Place on the sheet pan.
Heat the oven to 200 degrees. Place a wire rack on a second sheet pan. In a large cast-iron or similar pan, heat the oil (about ½ inch) over medium-high until shimmering. Reduce heat to medium and add 1 to 2 steaks at a time, without crowding the pan. It should sizzle as soon as the meat hits the pan. Fry until golden brown and crisp, about 3 minutes per side, adjusting the heat as needed. (It’s OK if you lose a little bit of the crust to the pan.) Transfer the fried steaks to the wire rack and place in the oven to keep warm. Repeat with the remaining meat, adding more oil as needed.
Make the pan gravy, if using. (For very white gravy, follow this recipe.) Turn off the heat. Using a mesh strainer, carefully strain the oil into a heatproof measuring cup or bowl. Discard any large bits left in the pan. Pour ¼ cup of the strained oil back into the pan and heat over medium-low. Whisk in the flour, 2 tablespoons at a time, scraping up any small bits stuck on the bottom of the pan. Continuously whisk until the mixture becomes a thin paste, about 2 minutes. Increase the heat to medium, slowly pour in the milk, continuously whisking or stirring until the gravy coats the back of a spoon, about 5 minutes. Season with salt and pepper. (If the gravy is too thick, stir in a bit more milk.)
Transfer the chicken fried steaks to plates and pour as much gravy as you like over the top. Season with more black pepper, if you like.
No need to strain the oil or discard the large bits - leave all that good stuff in the pan to elevate the gravy.
This is my secret (no longer!) not-good-for-you dinner. Crispy, well-seasoned, done in a couple of minutes. I find that there's enough flour residue in the pan to make the gravy without needing to make the roux, just get rid of the extra grease, deglaze with some water and then boil that down and add some milk; it thickens nicely. Serve with something non-guilt-inducing, like broccoli. A glass of good wine and you're good to go!
This can also be made using cubed pork steak. Not much difference in flavor, but generally tenderer.
For sublimely tender steaks, rub 1 teaspoon of baking soda onto each steak before seasoning with salt and pepper.
This is exactly how my mom makes her chicken fried steak. It was always one of my favorite meals growing up. One thing to note is to make sure you pat the cube steak dry before dredging it in flour.
Growing up on the Bayou, we ate this every Sunday. Sometimes we’d have crawdads too. If we didn’t have no crawdads, we ate sand. We ate sand.
For the roux, heat solid bits and 2-3 tbls of the oil (no straining necessary) on med/med high until hot, then add an equal amount of flour. Stir until well mixed and bubbling. Season the roux (rather than seasoning the gravy) with lots of salt and pepper, constantly stirring until it begins to brown. Then add the milk and simmer, stirring frequently, until it reaches the desired thickness. This can take 5-10 (or more) minutes. Serve immediately.
Anyone who grew up eating their mamma's chicken fried steak knows that the best part is making a sandwich the next day with leftovers (if there are any). Soft white bread, lots of mayo, iceberg lettuce and a chicken fried steak. Heaven.
Does this mean that you didn't make this recipe?
The trouble with fried cube steaks is they are never very tender. Almost better to dredge a hamburger. I’ve begun to pan fry cube steaks, add onion gravy and cook in oven at 300 for 2 hours. Flavorful and no gristle.
I prefer to use tenderized round steak or something similar and a frying pan on the range. Oil only to about a quarter inch on the side of the steak.
Get cubes steaks. Pat them dry. Season them with plenty of salt and fresh cracked pepper as well as a bit of baking soda. Not a lot, maybe a teaspoon per pound. Let them rest in the fridge for 40 mins to an hour. While they're in the fridge, make a dredge of flour and plenty of Tony Cachere's Creole Seasoning (maybe a tablespoon per cup). Dredge and let sit for ten minutes. Cook in a well heated cast iron pan with high flash oil about 400. Don't drain bits. Add flour. Lightly brown. Add milk.
I have my butcher split a couple of New York Strip Steaks. Cube stakes have gotten pretty tough and more gristle than steak. Pour off all but about 2 Tablespoons of grease and leave the brown bits then make the rue same way. In between the four dredging I beat an egg with a little milk and a jigger of vodka - good crust.
Also good with venison your uncle bagged in the fall.
Y’all. White gravy needs sausage drippings in it. For real gravy, start there.
I made these today exactly as written and they were good. Loved the gravy! Thanks to a helpful commenter, I sprinkled some baking soda on the steaks at the same time as the seasoning to help tenderize the steaks. I'll probably use a spice blend in the flour dredge next time, too. Thanks again, Mr. Deravian and helpful commenters.
I grew up eating and loving Chicken Fried Steak. But now our consumption of industrially raised animals, especially cattle, is stressing out Mother Nature and contributing to the dangerously rapid warming of Living World. We need to radically reduce our consumption of meat and dairy — and when/if we do eat meat/dairy, choose animals who’ve been humanely raised and slaughtered, been fed organic feed or are 100% grass-fed on plants not doused in pesticides or imported from deforested regions.
Does this mean that you didn't make this recipe?
"Or, you can tenderize it yourself with a meat mallet." If you are going to make a decent chicken fried steak, you take round steak and beat it with a mallet or the side of a desert plate. You would NEVER use cubed steak. Lord a mighty!!! as my West Texas grandmother would say.
I make it almost exactly like this recipe, but with nods to Mom's "Missouri style" chicken fried steak with white gravy. Mom used a lot, lot of coarse black pepper in the dredge and in the gravy, and would only add garlic and onion powder if she felt like it, but never used paprika or cayenne in this particular dish. She fried in lard or shortening. I use vegetable oil. Her's was better. Mashed potatoes are a must, green beans cooked to death with bacon and onions also traditional.
Anyone who grew up eating their mamma's chicken fried steak knows that the best part is making a sandwich the next day with leftovers (if there are any). Soft white bread, lots of mayo, iceberg lettuce and a chicken fried steak. Heaven.
I agree Cube Steak is very tough unless it's baked with gravy for hours, but I might try this anyway because it just sounds so good. Maybe I'll just pound it out a little bit more, that might help. And Pickering LaRoux ate sand so I think a little raw flour in the mouth may not prove fatal.
Growing up on the Bayou, we ate this every Sunday. Sometimes we’d have crawdads too. If we didn’t have no crawdads, we ate sand. We ate sand.
The trouble with fried cube steaks is they are never very tender. Almost better to dredge a hamburger. I’ve begun to pan fry cube steaks, add onion gravy and cook in oven at 300 for 2 hours. Flavorful and no gristle.
I am a recent convert to low-salt eating, for very good medical reasons. If I leave out or sharply reduce the amount of salt called for in this recipe, will it still work *other than* the obvious change in flavor? Or will the batter become a flop entirely?
For the roux, heat solid bits and 2-3 tbls of the oil (no straining necessary) on med/med high until hot, then add an equal amount of flour. Stir until well mixed and bubbling. Season the roux (rather than seasoning the gravy) with lots of salt and pepper, constantly stirring until it begins to brown. Then add the milk and simmer, stirring frequently, until it reaches the desired thickness. This can take 5-10 (or more) minutes. Serve immediately.
This is exactly how my mom makes her chicken fried steak. It was always one of my favorite meals growing up. One thing to note is to make sure you pat the cube steak dry before dredging it in flour.
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