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by Cheryl Jamison


  * * *

  Chuck-Wagon Sop

  Cowboys called their favorite steak gravy "sop." It wasn't a cream gravy in the early years, because there were no dairy products on the trail drives. This is the original version, as basic as it comes. Our Classic Cream Gravy, a more flavorful sop, follows.

  ½ cup pan drippings

  2 tablespoons all-purpose flour

  ½ cup water

  Makes about 1 cup

  When the Original Chuck-Wagon Fried Steak is cooked, pour off the top fat in the skillet, leaving about a half cup of suet, meat drippings, and excess cooked flour in the bottom of the pan. Place the skillet over medium heat. Stir in the new flour, mixing well and browning it lightly. Add the water, and simmer until the gravy is thick.

  Serve the sop on the steak and some accompanying Sourdough Biscuits ([>]).

  Variation: With a few adjustments, old-fashioned sop can still appeal to contemporary tenderfoot tastes. Reduce the amount of suet and drippings to ¼ cup, stir in a minced garlic clove, substitute beef stock for water, and add salt to taste and a liberal grind of black pepper.

  * * *

  The staples of the cowboy diet were beef, flour, coffee, beans, salt pork or bacon, syrup (usually molasses), and dried fruit. "Coosie" or "Cookie," as the cook was known, also carried salt, pepper, and baking soda, and, when feasible, sugar, spices, potatoes, and onions. In later years there was rice, and cans of corn and tomatoes, but these weren't always popular.

  * * *

  Classic Cream Gravy

  Cream gravies took some time to catch on as the proper sop for fried steaks. Even after canned milk became available on the range, many cow-boys scorned it as "canned cow." This is our version of a cream gravy for a modern chicken-fried steak, based on the old sop and some of that "canned cow."

  ¼ cup pan drippings

  3 tablespoons all-purpose flour

  2 cups evaporated milk

  1 cup unsalted beef stock

  ½ teaspoon fresh-ground black pepper, plus more to taste

  Salt to taste

  Makes about 3 cups

  After cooking a chicken-fried steak or similar dish, pour off the top fat through a strainer, leaving about ¼ cup of the pan drippings in the bottom of the skillet. Return any browned cracklings from the strainer to the skillet before starting on the gravy.

  Place the skillet over medium heat. Sprinkle in the flour, stirring to avoid lumps. Add the evaporated milk and stock. Simmer until the liquid is thickened and the raw flour taste is gone, about 3 minutes. Stir the gravy up from the bottom frequently, scraping up any browned bits. Add the pepper and the salt to taste. The gravy should have a strong peppery flavor; add more pepper if it is needed.

  Spoon the gravy over the steak and Prime-Time Mashed Potatoes ([>]), and serve immediately.

  * * *

  In Texas during the Depression, gravy became a way of stretching a little meat to feed a full household. Recalling those days in Mrs. Blackwell's Heart of Texas Cookbook: A Tasty Memoir of the Depression, Louise B. Dillow and Deenie B. Carver say the amount of gravy was in inverse proportion to the amount of meat, but the gravy was always fresh. Even in lean times, stiff leftover gravy went to the hogs.

  * * *

  Braggin'-Rights Chicken-Fried Steak

  In writing this chapter we tried every variation on chicken-fried steak that we could invent, coax from friends, or find in Texas cookbooks. We've included four other great recipes, but this was our personal favorite, the one we fine-tuned to become a family heirloom. Spicier and crunchier than most CFSs, it'll keep any cowboy or cowgirl from roaming the range.

  1¾

  to

  2 pounds round steak, sliced ½ inch thick and twice-tenderized by the butcher

  2 cups all-purpose flour

  2 teaspoons baking powder

  1 teaspoon baking soda

  1 teaspoon fresh-ground black pepper

  ¾ teaspoon salt

  1½ cups buttermilk

  1 egg

  1 tablespoon Tabasco or other hot pep per sauce

  2 garlic cloves, minced

  Vegetable shortening, preferably Crisco, for deep frying

  Serves 4

  Cut the steak into four equal portions. Pound the portions until each is about ¼ inch thick.

  Place the flour in a shallow bowl. In a second dish, stir together the baking powder and soda, pepper, and salt, and mix in the buttermilk, egg, Tabasco, and garlic. The mixture will be thin. Dredge each steak first in flour and then in the batter. Dunk the steaks back into the flour and dredge them well, patting in the flour until the surface of the meat is dry.

  Add enough shortening to a deep cast-iron skillet or Dutch oven to deep-fry the steaks in at least 4 inches of fat. Bring the temperature of the shortening to 325° F. Fry the steaks, pushing them down under the fat or turning them over as they bob to the surface, for 7 to 8 minutes, or until they are golden brown. Drain the steaks, and transfer them to a platter. Keep them warm while you prepare Classic Cream Gravy ([>]).

  Place the steaks on separate plates, spoon Prime-Time Mashed Potatoes ([>]) next to them, and cover both generously with the gravy. Serve immediately.

  * * *

  Most cattlemen were of the sex suggested by the term, but a number of women breached the ranks from the beginning. Lizzie Johnson, who registered her brand in 1871 at the age of 29, even led a drive up the Chisholm Trail.

  * * *

  * * *

  Technique Tips

  The Braggin'-Rights Chicken-Fried Steak and the other top versions that follow share several important characteristics.

  The meat should be round steak, sliced no more than ½ inch thick. Some people chicken-fry more tender and expensive cuts, such as sirloin or even tenderloin, but the preparation does nothing for the meat. Other folks advocate veal, apparently unaware of the superiority of the similar German dish, wiener schnitzel. Venison is too lean for this cooking method.

  You must pound the round steak as if you're training for a night of S&M. Let your butcher start the process by twice-tenderizing the meat at the store. When that's done, it should resemble a steak that wrestled with a waffle iron and lost. Then begin your own assault, pulverizing the meat with a mallet or other utensil until the sad-looking hunk has been reduced to about ¼ inch in thickness.

  Fry the steak in a cast-iron skillet. If you don't have one, go out to eat.

  Use only cream gravy on a CFS. The people who prefer brown gravy were born without the Texas chromosome.

  The rest of the details are variables. People of decent moral sense and good taste genuinely differ on whether you soak the meat, dip it in batter or dredge it in flour, add much in the way of seasoning, use shortening or oil, and pan-fry or deep-fry.

  * * *

  Gary Cartwright's Chicken-Fried Steak

  Gary Cartwright cooks chicken-fried steak almost as well as he writes. He favors marinating the meat in buttermilk for exactly 20 minutes—more makes it mushy—and double-dipping it in seasoned flour. We've used those tips in creating our version of his CFS.

  1¾

  to

  2 pounds round steak, cut ½ inch thick and tenderized by the butcher

  2 cups buttermilk

  2 cups all-purpose flour

  ½ teaspoon salt

  ½ teaspoon fresh-ground black pepper

  Oil, preferably corn or canola, for frying

  Serves 4

  Cut the steak into four equal portions. Pound the portions, if needed, until each is about ⅓ to ¼ inch thick. Arrange the steaks in a shallow dish, and pour the buttermilk over them. Marinate the steaks in the buttermilk for 20 minutes, no longer.

  Drain and blot the meat lightly to remove excess moisture from the surface. Reserve the buttermilk.

  In a shallow dish, combine the flour with the salt and pepper. Dredge the steaks in the flour, dip them in the buttermilk, and dredge them again in the seasoned flour.

  Pour enough oil into a c
ast-iron skillet so that the steaks will be half-immersed in it during the frying. Warm the oil over medium heat. Add the steaks and fry them, turning them carefully once, until the meat is fully cooked through and the coating is dark brown and crusty, about 8 minutes total. Drain the steaks, and transfer them to a platter. Keep them warm while you prepare a cream gravy from the drippings.

  * * *

  Don't mess with Gary Cartwright's chicken-fried steak: "People who didn't grow up in Texas believe that chicken-fried steak is a put on, like those jackalope trophies you see in roadside souvenir shops. It is even possible, I suppose, for people born and reared in Texas to be suspicious of this ethnic creation—witness that renowned fop, Larry McMurtry, who once wrote that chicken-fried steak looks like an old piece of wood with the paint sanded off. For all I know, McMurtry has never eaten a real CFS; for all I know, McMurtry was born in New Hampshire, the illegitimate son of Noel Coward and Aimee Semple McPherson. "—Gary Cartwright, "I Am The Greatest Cook In The World," Texas monthly (February, 1983)

  * * *

  W. Park Kerr's Chicken-Fried Steak

  Park Kerr and his mother, Norma, are the talent behind El Paso Chile Company, a premier source for Texas salsas and condiments. The Kerrs make a superlative chicken-fried steak as well, using the tenets of the beaten-egg-and-cracker-crumb school of thought. They describe their recipe like this in their El Paso Chile Company's Texas Border Cookbook.

  1¾

  to

  2 pounds round steak, cut ½ inch thick and tenderized by the butcher

  Salt

  Fresh-ground black pepper

  ¾ cup unbleached all-purpose flour

  2 eggs

  1 tablespoon Tabasco or other hot pepper sauce

  4 cups coarsely crushed saltine crackers (about 1½ bags of crackers from a "four-bagger" 1-pound box)

  ¼ cup corn oil

  4 cups milk

  Serves 4

  Cut the steak into four equal portions. Pound the portions, if needed, until each is about ¼ to ⅓ inch thick. Season each steak on both sides with a pinch of salt and one of pepper, rubbing the salt and pepper into the meat.

  Lightly beat the eggs with the hot pepper sauce. One at a time, dredge the steaks in the flour, then in the egg, then in the cracker crumbs. Reserve ¼ cup of the flour.

  In a large cast-iron skillet over medium heat, warm the corn oil. Add the steaks, and cook them, turning them carefully once or twice, until the meat is fully cooked through and the crumb coating is brown and crisp, 8 to 10 minutes total. Drain the steaks. Transfer them to a platter, and keep them warm.

  Pour all but 4 tablespoons of the fat from the skillet through a strainer, and discard it. Return any cracklings from the strainer to the skillet, and set the skillet over low heat. Whisk the reserved ¼ cup flour into the fat in the skillet, and cook over low heat, stirring and scraping, for 2 minutes. Gradually whisk in the milk. Raise the heat slightly, and bring the gravy to a simmer. Cook, stirring often and scraping the browned deposits from the bottom of the skillet, until the gravy has thickened, 5 to 6 minutes. Taste the gravy, and adjust the seasoning.

  Arrange the steaks on four plates. Spoon mashed potatoes next to the steaks, and top generously with the gravy. Serve immediately.

  * * *

  Technique Tips

  Texas Highways once recommended a range of instruments for pounding a CFS, including the blunt end of a butcher knife, a hammer, a mallet, the butt end of a bottle, and the side of a saucer. The magazine quoted one restaurateur as saying to beat the meat into "the size of an L.P. record," which is about four times larger than a CD, in case you're too young to remember.

  * * *

  * * *

  Cactus Pryor, an Austin radio personality, said he had a hand in "chicken-frying cosmopolitan Houston" in 1947. As the new program manager of an independent station competing against network giants, he proposed doing a "Houston Hoedown" during prime time. The owner objected at first, saying, "Man, we're uptown, have private clubs that serve mixed drinks and cafes that feature steaks that are not fried. This ain't no hick town." Pryor prevailed and so did the show, a big hit when radio was in its heyday.

  * * *

  Daddy-O's Hot-Times Chicken-Fried Steak

  Bob "Daddy-O" Wade—the Texas artist who made the famous dancing frogs for the roof of Carl's Corner Truck Stop on Interstate 35—inspired this CFS marinated in jalapeño juice. Bob used to step lively around town until his wife Lisa tamed him and took him off to the mountains. These days Daddy-O's hankering for hot times is often satisfied by a chicken-fried steak.

  1¾

  to

  2 pounds round steak, cut ½ inch thick and twice-tenderized by the butcher

  1 cup plus 2 tablespoons pickling liquid from a jar of pickled jalapeños

  2 eggs

  2 cups all-purpose flour

  ½ teaspoon salt

  ½ teaspoon fresh-ground black pepper

  Vegetable shortening, preferably Crisco, for frying

  Serves 4

  Cut the steak into four equal portions. Pound the portions, if needed, until each is about ⅓ to ¼ inch thick. Arrange the steaks in a shallow nonreactive dish, and pour 1 cup of the jalapeño liquid over them. Marinate the steaks in the jalapeño liquid for 2 hours. Most of the liquid will be absorbed into the steaks. Drain and blot lightly to remove excess moisture from the surface.

  Mix the remaining jalapeño liquid with the egg in a shallow dish. Stir together the flour, salt, and pepper in another dish. Dredge the steak in the flour, then dip it in the egg, and back in the flour.

  Put enough shortening into a cast-iron skillet so that the steaks will be half-immersed in it during the frying. Warm the fat over medium heat. Add the steaks and fry them, turning them carefully once, until the meat is fully cooked through and the crumb coating is brown and crisp, about 8 minutes total. Drain the steaks, and transfer them to a platter. Keep them warm while you prepare Classic Cream Gravy ([>]) from the drippings.

  Place the steaks on separate plates, add Paris's Best French Fries ([>]), and cover both generously with the gravy. Serve immediately.

  * * *

  The "Trucker Special" at Carl's Corner in Hillsboro is two chicken-fried steaks for only a dollar more than one.

  * * *

  Nuevo Laredo Chicken-Fried Steak

  This nearly nouvelle CFS features a beer bath, border seasonings, and a crust made with masa harina, the specially-treated cornmeal used for tortillas and tamales.

  1¾

  to

  2 pounds round steak, sliced ½ inch thick and twice-tenderized by the butcher

  12 ounces beer

  2 garlic cloves, minced

  1 ⅓ cups all-purpose flour

  ⅔ cup masa harina

  2 teaspoons cumin seeds, toasted and ground

  1 teaspoon ground dried red chile, preferably New Mexican or ancho

  1 teaspoon salt

  ½ teaspoon dried oregano, preferably Mexican

  1 egg

  Oil, preferably corn or canola, for deep frying

  Serves 4

  Cut the steak into four equal portions. Pound the portions, if needed, until each is about ⅓ to ¼ inch thick. Arrange the steaks in a shallow nonreactive dish, pour all but 2 tablespoons of the beer over them, and add the garlic. Marinate the steaks in the beer for at least 30 minutes and up to 2 hours.

  While the steaks are soaking, combine the flour, masa harina, cumin, chile, salt, and oregano in a shallow dish. In another dish, mix the egg with the remaining 2 tablespoons of beer. Drain the steaks, and blot lightly with paper towels to remove excess moisture from the surface.

  Dredge the steaks in the masa-flour mixture, then in the beer and egg. Dunk them back in the flour again, patting the flour in well to absorb moisture.

  Add enough oil to a deep cast-iron skillet or Dutch oven to deep-fry the steaks. Bring the oil's temperature to 325° F, and deep-fry the steaks, pushing them down under the fat or turnin
g them over as they bob to the surface, for 7 to 8 minutes, until they are medium brown. Drain the steaks, and transfer them to a platter. Keep them warm while you prepare Classic Cream Gravy ([>]) from the drippings.

  Place the steaks on separate plates, spoon Prime-Time Mashed Potatoes with onion ([>]) next to them, and cover both generously with the gravy. Serve immediately.

  Cowboy T-Bone

  When contemporary cowboys aren't feasting on a CFS, they're likely to have a plain ol' thick and juicy T-bone, absolutely unadorned. They usually pan-fry it, or grill it over a hot mesquite fire, easily the best methods since broiling doesn't sear the surface properly.

  4 1-pound T-bone steaks, 1½ inches thick

  Salt and fresh-ground black pepper to taste

  Serves 4 cowboys

  Rub the steaks well with the salt and pepper, and allow them to come to room temperature.

 

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