Recipe: Chicken Fried Steak with Milk Gravy

Southern comfort food at it’s absolute finest. When I want a hearty Sunday dinner on a crisp winter evening, chicken fried steak is one of the first places I go. This is one of those dishes that I can only eat at home because every restaurant I’ve seen tosses their steak in the deep fryer and that absolutely ruins it. Pan frying keeps the meat tender and juicy, the breading soft and crispy at the same time, and provides all the little yummy brown bits that flavor the gravy. It’s also one of those dishes that is great for company because it looks so darn impressive while really being not much more complicated than a frozen skillet meal.

Chicken Fried Steak with Milk Gravy

Steak
Flour
Milk
Bread Crumbs
Olive oil

For the gravy:
1 pint cream
1 T Worcestershire sauce
salt
pepper

Prepare the steaks for breading by first setting up your breading station. Put the flour, milk, and bread crumbs each in their own shallow plate. Slice the steak into strips, and bread using a standard three step procedure. Dip in flour, then into milk, and then into bread crumbs.

Coat pan with a layer of olive oil and allow it to get nice and hot. Fry until the breading is crispy.

To make the gravy, remove the meat from the pan and add the cream. Scrape up the bits of breading from the bottom of the pan, season to taste with Worcestershire sauce and salt and pepper. Let it boil down to thicken. Serve with mashed potatoes.

I’ve made this dish so many times it’s hard to come up with an actual recipe. This was as close as I could get. It really is “add a little of this, add a little of that” which is my favorite way to cook. You can fry up a whole steak at once with great results, but I like to cut my steak into fingers. I like the proportion of meat to breading this creates, but it’s also a great tip for entertaining. You save a whole lot of meat if people can take only just what they want.