New Recipe Monday — Chicken Fried Steak

• 4 (1/2 pound) beef cube steaks 
  
• 2 cups all-purpose flour 
  
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda 
  
• 1 teaspoon black pepper 
  
• 3/4 teaspoon salt 
  
• 1 1/2 cups buttermilk (I keep powdered buttermilk in my freezer because I don’t use it often, so I used that for this recipe) 
  
• 1 egg 
  

• 1 tablespoon hot pepper sauce (e.g. Tabasco™) –I was a little hesitant to use this much, but thought I’d try it anyway and it didn’t add much “bite” at all. 
  
• 2 cloves garlic, minced 
  
• 3 cups vegetable shortening for deep frying (I used much less, closer to a cup of vegetable oil) 
  
• 1/4 cup all-purpose flour 
  
• 4 cups milk 
  

1. Pound the steaks to about 1/4-inch thickness (My cube steaks come pre-tenderized so I skipped this). Place 2 cups of flour in a shallow bowl. Stir together the baking powder, baking soda, pepper, and salt in a separate shallow bowl; stir in the buttermilk, egg, Tabasco Sauce, and garlic. Dredge each steak first in the flour, then in the batter, and again in the flour. Pat the flour onto the surface of each steak so they are completely coated with dry flour.
2. Heat the shortening in a deep skillet. Fry the steaks until evenly golden brown, 3 to 5 minutes per side. Place fried steaks on a plate with paper towels to drain. Drain the fat from the skillet, reserving 1/4 cup of the liquid and as much of the solid remnants as possible.
3. Return the skillet to medium-low heat with the reserved oil. Whisk the remaining flour into the oil. Scrape the bottom of the pan with a spatula to release solids into the gravy. Stir in the milk, raise the heat to medium, and bring the gravy to a simmer, cook until thick, 6 to 7 minutes. Season with salt and pepper. Spoon the gravy over the steaks to serve.

After I had cooked the steaks, I put them on a cooling rack on a cookie sheet in a low (170 degree) oven to let the steaks drain, so they wouldn’t be greasy and to keep them warm. The batter made more than enough for the steaks we had, I cooked 8 of them using this and probably could have made 3-4 more using these ingredients. Like I said, this was a great recipe and our family loved it. I served it with a side of mashed potatoes and broccoli (we’re out of corn…) I also think this would be a great chicken fried steak to serve alongside eggs and hashbrowns.