Saveur Cooks Authentic American - Editors Of Cook's Illustrated Magazine [46]
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.
Texas Classic
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.
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—Robb Walsh
Slow-Smoked Brisket
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,