Recently I bought a southern cooking cookbook and now I feel like channeling Paula Deen and frying all of my food. There was recipe for country fried steak and while I am not a big red meat eater, breaded fried steak topped with gravy sounded just gluttonous enough to be good.
So here are the cast of characters for the breading:
-Flour
-Salt
-Pepper
-Cayenne pepper
I mixed this up in a plate and dipped sirloin steaks in flour, then egg, then flour again. I'm always trying to remember to use one hand for wet dipping and one hand for dry but I end up forgetting and by the end of the breading process I need to scrape the floury goop off my fingers.
I then heated up a pan (sadly for authenticity's sake not cast iron because I don't have one), with olive oil until it was sizzling and fried my steaks in two batches.
Ah, lovely, golden and crispy. Can't you just feel the circumference of your thighs increasing looking at this? Here's another picture:
Now for the gravy. Once again very basic ingredients:-The olive oil that was left in the pan
-Flour
-Salt
-Pepper
-Milk
-Beef broth
I added the flour to the oil first and let it get a bit toasted and golden. Then the rest of the ingredients followed and I cranked up the whole thing to a boil.
Oh, I had also made some oven roasted potatoes.
The Husband and I call them "crack" potatoes because they're that addictive. They crunchy and golden and go with pretty much anything.
I was so good. I wanted to lick the plate afterwards and make sure that I had not missed a morsel of this calorie defying meal. I'm a huge fan of texture contrasts and the meaty steak covered with crispy breading, bathed in creamy savoury gravy and accompanied by crunchy golden potatoes was beyond awesome. Supposedly the South is one of the fattest parts of the U.S. and with recipes like this I don't blame them. This is a definite repeat, but not too soon or otherwise my pants won't fit.
