CRASH COURSES: Subprime Steak - finally, a gravy train you can catch
Now that every penny of your household budget is devoted to payments on the adjustable rate mortgage (Nice call, Einstein!) for your 5-bedroom house, and your psychiatrist, for wholesale Xanax “samples,” it’s time to sit down and take stock.
Or squat, because the repo guys took everything but the hardwired stainless appliances.
Silver lining time! The laundry room is spacious large enough to house a dozen homeless ex-mortgage brokers. But how can you afford to feed them?
Here’s an idea that will help you cook dinner for the masses and let off potentially felonious rage at the same time: Subprime Steak. You take cheap beef and hammer it soft with a spiked meat mallet. Muttering names under your breath is optional.
Or, you can buy “cube steak” at the store, already mechanically tenderized for you. Contrary to its name, cube steak in no way resembles a cube. It hardly resembles a steak. It is not tender, you cannot slice through it with a Lenox butter knife and it will not be enjoyed on your custom built mahogany table that seats twelve comfortably (because you hawked it on Craigslist).
But on the bright side, it’s chock full of vitamins and minerals. Beaten into submission, cooked slowly and combined with good, hearty ingredients, this cheap slab of beef becomes downright palatable.
Whether you beat your meat or buy cube steak, season some flour, fry some bacon, and you’re halfway to simmering the beef in milky gravy with onions, potatoes and carrots. Then, as Ozzy once said, you’re going off the rails on the gravy train.
Hint: Subprime Steak can be prepared in an easily transportable electric skillet that fits nicely on the Motel 6 bedside table.
COMING FRIDAY on One Big Kitchen: “Mortgage Meltaways,” the wafer-thin cookies that disappear faster than a lifetime of equity.
- Kristin Kunert
Previously in Crash Courses: Dick Punch and Lehman Crumbles.
The recipe and more, after the jump.
Recipe: Subprime Steak
3 pounds bottom round, pounded till tender, or cube steak
3 large potatoes, cut into 1-inch chunks
4 large carrots, sliced
3 onions, cut into 1-inch chunks
1/2 pound bacon or sausage
2 cups flour
1 tablespoon plus 2 teaspoons granulated garlic
1 tablespoon plus 2 teaspoons chili powder
2 teaspoons plus 1 teaspoon fresh ground black pepper
1 tablespoon plus 2 teaspoons salt
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
4 tablespoons (half a stick) butter
1 cup chicken broth
1 quart whole milk
1/4 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup ketchup
1/4 cup Frank’s hot sauce
Add 1 tablespoon of garlic, chili powder, salt and 2 teaspoons of ground pepper to flour in large bowl and mix to combine.
Brown bacon or sausage in large, heavy-bottomed pot. Remove browned meat.
Add 2 tablespoons vegetable oil to pot. Dredge tenderized beef in flour and shake off excess. Brown meat in pot over medium heat, in batches. (Be careful with the heat here, because if you burn the fond, the tasty stuff on the bottom of the pan, it’ll taste nasty.)
Immediately after removing last pieces of beef, drop butter into pot. When melted, add 1/3 cup of the remaining seasoned flour. Whisk for 1-2 minutes, until bubbles stop, then add broth, whisking to scrape up brown goodness off the pan bottom. (If you burned it, no big whoop. Scrub out the pot and start the gravy by cooking 1/4 cup flour into 1/2 stick butter, then adding the seasonings and proceeding from there.)
As mixture thickens, add milk a little at a time, plus the rest of the dry spices (2 teaspoons salt, granulated garlic and chili powder, and 1 teaspoon ground pepper). When the milk and spices are incorporated, stir in soy sauce, ketchup and hot sauce.
Add vegetables and browned meat, turn heat down to a low simmer and cook for 45 minutes, stirring frequently to avoid burning. Before serving, scatter cooked bacon or sausage over plates.
Filed under: Crash Courses, Home cooking, Recipes, beef, meat, stews and chilis
