How Chicken Fried Steak Got Its Texas TwangPhotograph Melanie HauptTheres no denying that chicken fried steak is a culinary icon of Texas. The dish can be found in restaurants throughout the state, and diners argue passionately over which version is best. They map out the Chicken Fried Steak Belt, detailing the differences between the dry coating favored in the western part of the state and the thick, egg rich style in the east. This statewide enthusiasm was codified in 2. Chicken Fried Steak Batter' title='Chicken Fried Steak Batter' />I love Texas Chicken Fried Steak but could never find a recipe as good as I have had out. Well, this recipe beats any I have ever tried. I love it and so does. Chickenfried steak is the great equalizer. Its very preparationthe energetic pounding with a mallet, the vigorous dredging in flour, the immersion in splattering. Chicken fried steak is typically made with a creamy milk gravy. Heres how to make a tasty chickenfried steak meal for your family. Photograph Joshua Bousel Chickenfried steak is, quite simply, a piece of steak thats battered and cooked in the same way one would fry chicken. Use 2 pound round steak, 12 to 34 inch. Dip in Chicken Fried Steak Batter see below for recipe, drain. Green Posole here. Bake at 425 degrees for 12 to 15 minutes. Begin by blending together in a shallow dish the flour, salt, pepper and cayenne pepper. Then prepare the batter by combining the eggs with the buttermilk and beer in. Whichever you prefer, both country fried steak and chicken fried steak are considered classic comfort food. While very similar their cooking methods. Season 12 cup flour with salt and pepper to taste. Pat cube steaks dry with paper towel and dredge in seasoned flour. Put aside while preparing batter. Texas State House of Representatives declared October 2. Chicken Fried Steak Day, noting that this signature dish occupies a special place in the culinary culture of the Lone Star State. Its hard to argue with the force of Texas law. Some take it a step further, claiming that chicken fried steak defies categorization as a mere food item. Chicken fried steak tells the story of Texas, Serious Eats contributor Melanie Haupt declared in an article posted on this site two years ago. In the article, she quotes Lisa Fain, author of the popular Homesick Texan blog, who once described the dish as taking something thats less than palatable, in this case a tough piece of beef, and with a little ingenuity turning it into something delectable. This perseverance, creativity, and positive attitude completely embraces the spirit of Texas and the Texan way of doing things. But how did Texas cooks come up with this delicious dish in the first place Many writers and researchers start by looking into Texass history, then land on an answer thats misleading at best. Often, they seize upon the fact that a lot of Germans settled in central Texas in the late 1. James Mc. Williams captures that prevailing narrative in a 2. Texas Monthly Considerable evidence suggests that a version of the dish arrived in the cultural baggage of German immigrants who settled in Texas in the mid 1. Mc. Williams elaborates, Some food historians trace its culinary heritage to Wiener schnitzel, a Viennese meal of breaded veal pan fried to a light crisp in lard or clarified butter. He goes on to argue that, regardless of how the dish arrived in Texas, its preparation dovetailed neatly with available resources in the home kitchens of the cattle rich state Home cooks took a specimen of the lowliest and stringiest cuts of meat from the most bedraggled backyard cow, whacked it into tenderness, dredged it in spice laden flour, and cooked it in leftover grease. It was scrappy, low rent fare that reflected the struggle of settlers living on the edge of starvation and penury. Such accounts draw more on romantic imagination than on historical evidence. Try as I might, I couldnt find any evidence in the printed record suggesting that chicken fried steak was brought to Texas by German immigrants in the 1. It didnt evolve out of home cooks efforts to make do with lowly ingredients, either. In fact, chicken fried steak didnt originate in Texas at all. Instead, chicken fried steak is a product of early 2. Kansas and Colorado, where it was a popular restaurant dish. Like a Midwestern transplant who moves to Dallas and dons a 1. Texas identity, but that didnt occur until the 1. The way that identity was forged says much about Americans shifting culinary tastes and aspirations in the latter half of the 2. Batter Up From Fried to Chicken FriedPhotograph Joshua BouselChicken fried steak is, quite simply, a piece of steak thats battered and cooked in the same way one would fry chicken. Though upscale restaurants might use pricey cuts like tenderloin, most opt for less expensive round steak or cube steak. The meat is generally pounded with a mallet or run through a mechanical tenderizer, then dredged in an egg and flour batter and fried, either in a skillet filled with oil or in a deep fryer. The finished product, encased in crisp, golden brown batter, is traditionally topped with a rich cream gravy made from pan drippings. Long before they were chicken frying steaks, home cooks were pan frying them across America. Pan frying was the practical home cooks answer to the more time and resource intensive 1. Rather than waiting for fresh coals to heat up, cooks began instead placing a cast iron pan directly over hot ashes and frying their steaks in just enough fat to lubricate the pan. Dr. A. W. Chase explained it well in his 1. Dr. Chases Third, Last and Complete Receipt Book and Household Physician Do any of you have to get up early in the morning and get breakfast in such a terrible hurry that you cant wait for nice coals to broil the steak His solution Put a little hot butter in a pan, and fry it instead. But fried steak was not universally loved. The hastily fried steak, Marion Harland sniffed in an 1. The Home Maker magazine, will be eaten without relish by husband and children. Cooks tried various methods to improve the results the most common solutions called for either pounding or scoring the steak, seasoning it with salt and pepper, then dredging it in flour. Usually the finished meat was flavored with a gravy made from water poured over the pan drippings. Dr. Chase offered one recommendation that may or may not have presaged the chicken fried steak we know today After pounding or hacking the steak lightly, he advised, salt and pepper it, roll it in finely crushed cracker crumbs, and brown quickly in the butter. You will find it a decided improvement on the leathery substance called fried steak, and a very palatable substitute for broiled. This is the closest precursor to a chicken fried steak Ive been able to find, and its not certain that one descended directly from the other. What we do know is that right around World War I, a dish called chicken fried steak started popping up on restaurant menusand those restaurants werent in Texas. At the time, fried chicken was a popular restaurant dish, and this new steak preparation featured a similarly thick, crisp batter based shell. Despite the claim that home cooks devised the preparation as a way to make inexpensive cuts of beef palatable, the very first appearance in print of the phrase chicken fried steak was in a series of ads for Phelpss Dining Room and Cafeteria, which ran in the Colorado Springs Gazette in 1. By 1. 91. 7, cafs in Kansas were advertising the dish, too, starting with Quinns Cafe in Beloit, whose specials included Choice Veal Chops, Chicken Fried Steak, and Calves Brains with Eggs. The pricing on the 1. Hotel Mit Way in Emporia, Kansas, suggests chicken fried steaks relative position on the scale of quality or esteem. Far from the bottom of the slate, chicken fried steak with shoestring potatoes fetched a relatively extravagant 4. A broiled porterhouse 7. Chicken fried steak soon spread throughout the Great Plains states, showing up in 1. Newmans Eats in Tulsa and the Woodmen Cafeteria in Omaha. It then made its way out to California, where it was served at Hammonds Jersey Cafe in Riverside in 1. Alaska salmon and roast sirloin of beef and at the Arroyo Cafe in San Luis Obispo in 1. Until the 1. 93. 0s, virtually all print references to chicken fried steak involved restaurants, suggesting it did indeed originate in commercial kitchens rather than in the home. In fact, the first printed recipe for chicken fried steak that I can find appeared in 1. Omaha World Heralds cooking column. The first record I can find of chicken fried steak served in Texas is from roughly the same time1. Colorado newspaper adswhen it appeared in an ad for the Caveteria at the Baker Hotel. But, though the dish seems to have finally steaked a claim in the Lone Star State by this point, it would be discussed as a universal staple of western cafs, and not as a Texas specialty, for at least the next four decades. Middle Americas Restaurant StaplePhotograph Joshua BouselChicken fried steaks popularity surged in the 1. American restaurant food.