So you’re cooking a steak or 4 in a pan. They’re done. You take em out. You have all this leftover beef-stuff stuck to the bottom of your pan. Thats called “fond”. Theres tons of flavor there. You “deglaze” those little yummy bits by adding a liquid to the hot pan (usually its alcohol or broth). And you dissolve those beef bits into your newly made liquid, which is soon on its way to a yummy steak sauce…
There are steaks and there are “steaks.” I’d never allow gravy near a New York Strip or a Porterhouse, but if you’re trying to disguise a cheaper cut…
How does it compare to chicken-fried steak (something I have always dreamed of trying)? Does chicken-fried steak have more breading?
I was amused to see “chicken fried chicken” on my Applebee’s menu.
I giggled at this, thinking the link would lead to some joke about the (mis) translation. Instead, it’s real. Now I’m horrified.
Um, I think the rest of us call that a chicken fried steak.
Marc
Yes, I mean fond. I said pan drippings (which, by themselves, would be au jus (well, I guess just the jus,) but I mean the (almost) burned on brown stuff.
Steak au poivre
My recipe for chicken/country fried steak:
Round or cubed steak
Flour
Lawry’s Seasoned Salt
Poultry seasoning
Onions
Mushrooms
Fat of some sort (preferably butter)
Note on measurements: I rarely measure. I use about half a pound of steak per person, and it ALL gets eaten up.
Note on fat: I use enough to cover the bottom of the skillet to a depth of about 1/8 inch, and add more as I need it.
Slice onions and mushrooms. Fry in fat, remove, set aside.
Mix flour, seasoned salt, and poultry seasoning. Use enough seasoning that the flour is sort of a light orangy-grey. Cut steak into small bite sized pieces. Pound with meat tenderizer (the utensil, not the enzyme) until QUITE thin. Dredge in seasoned flour, let rest, dredge again. Fry in hot fat, a few at a time, keeping a very close watch on the pieces. Turn once They will cook very quickly, due to being thin. Remove cooked pieces, keep warm, add new pieces until all the steak is cooked.
Make lots of cream gravy from leftover flour and fat. Either serve the onions and mushrooms on the side, or put in the gravy, your choice.
VERY good with mashed potatoes.
For good steaks, we generallly grill or broil them, with almost no seasonings or sauces. I made up this recipe because my husband wanted steak in our early married years, but we couldn’t afford the good ones. The round steaks were flavorful, but tough, so I pounded them, then realized I could coat them in seasoned flour to make them seem bigger, and since I had leftover fat and flour, and my husband likes gravy, there you are. I didn’t intend to make CFS, it just sort of happened. Around our house, we call this “Smashed Steak”, because I have to tnederize the steak.
IIRC, the song “Your Feet’s Too Big” (originally from the musicalAin’t Misbehavin’) includes the lyrics:
Ooh, I love ya baby!
Ooh, like steak and gravy!
Which, I admit, struck an odd note with me when I heard it. Gravy on steak?!
Au jus goes with roast beef, not steak.
My mistake – Ain’t Misbehavin’ didn’t open until 1978; I’m sure “Your Feet’s Too Big” is much older than that.
It was recorded by Fats Waller in 1939, but the version here linked doesn’t include the “steak and gravy” lyrics, which I recall from a record I have (in storage) from a college-barbershop group – either the Duke’s Men of Yale or the Georgetown Chimes.
Alton Brown says that gravy is a subset of the sauce group. He does differentiate between sauces made with “fond” and those created independantly, such as Bernaise.
I wouldn’t go out of my way to put gravy on steak, but if that is the way it was served, I’d eat it without question.