Texas Chicken Fried Steak

By DIANETHORNTON

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 pounds top-round steak
• 2 cups flour
• 3 large eggs
• 1/2 cup milk or buttermilk
• 2 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1 teaspoon black pepper
• 1/4 teaspoon cayenne
• 2 cups flour
• 1 1/2 cups cream gravy

Details

Servings 4
Preparation time 25mins
Cooking time 25mins
Adapted from homesicktexan.blogspot.com

Preparation

Step 1

Method:
Cut top-round steak into 4 pieces. Pound beef with a meat tenderizer until flattened and almost doubled in size.

Place flour in a large bowl and season with salt and pepper to taste. Mix eggs in another large bowl with milk. Take piece of tenderized beef and coat in flour. Dip coated beef into egg mixture and then dip back into flour again.

Heat on medium enough oil or lard to fill halfway up the sides of a cast-iron skillet. When a drop of water makes the oil sizzle, it's ready for frying. Take the coated beef and place it in the skillet. When the blood starts bubbling out of the top of the steak (about 3 to 4 minutes) gently turn it over with a long fork (using a spatula can cause the oil to splash out of the skillet).

Cook another 5 minutes and then take the chicken-fried steak out of the pan and drain on a paper-towel-lined plate. Repeat process for remaining cutlets. And while you're frying the others, you can keep the cooked steaks warm in the oven.

Serve with cream gravy made from the pan drippings.
A couple of things we do differently. I won't say these make CFS better; no way would I claim to improve on your dad's recipe!

1. Add some cornstarch to the flour used in coating the steak. This is a tip we picked up from Chinese cooking. It makes the coating a little more crispy.

2. Always use bacon grease. Adds depth of flavor.

3. Drain on a wire rack. This allows the steak to drain, but won't wick the moisture into the batter and make the crust soggy.

4. Use evaporated milk in the cream gravy, make it a little richer. One recipe I saw added browned ground beef to the cream gravy. Talk about decadent!