Chicken Fried Steak

One of Dave's favorite foods is chicken fried steak. He doesn't eat it very often, but lately he has been talking about it pretty frequently. So when I was at the grocery store recently I saw that cube steak was on sale (Not that it's expensive in the first place, but on sale? Even better!) and picked some up. We, of course, had to have mashed potatoes and gravy to go with the chicken fried steak. It's not chicken fried steak without mashed potatoes and gravy! (Side note, Dana's favorite cafeteria food in high school was chicken fried steak! Yes, really.)

I used The Pioneer Woman's Chicken Fried Steak recipe from her cookbook. It's a pretty basic recipe that I probably could have done with out the cookbook, but the last time I made chicken fried steak (years and years ago) it didn't turn out very good. The breading is just flour, seasoning salt, pepper, Cayenne pepper and paprika, but it still yields a great flavor with the steak. It was nice to have her gravy recipe. I make gravy for Thanksgiving and a few other times a year, but it still intimidates me when I make it. I am always worried it will turn out lumpy or bland. NOTE: You must season your gravy with salt and probably lots of it or it will be super bland, that's what I have learned. You're welcome. So after adequate seasoning the gravy was perfect as were the mashed potatoes. I prefer to use Yukon Gold Potatoes for mashed potatoes, but only had Idaho on hand and they did turn out really good. I also use a potato ricer to make my potatoes, then I don't have to worry about lumps!

My only complaint about the chicken fried steak was that is was a little tough. I am blaming the meat, it was tenderized, but I should have probably beat on it some more to help it out a little.

Here's the finished product:

I was going to put a link up to the recipe for Chicken Fried Steak on her website, but I don't see it on there. UPDATE: The Pioneer Woman just put her chicken fried steak recipe online!