When I was growing up in California, I noticed that chicken-fried steak seemed to be a popular item on school lunch menus and in dormitory dining halls. I never actually knew what it was, so I never ordered it. Was it really chicken? Was it steak? Every time I came across it, it was round, flat and breaded, with what appeared to be dark-colored meat inside. The "steak" also never looked appetizing.
As it turns out, chicken-fried steak is a variant of schnitzel. It is popular in the Southern US, perhaps especially in Texas. The dish is a cut of beef that is pounded until very thin, breaded and fried. The cheapest, least tender pieces of beef are usually the ones that are used for this dish, since the pounding softens the meat and the majority of the flavor comes from the fried coating and the cream-based gravy that the dish is inevitably smothered in. And even afficianados will tell you that the best parts are often the coating and the gravy.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
5-30-2006 @ 1:29PM
Jumper said...
I live in Southwest Florida and I love having Chicken Fried Steak with loads of gravy and eggs over easy with plenty of homefries for Sunday breakfast. Nothing says down home like Chicken Fried Steak for breakfast. And to keep it healthy I have a mixed fresh fruit cup on the side.
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5-30-2006 @ 2:36PM
Angela Pitt said...
Chicken fried steak done right is a thing of beauty.
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5-30-2006 @ 3:31PM
Dean H. Saxe said...
Oh man, I have great memories of chicken fried steak as a kid in Texas. We used to go to Strack Farms (www.stracks.com) back when it was a tiny hole in the wall next to their vegetable stand in the early 1980s. They served the biggest CFS ever, it hung over all sides of a large oval plate smothered in a peppery cream gravy. Since moving to Georgia its nearly impossible to find a chicken fried steak. And if you do find one, its probably covered in brown gravy. Yuck.
While I have no desire to ever return to Texas, and especially not Houston, I still have great memories of Strack Farms. I suppose I'll have to head that way for a CFS fix when I'm in Houston next month! Thanks, Slashfood, for taking a few more years off my life with this yummy cholesterol bomb!
-dhs
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5-30-2006 @ 3:56PM
Baron said...
I agree, if it is done right (which I find that it usually isn't), it is great! I don't eat gravy with it either and I think the meat and the coating go a long way. I would always ask my mom to make it when I was growing up, but she used a higher quality cut of meat, so maybe that is why I liked it so much.
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5-30-2006 @ 4:39PM
Zachary said...
Having lived in Nebraska my whole life (26 years), I was surprised a number of years ago when I found out that many parts of the country have no idea what it is. No matter how many new and delicious ethnic dishes I discover, chicken fried steak remains among my favorite foods.
I actually made a chicken fried steak the other day with a really cheap piece of top round. It's one of those foods that was probably born out of the fact that it's a good way to use cheap cuts of meat. I had mashed potatoes, white gravy, and asparagus with my chicken fried steak, and I'm guessing the total cost for all of the ingredients on the plate was about $1.50. Not bad.
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5-30-2006 @ 4:52PM
Missy said...
Cracker Barrel has awesome CFS. With the white pepper gravy. It's awesome!!
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5-30-2006 @ 5:05PM
Dan Tannenbaum said...
Nothing beats a Chiken Fried Steak on a cold New England Morning. The cream gravy has that peppery bite to get the blood pumping. The crust HAS to thick and crunchy! I've had them in Virginia, Texas, California, New York and Connecticut. My favotrite here in CT is at the Sandy Hook Diner in Sandy Hook, CT. It looks like a dumpy old building, but they have some of the best diner food I have every had!
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5-30-2006 @ 6:50PM
extramsg said...
I have a friend who runs the blog http://www.dallasfood.org. He's eaten chicken fried steak at 75 places over the last few months (and several times at many of these places) in preparation for a "Top 50 Dallas CFS" report. The guy is nuts! In talking with him, his biggest disappointment is how many places use frozen pre-breaded patties and how poor many of the independents are compared with the chains.
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5-30-2006 @ 11:54PM
Gabriella True said...
I have never seen one in real life. I would of course like to try it.
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