Some food, some drink.

School Cafeteria Fare Redux: Homemade [Chicken-fried] Steak Fingers.

Abstract:

It's a good day in this house when I can cook something that both the kids and the grown-ups alike enjoy, and there are few recipes that do that as well as steak fingers. Steak fingers done right are a simple bit of comfort food that the whole family can agree on; and the way I do 'em is squarely more "steak" than "finger". These two-bite morsels of chicken-fired steak start by putting the seasoning where it belongs: On the beef and not in the flour. Quality cuts of bottom round and a little patience make for plenty of crispy, golden-brown breaded goodness that sets this dish apart from its school cafeteria counterpart.

Purpose:

There are certain types of youth-friendly foods whose name carries a stigma that seems to give them a bit of an image problem. Labeled as "kid cuisine", these are foods that receive their moniker often as a result of the established nature of their processed food equivalent. I do my best at home to put proper perspective on my family's food expectations, having successfully beat the bad rap with stove top macaroni and cheese, and even white bread. Last year, I had the occasion to eat lunch at school with my son. The meal: Steak fingers. They were pretty much just as I remember them from my time in elementary school; no steak and all finger, the beef equivalent of chicken nuggets. Crazy as it would seem to one's perceptions of a six-year-old's palate, my son wasn't having it. I really had to get on him to eat least eat one of them. After I left the school that day, I thought about the minor ordeal that transpired in the cafeteria with my kid. If someone didn't get him some proper steak fingers, the boy was going to have a distorted vision of what the dish oughtta be; and we all [should] know that early eating habits stick with your kids for life.

I have a difficult time letting problems lie when the solution is within my grasp. It's an almost obsessive compulsion I have to wrong a right. So the following week, I went back and whipped up steak fingers at home. In a bit of social engineering, I made it a point not to tell him what he was eating until after he'd run a beefy breaded morsel thru the ketchup and sampled a few bites. It was a successful gamble, and now my son now looks forward to a plate full of steak fingers at dinner (just so long as dad's doing the cooking).

Recipe: Jump to the detailed recipe. (or, keep reading for the gist of it) -

1 1/2 lbs Tenderized bottom beef round or "cube steak"

2 tsps Kosher salt

1 tsp onion powder

1/2 tsp paprika

1/2 tsp black pepper

1/2 tsp garlic powder

1 1/2 cups all purpose flour

2 eggs

1 cup buttermilk

canola oil (for frying)

Cut cube steak pieces into 1 inch strips. Mix together, salt, onion powder, paprika, black pepper and garlic powder and apply seasoning blend to both sides of the meat. Let the seasoned strips rest on a wire rack suspended above a half sheet pan for at least 5 minutes. Measure your flour into a shallow dish and dredge each seasoned strip thru the flour, making sure to gently knock off any excess, then put the floured fingers back on the rack. While the floured and seasoned strips take a break, beat the eggs into the buttermilk. Drizzle 2 tablespoons of the egg and buttermilk mixture into the flour and distribute the resultant crumb throughout the flour with a fork. Move the milk/egg mixture to a shallow pan, and dip the already floured beef strips into the egg and milk mixture and then immediately coat each strip with more flour. Put each of the now breaded fingers back on the rack to rest a minimum of 10 minutes.

When you're done dipping and dredging, Heat enough vegetable oil to cover a 10 or 12 inch cast iron skillet a quarter inch deep. Heat the oil to 350F over medium heat (or until you can just start to smell the oil cook) add fingers 4-6 at a time, taking care not to crowd the pan. The heat in the pan should readjust to ~ 325F. Cook strips for 3 minutes on each side, turining once during the frying with spring-loaded tongs. Move finished fingers to a clean wire rack or a plate with paper towels nestled in a warm (~180F) oven while you finish the remaining batches of fingers (It's no fun when the cook's gotta eat alone).

Observation:

My butcher labels tenderized bottom round "cube steak". I know this because I went back and asked my processor just to be certain. According to my butcher, there is a difference between the aforementioned cube steak and what they label tenderized round steak. The latter comes from the top of the round. That being said, cube steak is kind of an ambiguous nomenclature that doesn't always tell you what you're actually getting. It's always best to just simply ask to ensure you're getting what you're paying for; and If you've got a good butcher (which I do), they'll be more than happy to oblige.
If you've done the breading and frying thing before, then you'll notice that the flour's not seasoned. To me, it just doesn't make sense to season the breading when it's the beef you wanna taste. This here is steak; and I always season a steak with salt and other dry seasonings before I do anything else to it. The breading is more about texture here, and anyhow spices and what not tend to get a bit singed. Anyhow, I think that just about anything besides salt and pepper usually seem to get lost in a breading.
What, no breadcrumbs? Nope. I firmly believe that chicken fry is a flour-only affair. I want breading but I don't want bread. All the same, I got nothing against a good dredging of Panko in the proper situation.
On the subject of the breading, just because we're talking flour here, that doesn't mean we're talking boring. We pour that generous splash of buttermilk and egg mix into the flour so that we promote the growth of those shaggy crispy bits that are signature of the way folks expect a steak finger (or any chicken fry for that matter) to turn out. It's a simple trick, and it makes a whole world of difference in the finished product.
I've explained this concept before, but as there are probably more than five people reading this time, I reckon this bears repeating: If you can't get breading to stick to a hunk of food, then you're not waiting long enough. There needs to be a bit of time for the starches in the breading to fully hydrate and adjust to their substrate. Otherwise, you're leaving behind a subcutaneous layer of dry goods that locks in moisture and will later cause the golden-brown and delicious coating to slough right off; and you don't need that kind of disappointment at the dinner table. Likewise, that same wait will allow the outside of the breading to dry out a bit, and that'll promote the formation of more crispy, brown-edged goodness.

Results:

Y'know, with all this talk about steak fingers being children's eats, we've kind of glanced over the possibilities for the grown-ups. Anyone who likes a good chicken-fried steak is going to dig these; chief among them the cook, as the portioning here allows for easier handling, better portioning, and faster cook times; which in the end makes for a bit more family-friendly flexibility.

Where serving's concerned, a proper country-style gravy would be a whole 'nother pan, and I don't much feel like doing additional dishes. I keep saucing simple and usually just squirt a heavy dose of Sriracha into some ketchup (my son says honey mustard is totally decent too). Really for that matter, sans-sauce is perfectly acceptable too. The thing I like most about these steak fingers is that they don't actually need a condiment crutch. The beef is tender and never dry, thanks to the alone time it had on the rack with the seasoning; and the breading adds that golden, brown and deliciousness without overpowering all that is beefy. I might sound a bit like a broken record at times, but I'll say it again anyway: This is a quintessential cast-iron cooking recipe; and if you don't own a skillet yet, then it's time to "iron up" and get that deserving family of yours some proper steak fingers!

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