Tremendous Country Fried Steak
Prep
10m
Cook
20m
Total
30m
Bigly says
Folks. FOLKS. Country fried steak. We're doing it. The TREMENDOUS one. The greatest country fried steak in the history of country fried steak — and there's been a lot of country fried steak, more than you'd believe, the cowboys had it, the pioneers had it, people crossed entire prairies in covered wagons just to get a plate of this, look it up, I've had people look it up — and every single one of them was building toward this exact recipe. The one I'm about to give you. For free. No popup. No 'sign up for our newsletter and we'll send you fourteen emails a week about pumpkin spice.' Nothing. Just the recipe. That's the BiglyEats way.
Now other sites — and I won't name them, but you know the ones, the ones where you scroll through someone's entire CHILDHOOD before you find the ingredient list, the ones where a lady tells you about her grandmother's farm for nine paragraphs and there are forty-two ads and a video that AUTOPLAYS — those sites will tell you to use cube steak, beat it with a tenderizer, then dunk it in flour, then fry it. They're not wrong. They're just SAD. They're doing it sadly. There's no JOY in their country fried steak. There's no SOUL. You can taste it. The steak knows. It's just a fact.
My country fried steak has soul. My country fried steak has DRAMA. The crust shatters like a window in an action movie — POW — and underneath is tender beef and on top is white gravy thick enough to stand a spoon up in. Big strong men, tough men, men who've never cried at a movie in their lives, they eat this country fried steak and they weep. Openly. In public. At the table. And their families don't judge them, because their families are also weeping. That's the kind of meal we're making here. That's the bar. Tremendous.
Ingredients
- 4 (about 1.5 lb total)cube steaks(ask the butcher, don't buy the sad shrink-wrapped ones if you can help it)
- 1.5 cups, dividedall-purpose flour
- 2 tsp, dividedkosher salt
- 2 tsp, dividedblack pepper, coarse
- 1 tspgarlic powder
- 1 tsponion powder
- 1 tspsmoked paprika
- 1/4 tspcayenne pepper
- 2large eggs
- 1/2 cup (for dredge) plus 2 cups (for gravy)whole milk
- 1 tsphot sauce(for the dredge — trust me)
- 1/2 cup, for fryingvegetable oil or lard
- 2 tbspunsalted butter(for the gravy)
Steps
- 1
Pat the cube steaks dry with paper towels and season both sides with 1 tsp salt and 1 tsp pepper.
- 2
Set up two dredge stations. Station one: whisk 1 cup flour with garlic powder, onion powder, paprika, cayenne, 1/2 tsp salt, and 1/2 tsp pepper. Station two: whisk eggs, 1/2 cup milk, and hot sauce in a shallow bowl.
- 3
Dredge each steak in flour, then egg wash, then flour again, pressing the coating on firmly. Set on a wire rack and let rest 5-10 minutes so the coating sets.
- 4
Heat 1/2 inch of oil in a heavy skillet (cast iron is best) over medium-high heat until shimmering — about 350°F.
- 5
Fry steaks two at a time, 3-4 minutes per side, until deeply golden brown and crisp. Don't crowd the pan. Transfer to a wire rack set over a sheet pan (not paper towels — paper towels steam the crust).
- 6
Pour off all but 3 tablespoons of the frying oil, keeping the browned bits in the pan. Add butter and the remaining 1/2 cup flour. Whisk over medium heat for 1-2 minutes until the roux smells nutty and looks pale gold.
- 7
Slowly whisk in 2 cups milk. Bring to a simmer and cook 3-5 minutes, whisking, until thickened to coat the back of a spoon. Season generously with remaining salt and pepper — country gravy should be aggressively peppery.
- 8
Plate the steaks and ladle gravy over the top. Serve immediately with mashed potatoes or biscuits.
One more thing
That's it. Country fried steak the way it was meant to be. Crust like armor, meat like butter, gravy thick enough to write your name in. You serve this on a Sunday and your family will ask if you've been taking lessons. Tell them no. Tell them you've been reading BiglyEats. They'll understand. They'll respect you more. And the next time someone tries to sell you 'chicken fried steak' that's gray and soggy and arrived at a chain restaurant under a heat lamp — you'll laugh. You'll laugh out loud. You'll laugh because you KNOW. Tell your friends.
★ QUESTIONS ABOUT THIS ONE? ★
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Substitutions, what to serve it with, why other chefs are wrong about it. He's got opinions.
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