Recipe #39 and #40: Chicken Fried Steak and Fried Cube Steak

Recipe: Chicken Fried Steak

Source: The Pioneer Woman Cooks

Time: 30 minutes

Ease: 3

Taste: 6

Leftover Value: 7

Down the Drain or Keep in the Strainer: Keep it in the Strainer!

Recipe: Fried Cube Steak

Source: The Pioneer Woman Cooks

Time: Even less than Chicken Fried Steak!

Ease: 2

Taste: 4

Leftover Value: 4

Down the Drain or Keep in the Strainer: Down the Drain.

I decided to kill two birds with one stone by making both of these recipes at the same time.  

They are almost the same exact thing.  

The difference is that the Fried Cube Steak is only dipped once in flour, then fried.  Chicken Fried Steak, on the other hand, requires dipping in an egg/milk mixture, coating with seasoned flour, dipping once again in the egg/milk mixture, and finishing up with another coating of flour.

While Fried Cube Steak is, obviously, a million times easier than Chicken Fried Steak, the taste fails in comparison. 

Something about a coating of eggs and flour makes everything so much better.

Hubby hates this meal.  If he was rating it, his rating would probably be in the negatives.

It is a true southern comfort meal, which we aren't used to.  Hubby finds it flavorless.  He also thinks cube steak is too tough, which might just be true.  However, I wouldn't mind getting to better know this kind of eating.

The gravy is the only element of this meal that I'm trying to wrap my brain around.  It has some delicious elements to it such as the quarter cup of meat grease (yum and gross all at once!) but then it also has two cups of milk which seems strange to me.*

*I should mention, I haven't had much experience with gravy, particularly white gravy.  

After pouring it over my meat, I found it was a necessary addition to chicken fried steak.

I'm still deciding how I feel about pouring it over my mashed potatoes.