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I always associate the dish with Uncle Bill’s Pancake & Dinner House, a diner in St. Louis, where I went to college. It’s open 24/7, so, naturally, there were many late-night visits with classmates after hours of studying or a night out at the club. (I don’t think I ever went to Uncle Bill’s when the sun was up.) Every time, I ordered the same thing: country fried steak and eggs. It features a breaded and fried slab of beef under a blanket of creamy gravy; two eggs however you want them; a side of hash browns; and your choice of pancakes, biscuits or toast. It was affordable, filling and delicious.
It is the standard by which I judge all other versions I encounter — but it turns out, there is more than one way to fry a steak.
Get the recipe: Chicken Fried Steak With White Gravy
The origins of chicken fried steak are shrouded in a bit of mystery. One tale traces the dish to the early 20th century, when a cook at Ethel’s Home Cooking in Lamesa, Texas, received an order for “chicken, fried steak” and mistakenly combined the two dishes. As fun as the anecdote is, this story isn’t true. But it points to one version of the dish: beef dredged in flour, dipped in egg and/or milk, coated in flour again and then fried (similar to some recipes for fried chicken, hence the name).
“Considerable evidence suggests that a version of the dish arrived in the cultural baggage of German immigrants who settled in Texas in the mid-1800s,” history professor James McWilliams wrote in Texas Monthly. “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.” This German-influenced version uses breadcrumbs as the final step in the breading process, which leads to a crisper exterior.
A third version is a more basic pan-fried steak enjoyed by cowboys. As they often didn’t have breadcrumbs or eggs to cook with, the steaks were simply dredged in flour, then cooked in oil in a cast iron skillet.
These are the three buckets the dish typically falls into, but variations abound. “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,” McWilliams wrote. “It was scrappy, low-rent fare that reflected the struggle of settlers living on the edge of starvation and penury. And like all such humble, home-cooked dishes, it was almost infinitely variable.”
My version is an homage to the one I enjoyed all those years ago, and it’s influenced by the myriad recipes available today. It’s also slightly streamlined for efficiency, with a couple of minor tweaks for improved results.
The go-to cut of meat for this dish is cube steak, which is what I call for. Cube steak is round steak that has been run through a mechanical tenderizer, known as a meat cuber or swissing machine. (It’s responsible for the dimples you see on the beef.) But cooks can use whatever they want, with some even opting for more premium cuts, such as filet mignon (though I think those are better reserved for other uses).
For the coating, I stick with the three-step breading process (flour, egg, flour) to achieve the thicker coating that I’m used to. Instead of breadcrumbs, I recommend the same seasoned flour mixture for the first and third steps to keep from dirtying an extra dish. The addition of cornstarch and baking powder, though not exactly traditional, helps create a lighter, crisper coating. Some recipes call for a mix of buttermilk and egg for the middle step, but using the same milk as for the gravy cuts out an extraneous ingredient. Speaking of gravy, the “chicken” versus “country” moniker usually reflects whether the steak is served with a white or brown gravy (in which it is sometimes smothered). I prefer the former, generously seasoned with freshly ground black pepper.
The result is a crisp, beautifully seasoned chicken fried steak and a creamy, peppery white gravy. Each forkful is like a hearty hug, begging you to go back for more.
Get the recipe: Chicken Fried Steak With White Gravy
