Read Saveur: The New Comfort Food Online
Authors: James Oseland
Saveur: The New Comfort Food (24 page)
There’s more than one way to cook a chicken fried steak, that Texan creation of cube steak pounded out thin and tender, dipped in a buttermilk batter, and fried until it forms a thick, crunchy crust. Our favorite one comes from the Finish Line Café in Paradise, Texas, where they serve it smothered in a thick cream gravy.
2 cups plus 3 tbsp. flour
2 tsp. paprika Freshly ground black pepper and kosher salt, to taste
1 cup buttermilk
1 tsp. Tabasco, plus more to taste
1 egg
4 4-6-oz. cube steaks, pounded to ¼ -inch thickness Canola oil, for frying
3 tbsp. unsalted butter
2 cups milk
Serves 4
1. Heat the oven to 200°F. Put a baking sheet fitted with a rack inside. In a shallow dish, whisk together 2 cups flour, paprika, pepper, and salt. In another dish, whisk together buttermilk, 1 tsp. Tabasco, and egg. Season steaks with salt and pepper. Working with 1 steak at a time, dredge in flour mixture, then in egg mixture, and again in flour; shake off excess. Transfer to a plate.
2. Pour oil into a 12-inch cast-iron skillet to a depth of ½ inch; heat over medium-high heat until a deep-fry thermometer reads 320°F. Working in 2 batches, fry steaks, flipping once, until golden brown, 6-8 minutes. Place steaks on rack in oven to keep warm.
3. Melt butter in a 2-qt. saucepan over medium-high heat. Whisk in remaining flour; cook until golden, 1-2 minutes. Whisk in milk; cook, whisking, until thick. Season with Tabasco and salt and pepper. Serve steaks with gravy.
The best chicken fried steak in Paradise, Texas, looks like it’s covered in corn flakes and comes with peppery cream gravy. I’m talking about the one served at a place called the Finish Line Café. What brought me to the Finish Line was not just a deep love for CFS (as the dish is often called) but also a strong hunch. Driving around the state researching CFS, I’d begun to suspect that you could get a great version in just about any small-town café west of Dallas and north of Waco—an area of Texas I’d come to dub the Chicken Fried Steak Belt. I decided to test this theory by picking a random town along my planned route. Paradise (population 519) sounded like as good a spot as any, and the Finish Line Café was the most popular place in town.
There are three categories of CFS in Texas—German, Cowboy, and Southern—and each has its proponents who believe it’s the original. According to Jane and Michael Stern’s book Eat Your Way Across the U.S.A., “chicken fried steak was a Depression-era invention of Hill Country German-Texans.” German-style CFS is made of pounded-thin beef cube steak, dredged in bread crumbs or cracker meal and fried like schnitzel. The cowboy version is often called pan-fried steak in West Texas, where it’s the most popular style. It’s said that chuckwagon cooks, who tenderized their steaks by beating them with anything handy, would simply dredge them in flour before frying them to a crisp. Southern-style CFS, has a thick, crunchy buttermilk batter crust that looks like the coating on a piece of fried chicken; this is the style most common in East Texas, and it was the style that I became smitten with at the Finish Line.
The dish, prepared from a family recipe, was cooked by Marie Brown, the matriarch of the three generations who run the café (her daughter, Rayanne Gentry, is pictured). Dredged in seasoned flour, then in a batter of eggs and buttermilk, then in the flour again, Marie’s steak emerged from the kitchen with an awesome, ripply crust that shattered when I bit through to the tender steak. This was the ultimate CFS: I was in paradise, indeed.
—Robb Walsh
Brisket is the king of Texas barbecue, thanks in part to mid-19th-century German and Czech immigrants who sold deli-style smoked brisket in the meat markets they opened in the central part of the state, a few of which are still in operation. You don’t have to be a pit master to make good barbecued brisket; perfectly delicious results can be achieved at home, in an ordinary kettle grill. Here’s how to do it.
1½ tbsp. kosher salt
1½ tbsp. dark brown sugar
1 tbsp. sweet paprika
2 tsp. garlic powder
2 tsp. mustard powder
1½ tsp. freshly ground black pepper
½ tsp. dried thyme
½ tsp. ground coriander
½ tsp. ground cumin
1 5-lb. flat-cut beef brisket with ½ -inch fat left attached
3 large chunks mesquite wood
¾ cup beer
Serves 6-8
1. In a small bowl, stir together salt, brown sugar, paprika, garlic powder, mustard, pepper, thyme, coriander, and cumin; rub spice blend into brisket with your fingers to cover evenly; wrap tightly in plastic wrap. Refrigerate overnight.
2. Build a medium-hot charcoal fire in a grill.
3. When coals are ready, push them to one side of grill and nestle the chunks of mesquite around them.
4. Cover grill, open all vents, and let grill heat until temperature registers 225°-250°F on an instant-read thermometer inserted in a top vent.
5. Arrange a foil pan half-filled with water on the bottom grate opposite the coals, put the top grill grate in place, and set brisket on top grill grate directly over foil pan.
6. Cover grill and cook brisket, replenishing coals as needed to maintain a 225°-250°F temperature, until meat registers 160°F on an instant-read thermometer, 4-5 hours.
7. Transfer brisket to a sheet of heavy-duty aluminum foil and pour beer on top.
8. Wrap brisket in foil to seal in juices and beer. Return brisket to grill over pan, and cook, replenishing coals as needed, until meat reaches 190°F, about 2 hours more; uncover grill and let brisket cool for 1 hour.
9. Unwrap and arrange brisket, fat side up, on a cutting board, and slice across the grain into
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-inch-thick slices. Collect the juices and pour over meat before serving.
Arista di Maiale
Stuffing a butterflied pork loin with herbs and wrapping it with prosciutto, a classic Tuscan preparation, keeps the meat juicy and bolsters its flavor. After roasting, let the meat rest to allow the moisture concentrated in the center during cooking to infuse the entire loin, and then serve it with a pan sauce made with fresh lemon juice.
1 lemon
5 tbsp. chopped fresh rosemary
25 fresh sage leaves, minced
12 cloves garlic, minced
1 4-lb. boneless pork loin, trimmed
12 thin center-cut slices prosciutto di Parma (3 oz.) Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
2 tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil
1 large onion, cut into thick rings
Serves 8-10
1. Heat oven to 375°F. Zest lemon, slice in half, and set aside. Pile zest, rosemary, sage, and garlic on a cutting board and chop them together with a knife until combined. Set the herb mixture aside.
2. Butterfly the pork loin: Place pork loin perpendicular to you on a work surface. Using a long knife, start cutting into the meat along its long edge, keeping knife roughly ½ inch above the work surface. Continue slicing inward so that the meat unrolls and splays open. Set pork to the side and arrange ten 16-inch-long pieces of kitchen twine perpendicular to you, each one spaced ½ inch from the next; lay one 36-inch-long piece of twine across the shorter lengths. Lay 6 slices of prosciutto side by side atop and parallel to the short lengths of twine. Season both sides of pork loin with salt and pepper and rub both sides with herb mixture.
3. Roll pork into a cylinder and place it on top of prosciutto slices. Lay 6 more prosciutto slices over pork, tucking edges of bottom slices under top ones. Transfer prosciutto-wrapped pork loin to sit on top of prepared lengths of twine. Bring ends of long piece of twine up over pork loin, pull twine taut, and tie ends together. Bring ends of each short piece of twine together, pull taut, and tie together. Trim excess twine and discard.
4. Heat oil in a 12-inch ovenproof skillet over medium-high heat. Add pork roast and cook, turning occasionally, until browned on all sides, about 12 minutes. Transfer pork to a plate. Nestle onion slices in skillet and pour in ½ cup water; put pork on top of onions. Roast, basting occasionally with pan juices, until an instant-read thermometer inserted into middle of roast registers 140°F, about 45-50 minutes.
5. Transfer pork to a cutting board; let rest for 20 minutes. Remove twine. Slice pork and transfer to a platter along with onions. Squeeze juice of reserved lemon into skillet and whisk to incorporate. Serve pan juices with the pork and onions.
A market scene in Bangkok, where vendors sell produce as well as freshly prepared foods.
As cooks, we find our deepest inspiration in markets overf lowing with beautiful, freshly picked produce. These ingredients are the beginning of meals that fully express a sense of place and season: tender Southern cream peas simmered with smoky bacon, potatoes gratin baked under a blanket of tangy Gruyère, or Thai-style green beans spiced with chiles and fish sauce. Call them side dishes if you like, but we know full well that these vibrant vegetables are good enough to take center stage.
A casserole of creamy potatoes beneath a layer of bubbly Gruyère cheese is known variously as potatoes gratin, gratin dauphinois, and scalloped potatoes. Over years of trial and error, saveur executive food editor Todd Coleman developed the recipe for this sumptuous, perfectly browned gratin, an excellent match for baked ham or prime rib.
5 tbsp. unsalted butter, cubed
2 cloves garlic, minced Kosher salt, to taste
6 large waxy potatoes (about 2½ lbs.), such as red bliss, peeled and cut crosswise into
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8
-inch rounds2 cups half-and-half Freshly ground black pepper, to taste Freshly grated nutmeg, to taste
1 cup grated Gruyère cheese
Serves 6
1. Heat the oven to 400°F. Grease an 8-inch square baking dish with 1 tbsp. of the butter and set aside. Make a garlic paste by sprinkling the garlic with a little salt and scraping the garlic repeatedly against a work surface with the side of a knife.
2. Combine the garlic paste, potatoes, half-and-half, and remaining butter in a 4-qt. saucepan over medium-high heat and bring to a boil. Season with salt, pepper, and nutmeg and cook, stirring occasionally, until the potatoes are just tender and the mixture has thickened, about 10 minutes.
3. Transfer the mixture to the prepared baking dish, smoothing the top. Sprinkle the cheese over the gratin and bake until golden brown and bubbly, 30-40 minutes. Let the gratin cool slightly before serving.
COOKING NOTE
Potatoes gratin tastes best when the potatoes retain some firmness. Low-starch, or waxy, varieties such as red bliss, French fingerling, and white rose are best suited to the task. So-called “all-purpose” potatoes like Yukon Golds are also lower in starch and will hold up almost as well as waxy potatoes after cooking. Testing a potato’s starch level is easy: drop the spud into a pot containing 2¾ cups of water and ¼ cup table salt. If the potato sinks, it’s a floury variety (that is, dense with starch); if it floats, it’s a waxy variety.
