It’s so nice seeing family stories of schnitzel and other similar things and the stories of the three stage breading. I’m glad this has given others a neat idea to try.
Who doesn’t love a good breaded and fried steak, right? From chicken fried steak to steak Milanese, there are variations all over. My aunt made a recipe she called “fried meat”, which was probably pork schnitzel, but was oh so delicious. In fact, it was so good, that when her kids and grandkids would visit, if she had some made, she would carefully dole it out and always say she made less than she did. That can have benefits. For instance, I did a triathlon one weekend in her town. She was so nice to me after—she invited me over so I could get a nice shower instead of driving the three hours home all nasty. She made me a steak for lunch, and she sent me home with a big bag of the famous fried meat. Pleasant memories.
BUT—as good as it is, it’s a mess to make, what with setting up the breading station, getting flour everywhere, club hand, and all that. It takes time, and can be a pain. This is a story of how I found a new technique, tried it out, loved it, but made several mistakes along the way which are easily correctible next time I make this. And I WILL make it other times. Ultimately this came out SUPER successful, because I follow the Chef John strategy of Never Let The Food Win.
So anyway, our story begins, as it so often does in this family group, with our old friend Chef John:
I know, right? So much easier and less messy than a breading station. I was eager to try this out, so I began prepping, which is where error number one happened. At the store, I was going to buy a family pack of bottom round steaks—the kind that’s very lean but with a fat cap on the side. They’re fairly thin and I’m used to giving those a good pound and frying them up minute style for some sandwiches with peppers and onions. BUT—I saw these family packs of what they were calling “petit sirloin steaks” that were about the same price, but I got over a pound more meat. So I went that route instead. That was error number one. The sirloins were over an inch thick. Error two was I thought I had my old meat hammer—large and heavy—but I couldn’t find it. So I had to buy a cheap smaller much lighter version at the store. It worked, but not as well as I hoped. So anyway, I cut and pounded the steaks, but could only get them to a half inch thick at the smallest.
I pounded them all out, then made the bread crumbs. Here’s error number three. I grated some Parmigiano Reggiano cause why not, then added the panko, and the garlic sizzled oil. Don’t worry, the garlic didn’t go to waste. However, as I was scaling up the recipe for the amount of meat I had, I think I put a bit too much oil into the crumbs. It being the first time I used this technique, I wasn’t sure.
Anyway, the crumbs were crunchy and greasy, with that bit of parm. Yummy. Then I did the press and pound technique with the crumbs on the steaks. This picture is pre pounding.
Into the oil they went. I used a bit more oil in the pan than the video, but they still came out nice. One thing I was concerned about, and this is error number four, was I probably didn’t pound the crumbs into the meat hard enough. That, plus the greasiness of the crumbs, while crisp when fried, made them easy to come off the steak if I handled my tongs incorrectly.
I had to fiddle with the heat, because too low, and the crumbs would soak up all the oil and become soft and greasy, too high and the crumbs would burn before the steaks were cooked. But, I pushed through and got this:
You can see some spots where the crumbs came off, but all in all, a success. And there was NO MESS FROM BREADING. Everything got wrapped up in the plastic when done, except for a few stray crumbs. And it was FAR quicker than using the breading station. I highly recommend trying this out.
Now, as a bariatric patient, I can’t eat all of one steak. I sliced them into manageable cubes and parceled them out into meal sized portions served with my Dad’s Buttered Noodles:
Cook egg noodles per package in salted water. I used a kluski type egg noodle because of the texture and thickness, and kluski (Polish for noodle) is better than Italian pasta. Drain the noodles, and with the heat on low to medium low, add a LOT of butter to the pot. Add the noodles back in, and season as follows: salt (if it needs it, the butter is also salted), a lot of pepper, most of a (small) head of minced garlic (here I also used the rest of the head which had sizzled in the oil for the crumbs, making it a whole head in there), Italian seasoning, and more fresh grated parmigiano reggiano. Always one of my favorites as a kid, and always served when Dad would broil steaks.
Anyway, out of three pounds of steak and a pound of noodles, I got 13 nice meals out of it, with a couple extra almost meal sized servings of noodles.
So, at the time of this writing, I will have made some beef broth with some barley thrown in, because why not, in the crock pot, then a skirt steak marinated in balsamic and garlic, along with more buttered noodles. This weekend, it’s my third batch of karaage in like six weeks. Y’all should try Chef John’s version. It’s soo good.
So anyway, has there been a situation where you wouldn’t let the food win and pulled the proverbial rabbit out of the hat? Let’s hear stories!