Thursday, March 25, 2010

Cube-ism

So I waded back into the beef this week. Porterhouse steaks last Friday night -- the butcher cut them a little thin for me, on the skinny side of half an inch, but a quick sear on the grill with a nice sea salt and pepper crust turned out some tender, flavorful meat. Mashed potatoes (potatoes and butter courtesy of the Amish co-op) and a salad (from Gardener's Gourmet woodstove-heated greenhouses in Westminster, by way of the Waverly farmer's market) rounded out a quick and satisfying dinner.

Ever since I crammed, stuffed, and wedged that quarter side of beef into my freezer last month I've been wondering what the hell I'd do with the 20 or so pounds of cube steak that came along with. I wasn't even sure what cube steak *is* -- we never ate it when I was a kid, so it's not part of my retro-foods vernacular.

I did however have vague recollections of a fantastic Dorothy Allison essay I'd read in the NYT Magazine a few years ago. It was more about her scrambling up the economic ladder far enough to afford a duck and a goose for Christmas -- the accompanying recipe is how to roast a duck. The part that stuck in my memory, though, was a passage about pounding oddball cuts of beef with a Coke bottle to tenderize it -- essentially, home-made cube steak. I went looking for it and got to re-read one of the most lyrical passages of food writing I've ever encountered:

"Gravy is the simplest, tastiest, most memory-laden dish I know how to make: a little flour, salt and pepper, crispy bits of whatever meat anchored the meal, a couple of cups of water or milk and slow stirring to break up lumps. That’s it. It smells of home, the door locked against the night and a stillness made safe by the sound of a spoon going round in a pan. It is anticipation, the last thing prepared before the meal comes to the table, the bowl in Mama’s hand closing the day out peacefully, no matter what came before."

Having read that -- and also the part about the Coke bottle pounding -- again, how could I not venture in for my own cube steak and gravy experience?

Once the inaugural pack of cube steaks thawed out, I opened the white butcher's paper to discover six heavily dimpled, flattened cutlets. The cuts were in a checkerboard shape -- hence the term "cube" steak. When I'd spoken to the butcher who custom-slaughtered our quarter cow, she'd offered this meat in the form of cutlets or cube steaks, my choice, but heavily recommending the cube steaks. "You'd have to work really hard to get this meat anywhere near tender enough to eat. You'd have to pound it within an inch of your life before you cook it," she advised over the phone. "But we have a machine that pounds the meat and tenderizes it for you."

Hey, I'm in favor of anything involving less work for little ol' me, so cube steak it was. Plus, though I'd envisioned engaging Jack and Cole in a little pre-dinner meat pounding, we utterly lack any of the heavy-lipped old fashioned Coke bottles Dorothy Allison references. So I told the butcher go ahead, pound 'er up.

Cube steak, it turns out, generally comes from parts of the cow that got a lot of exercise -- fairly tough cuts of muscle, like the the top or the round. Once tenderized, however, whether mechanically or via child labor, it's basically poor man's steak, straddling the divide between hamburger and cheap sirloin. Kitchens the world over have a use for cube steak, it seems. Browsing the innerwebs for cooking ideas, I mused over the phenomenon of smothered steak -- an approach ranging from intriguing, as in braising them in stock with caramelized onions, to terrifying preparations involving canned green beans and cream of mushroom soup. Latino kitchens marinate in lime and garlic to make bistec palomilla or adobo seasoning for bistec encebollado; Asian ones don't bother with the macerating, they just cut it matchstick-thin and stir fry. The cube steak concept that most made my mouth water, however, was chicken-fried steak.

I used to spend a fair amount of time in Austin, Texas, and I have fond memories of the chicken-fried steak at Threadgills. They claim theirs is world famous, and maybe even invented there if memory serves, but I just wanted to dine where Janis Joplin used to be the house entertainment. The outstanding chicken-fried steak was a secondary benefit.

Now, Threadgill's does East Texas CFS, which means batter dipped and served with sawmill (white) gravy. I am by birth tragically gravy challenged and so decided to make West Texas-style CFS, where the meat is simply coated in seasoned flour and quickly fried in a hot skillet. I am reasonably able to make a quick pan gravy, essentially a red-eye gravy, but cream gravies in my past have been regrettable.

So I filled a pie plate with flour, sprinkled on some coarse sea salt and lots lots lots of ground pepper. I floured the steaks on both sides and dropped them into a very hot iron skillet which had been liberally lubricated with lard. Once I'd flash-fried up a dinner's worth of cube steaks I then turned the savory, crunchy bits left in the pan into a dark brown gravy by dumping the leftover flour into the skillet to brown, then adding water and a little milk. By this time the smell of frying beef had filled the house, and once the gravy thickened up I called the boys to the table for chicken-fried steak and garlic mashed potatoes, with an ocean of gravy poured over.

I didn't have to call twice.

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