Tim Berry
First things first: chicken fried steak is not made with chicken.
No chicken to be found, period. The name comes from the way the steak is prepared: pounded tender, breaded and fried much as you would a piece of chicken.
And when it’s done right, what emerges from that hot oil is pretty irresistible: tender beef encased in a craggy, deeply golden crust, still audibly crisp when a lavish spoonful of warm, peppery country gravy goes over the top.
It’s the kind of food that makes restraint seem terribly overrated.
Chicken fried steak may be one of the great icons of Texas cooking – so much so that the Texas House of Representatives designated October 26 Texas Chicken Fried Steak Day – but its beginnings are considerably harder to pin down. Food historians have traced its lineage to the breaded cutlets of European immigrants and to early 20th-century restaurant kitchens farther north.
Whatever the particulars of its ancestry, Texas claimed it, loved it and made it its own.
Tim Berry, chef at Micas Mountain Kitchen in Sapphire, came to the dish by a more direct route. After growing up in Ohio and serving in the Marine Corps, Berry moved to Texas, where he would spend the next 45 years working in restaurants. He learned to make chicken fried steak at Cheers, a Dallas-area diner where cooking from scratch was part of the job. No culinary school for Berry – he learned by doing.
And all those years later, scratch cooking is still what matters to him. “Every place you go nowadays serves frozen chicken fried steak or country fried steak,” Berry says.
Not at Micas.
There, fresh round steak – never frozen – is hand-cut and tenderized, soaked in buttermilk and egg, then pressed into flour seasoned with pepper, garlic, onion, paprika, seasoning salt and chicken bouillon. Into the fryer it goes, emerging crisp, bronzed and ready for a generous tumble of creamy white gravy.
And Micas doesn’t do dainty. Berry says the restaurant’s chicken fried steak stretches to roughly 10 inches across the plate. It arrives beneath that peppery gravy with your choice of two sides, though mashed potatoes and coleslaw are the crowd favorites. One forkful of crisp steak dragged through the gravy, with a little mashed potato along the way, makes it easy to understand why Texans have made such a fuss over this dish.
Better still, Micas serves it at both lunch and dinner. The only hard part is deciding when to surrender.
Chicken Fried Steak
Tim Berry, Micas Mountain Kitchen, Serves 4
For the Steak
4 (8-ounce) fresh round steaks, about ½ inch thick
2 cups buttermilk
2 large eggs
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons freshly ground black pepper
1 teaspoon onion powder
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon paprika
1½ teaspoons seasoning salt
1 teaspoon chicken bouillon powder or granules
Vegetable or canola oil, for frying
For the Gravy
4 tablespoons butter
¼ cup all-purpose flour
2 to 2½ cups warm water
½ teaspoon salt, or to taste
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper, or to taste
Instructions
Using the textured side of a meat mallet, pound each steak until tender and approximately ¼ inch thick. If the steaks become especially large, cut them into manageable portions.
In a shallow bowl, whisk together the buttermilk and eggs. Add the steaks, turning to coat well, and let them soak for 15 to 30 minutes.
In another shallow dish, combine the flour, black pepper, onion powder, garlic powder, paprika, seasoning salt and chicken bouillon.
Remove each steak from the buttermilk mixture, allowing the excess to drip off. Press firmly into the seasoned flour, making sure both sides and edges are thoroughly coated. Transfer to a wire rack or baking sheet and let the coating rest for about 10 minutes before frying.
Pour about ½ inch of oil into a large cast-iron skillet and heat to 350ºF degrees. Working in batches so the pan isn’t crowded, carefully lower the steaks into the hot oil. Fry for about 3 to 4 minutes per side, until the crust is deeply golden and crisp and the steak is cooked through. Transfer to a wire rack or paper-towel-lined platter and keep warm while frying the remaining steaks. Berry deep-fries the steaks at Micas but recommends pan-frying them in a cast-iron skillet at home.
Melt the butter in a skillet over medium heat. Whisk in the flour and cook for 2 to 3 minutes, until the roux is smooth and lightly golden. Gradually whisk in 2 cups warm water and bring to a gentle simmer. Cook, whisking, until smooth and thickened, adding more water as needed to reach a creamy, pourable consistency.
Season generously with salt and black pepper. Berry’s gravy is deliberately simple: butter, flour, water, salt and pepper – no milk or buttermilk.
Spoon the hot pepper gravy generously over the crisp steaks and serve immediately with your choice of sides. For the full Micas experience, make them mashed potatoes and coleslaw.
Favorites Count: 0