Country Fried Steak!

Yes yes yes! Country fried steak my friends! How can this not be good?!? Tender steak fried in oil, battered in egg and seasoned flour! OMG amazing! I have eaten this since I was a kid. This is my Mom's recipe yet I modified it a little bit.

What you will need

Depending on your family size you might want to modify it but here goes,

4 pieces of cubed steak (almost every store carries cube steak)
1 1/2 C of flour
2 1/2  TBS Johnnys or Lawry's season salt
1/4     tsp of pepper
Salt and pepper (to taste)
about 1/2 cup of oil
2 large eggs
1 C of milk
Heavy bottomed pan ( I use a large sized cast iron pan)
Spatula
Aluminum foil (optional)
Shallow bowl
Plates

Take your cube steak out of the fridge and place on either a plate or aluminum foil on a counter so it can get the chill off the meat. That would be about a half hour before you start cooking.

Mix together the flour, season salt (which ever you wanted) and pepper. Put mixture on a dinner plate.

Scramble the eggs in a shallow bowl.

Season the meat on both sides with salt and pepper. I would recommend seasoning well with the salt and pepper so the meat isn't bland but you can decide how much you want on the meat.

Dredge meat in flour one at a time.

After dredging dip meat in egg and again place in flour mixture. Give the meat a light push into the flour in order to get an even coating.

Place meat aside and take the cast iron pan to the stove and turn the heat on to about 7. NO OIL! We don't want oil because hot oil makes the meat stick to the pan. Hot pan cold oil!

You will know when the pan is hot enough when you place your hand about a half inch above the pan and you can't keep it there for more than a few seconds.

You are now ready to put the oil in the pan. I want to tell you now that less is more at this point. So put in about 1/2 a cup of oil in the pan and immediately put some of the meat in the pan. The key thing here is to not let meat touch! It makes for uneven cooking.

Also you want to make sure that the oil only comes up to the middle of the meat. If the oil wants to go over the meat scoop some of the oil out and put it in an old can.

While the first side of the meat is cooking you want to prep a cookie sheet with paper towels on it and preheat your oven to 200 degrees. You will put your already cooked meat on the pan while you wait for the other pieces to cook.

You want to cook the meat till it's crisp and golden brown on one side. After it is golden brown you want to flip it and cook it for about half the time.

When the meat is all done you want to go ahead and drain all of the oil out but 2 TBL of the oil and take 2 TBL spoons of the dredging flour mix them together with a spatula making sure you scrape all of the good stuff off of the bottom of the pan.

Slowly stir in the cup of milk constantly with your spatula. Add 1/4 TBS salt and a dash of pepper to the gravy mix. The gravy should have a thick but creamy consistency.

If you are not ready to serve place some plastic wrap on top of the gravy and that will stop it from congealing on the top (creating a skin).

Now you are ready to serve! Just remember to make sides that you would like. I made Rice-A-Roni natures way long grain wild rice and fresh salad. But you could do any type of rice you enjoy or any other vegetable that suites you.