Recipe - Texas-Style Chicken Fried Steak With Cream Gravy

4 Tenderized beef cutlets;
(known in supermarkets as
"cube steak")
1 Egg
1 cup Milk
1 One half cup Flour
1 cup Melted Crisco or vegetable
oil
One half teaspoon Salt
One fourth teaspoon Ground black pepper
One fourth teaspoon Paprika
One fourth teaspoon White pepper

Lightly beat egg and milk and set aside. Combine flour and spices, mix
well, and turn out onto a flatsurfaced dish or tray. Dip each cutlet into
the milk/egg mixture, then dredge each in the flour mixture, then dip back
into the milk/egg mixture.

Heat cooking oil in a large castiron or other heavy skillet over
mediumhigh heat for a few minutes. Check it with a drop of the egg/milk
mixture; if it pops and sizzles, it's ready.

With a longhandled fork, carefully place each cutlet into the hot oil.
Protect yourself (and your kitchen) from the popping grease that results.
Allow cutlets to fry for 3 or 4 minutes, then turn with your longhandled
fork. Cook another 3 or 4 minutes, depending upon the size of the cutlets.
Remove cutlets from oil and allow to drain on paper towels.

Cream Gravy: After cutlets are removed from pan, pour off all but about 3
Tablespoons of the oil, keeping as many as possible of the browned bits in
the pan. Heat the oil over medium heat until hot. Sprinkle One half cup flour
(use the leftover flour from the chicken fried steak recipe waste not
~ want not) in the hot oil. Stir with a wooden spoon, quickly, to brown
the flour. Slowly add Three fourths cup milk and Three fourths cup water, mixed together,
stirring constantly with the wooden spoon and mashing out any lumps. Lower
heat, and gravy will begin to thicken. Continue cooking and stirring a few
minutes until gravy reaches desired thickness. [Note to persons new to
Cream Gravy: Gravymaking is an inexact science. Cream gravy is supposed to
be thick, but if you think it's too thick, add more liquid until you like
it.] Check seasonings and add more salt and pepper according to your taste.

Notes: It would be hard to get much more Texan than Chicken Fried Steak.
Quality of the beef really counts in this dish. This recipe calls for cube
steaks, but good round steak that you have asked the butcher to run through
the tenderizer or that you have tenderized yourself with a mallet (no big
deal and can be a real stress reliever) can be even better.

Posted to recipeludigest by Perry Greene palgreen@hiwaay.net on Feb 10,
1998