Matzoh balls are delicious in anything. I stayed away from making them for decades, assuming that Jehovah would strike me dead as a goy if I dared to combine matzoh meal with eggs. But I now make an excellent MB soup, and would be willing to use them instead of other kinds of dumplings under a stew or sauce.
If Biggirl’s beef is inexpensive enough to turn into broth, a beef-veggie soup with matzoh balls would be a very fine thing indeed.
Damn. I must be hungry.
Well this is odd. I’m a 58-year-old American and I’ve never heard of cube steak until reading this thread, nor do I ever recall seeing it in the store. True, I’ve lived most of my adult life outside the US, but I didn’t leave until I was 26, and by that time I had done plenty of cooking and cookbook collecting.
I have no idea how I completely missed what’s obviously a fairly routine food. Next time I’m in the US, I’ll have to buy some and try cooking it.
I’ll admit I’ve never tried it but I’m thinking you could probably substitute cube steaks for chicken, veal, or eggplant and make Beef Parmesan.
googles So…these are just tenderized steaks?
Get some kaiser rolls, some steak sauce. Marinade and grill the steaks. Make sandwiches.
Yeah, they’re thin-cut round steaks that are run through a machine that pounds them and breaks up the stuff that makes them tough. You’d get the same result by pounding plain round with the toothy side of one of these things.
Oddly enough, of the Weiner Schnitzel places I’ve been to in the former Austro-Hungarian empire, I’ve never seen a beef version. I was just at one last week in Budapest, and there was veal, pork (my favorite, actually), chicken, and turkey versions, but no beef. For whatever reason, I don’t seem to remember seeing beef schnitzel anywhere.
Huh. I’m surprised you saw chicken and turkey. I’ve never seen any schnitzel in Austrian or German or Hungarian restaurants that wasn’t pork – or veal at twice the price.
The Argentine “beef Milanese” is really just a chicken fried steak, but with pasta marinara on the side rather than mashed spuds and cream gravy. Like Italian-American veal Milanese, but with steak.
Yeah, at the place in Hungary I visited last week that specializes in Weiner Schnitzel, veal, pork, and turkey were the three options. The difference in price was fairly minimal–$5.15 for the pork or turkey version vs $6.20 for the veal. (This is for a 6 oz portion. The large portion was $6.20 for the pork or turkey and $8.75 for the veal; 11 oz portion. To be exact, it’s 18 decagrams vs 30 decagram portions.) Obviously, here in the US the veal is priced at more of a premium, but over there veal is a fairly standard meat.
Oh, I should add, at the groceries here in Chicago that cater to Mexicans, you’ll find beef milanesa and chicken milanesa quite commonly, and many of the taco/torta/cemitas stands will have beef milanesa available.
About the only time I use cube steak is when I make Cheater’s Beef Stroganoff. I call it ‘cheater’s’ because my parents were young parents during the convenience food era of the 1950s and 1960s, so it’s not real beef stroganoff; it’s the convenience food version of beef stroganoff. But it’s comfort food. Cut up the cube steak, season with salt and pepper, brown in in a large frying pan with chopped onions and sliced mushrooms (hey, at least I’m not using canned mushrooms like dad did), add sour cream, Campbell’s Cream of Mushroom Soup, and a good bit of Worcestershire sauce. Simmer until hot, and serve over noodles.
The other time I use cube steak is to make sandwiches. Cube steak, garlic salt, pepper, and American cheese, on wheat bread with mayo.
Odds are she used a roast of some sort. Probably a tougher cut that would benefit from stewing like bottom round. I would think cube steak would pretty much fall apart from a long stewing time.
Phily cheesesteak sandwiches. No really.
If I’m understanding the term cube steak correctly, Merichka’s restaurant in Crest Hill Illinois makes garlic butter poor boys out of cube steak. They are very tasty.
The “Country Style Steak” recipe from that episode is a go-to in my house. Mostly a variation on others of cube steak and brown gravy presented here. But put the dutch oven in the oven for a Sunday afternoon and the house smells good.
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/country-style-steak-recipe
Maybe I’ll try it in the crock pot. I loathed cube steaks for decades, my mother would just fry them in a pan. They turned all gray, icky and grainy, tough as shoe soles. They were disgusting. I suppose in the crock pot with lots of ingredients, they would be disguised (though I make a killer swiss steak with thin round steak or sirloin steak). I found chicken cube steaks in one grocery store, that is, thin slabs of chicken breast put through the pounding machine, and those I dust with flour and spices and saute in hot oil. Dirt cheap and absolutely delicious!
The way I’ve heard it explained, is that German immigrants to Texas in the 19th century adapted readily available and cheap beef to their traditional schnitzel recipes, giving us chicken fried steak. Not sure if that’s apocryphal or not, but that’s the tale I’ve been told.
I pan fry them just a couple of minutes on each side in butter seasoned with salt, pepper, garlic, and chives. The secret is in not over cooking them. The butter keeps them moist and you will be left with a garlic and chive melted butter that you can drizzle over the meat. Medium heat is best.
Yeah, we had one of those machines at the restaurant I used to work at, but the result were just called ‘steaks’. I think ‘cube steak’ is an Americanism.
The steaks were used to make the sandwich I described in my post, which are fairly popular fast food fare around here. (And now I want one. v_v)