Sunday night was steak night at our house, and I decided to go with an old favorite and a new experiment. On the right, Jenn was served as silly-sized black angus ribeye, supposedly from a noted black angus farm, cooked a blissful medium rare. We are big ribeye fans in our house, as we generally agree the ribeye is the most flavorful steak in the steer, with its marbling and tenderness.

Although I rarely cook the cut, I coated a Flintstones-sized porterhouse with chimichurri and grilled it. As always, it re-affirmed my belief that the porterhouse is far from “king of the steaks,” largely because as good as the filet can be – as tender and juicy as possible – the strip is never as good as I imagine it could be under other circumstances.

I consider myself pretty particular when it comes to beef, and I believe that short of preparing it over wood smoke on some 1100 degree grill, I don’t think the strip can be prepared to taste as good as several other steaks. Like many cuts of sirloin, it really requires marinade or a rub of some sort to bring out any powerful flavor, and with some sort of aid, it’s usually not natural steak flavor. In general, if a steak can’t be seasoned with just extra virgin olive oil, kosher salt, and pepper, it’s a second class steak in our house. That doesn’t mean we won’t eat it, it’s just second tier. Nonetheless, it was plenty tasty enough to accompany the meal.

Lightly sauteed asparagus, tri-color cous cous, and fresh pretzel bread accompanied the steaks and rounded out a great meal.

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In my previous foray with chicken fried steak, I found that round cuts, at least, unaltered, made for a poor dish. After consulting some recipes, I found that a much longer tenderizing period could be a solution, or using a “needling device” to create your own cube steak. In opted, for my experiment, to use cube steak purchased from the local supermarket.

A few tips I can share: get the cube steak patty slightly wet, salt and pepper, flour, egg wash, and put it back into the flour. But here’s the kicker: use your hands. Be gentle, but pat the mix in. Make sure it’s evenly coated. This stuff isn’t glue, it will unevenly coat unless you do it properly.

My only objection, I’m afraid, is that my sawmill gravy was a little thin. I made it with leftover oil, flour, chicken broth, and whole milk, but I suspect I used a little too much broth or a little too little flour. Either way, it tasted great, it just was too thin. Nonetheless, the dish was an overwhelming success.

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As a many-decade-devotee of Kraft Macaroni and Cheese Deluxe, aka “Kraft Dinner,” I have always hesitated to make my own Mac n’ Cheese. It’s hard to top what’s already damned close to perfect.

Turns out I was wrong. I modded a few recipes out there and ended up with a damned tasty dish. Jenn and I tore through 4 servings in 2 days, and last night I made another massive batch. 6 dudes ate 10 servings and 2 asked me for the recipe. Creamy mac and cheese, I now know, is overrated. Real baked and mac and cheese is light and cheesy and doesn’t leave you feeling like you just ate a brick. I’m still perfecting it, but when I think I have, I will post the recipe.

Mac n Cheese, originally uploaded by firsttubedotcom.

Tonight was my first shot at making “Country Fried Steak.” Normally, I can just kind of imagine a recipe and it comes out good enough, but this one slipped, I admit. So here’s my advice if you choose to go for it with Country Fried Steak:

1. Use Cube Steak. If you decide to go with round, use meat tenderizer and give it plenty of time to sit. I used round and tenderized it with a mallet and it was still really tough. It needs to be very soft to almost crumble apart.

2. You will need to coat it in either buttermilk or an egg wash, but if you do use buttermilk, let it sit in the buttermilk for some time. The crust was too weak and broke apart, sadly, while still in the oil.

3. Think about gravy BEFORE making the steak. It’s not too hard to put together either a white or brown gravy, but it’s very hard to it after the steak is ready… at least, if you want to serve it while the food is still warm.

Overall, I’d rate this a 6/10. It was good enough overall, but it was bad chicken fried steak. Next time, perhaps.

Country Fried Steak… sorta, originally uploaded by firsttubedotcom.