Chicken Fried Steak

By bjlazyl

Ingredients

• NTS
• 2 cups plus 3 tbsp. flour
• 2 tsp. paprika
• Freshly ground black pepper and kosher salt, to taste
• 1 cup buttermilk
• 1 tsp. Tabasco, plus more to taste
• 1 egg
• 4 4-6-oz. cube steaks, pounded to 1/4" thickness
• Canola oil, for frying
• 3 tbsp. unsalted butter
• 2 cups milk

Details

Servings 4
Adapted from saveur.com

Preparation

Step 1

1. Heat oven to 200˚; put a baking sheet fitted with a rack inside. In a shallow dish, whisk together 2 cups flour, paprika, pepper, and salt. In another dish, whisk together buttermilk, 1 tsp. Tabasco, and egg. Season steaks with salt and pepper. Working with one steak at a time, dredge in flour mixture, then egg mixture, and again in flour; shake off excess. Transfer to plate.

2. Pour oil into a 12" cast-iron skillet to a depth of ½"; heat over medium-high heat until a deep-fry thermometer reads 320˚. Working in 2 batches, fry steaks, flipping once, until golden brown, 6-8 minutes. Place steaks on rack in oven to keep warm.

3. Melt butter in a 2-qt. saucepan over medium-high heat. Whisk in remaining flour; cook until golden, 1-2 minutes. Whisk in milk; cook, whisking, until thick. Season with Tabasco and salt and pepper. Serve steaks with gravy.

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1st non-Texan here. Make enough gravy to serve as a beverage, using pan drippings and blk pepper

As another born and bred Texan, I agree the previous reviewer. You MUST use the pan drippings and lots of black pepper to make the gravy.

3rd Texan checking in and making it unanimous - gravy must made from from pan drippings using lots of black pepper. Don't forget to make enough gravy for the mandatory mashed potatoes.

Another Texan (6th generation but recent transplant to Pensacola FL) weighing in and agreeing with the other Texans. The recipe looks not too far off from what I do to my CFS, but absolutely use pan drippings in the skillet to make your gravy with--and forget this healthy business, use lard that you've rendered yourself (not the shelf stable kind) as your cooking fat, if you've got it. Butter for gravy? Heck no! Also don't go getting snooty and replacing the round, or cube, steak with something like a thin ribeye--the whole point of CFS in the first place was making something good out of a cheap and tough cut of meat. Go messing with a classic, and you ruin the classic.

Not a Texan, was a saucier-sauce maker. You must have some of the fats and all of the drippings to make a good gravy, and then salt and lots of pepper. The way the recipe is written, that's not going to happen.

Two things: 2 cups of flour is way more than needed to coat 4 steaks plus it drowns out the meager amount of seasoning called for. Then, the milk/egg wash is just that - it is too thin and washes off the seasoning and first dip in flour. Maybe next time I'll put 1/2 cup of that flour in the milk and make a thin batter then dredge the steaks in the seasoned flour.

I added a 1/4 teaspoon onion powder to the gravy to pump up the flavor a bit.