Test Kitchen Confidential: Chicken-Fried Steak

Alright ya'll we're starting on a three day development sprint to develop the best Chicken-Fried Steak. This bad boy needs a glow up.

I'm looking for opinions, insight, ideas, recipes, links anything you got related to chicken-fried steak. No wrong ideas!

Non-negotiables: Has to be with beef (TBD on the cut), can be made in under 24-hrs.

Starting today I'll share pictures and trial notes here at the end of the day. Sprint ends Friday (EOD). Join me on this ride off into the sunset!

Find more posts tagged with

Comments

montebello1964

Amazingly, I don't think I've ever had one!

nicholas.gavin

nicholas.gavin

Progress isn’t always linear. Yesterday’s final plate wasn’t the strongest of the series, but I made meaningful headway in a few key areas — and that’s a win in R&D.

Here’s what’s moving forward into today’s sprint:

Dredge: The equal-parts saltines-to-flour blend continues to perform well. It coats evenly, adheres well, and creates a great texture. This ratio is staying put while I refine other variables.

Meat: Ran flank, top round, and chuck side-by-side comparisons.

The leaner cuts (flank and top round) expelled too much moisture during cook and rest at our target temperature of 150°F+.
Their higher price point didn’t justify the end result.
Chuck delivered better tenderness without purging juice into crust, and stronger value alignment.At this stage, chuck is the front-runner.

Next steps: Going back to Trials 3.1 and 3.2. Those versions had a playful, unique texture and a flavor profile that felt right for a breakfast-style chicken-fried steak. Adjust sweetness so it can work better for dinner.

Preserve texture from 3.1 and 31
Dial back sweetness.
Remove dependence on Marsala so the recipe doesn’t hinge on a specialty purchase.

sho.spaeth

Is maple syrup really a common ingredient? I guess I've never had a real chicken fried steak either…

And I find it slightly odd to use onion powder without garlic powder, the GOAT allium powder.

Are you jaccarding the beef?

nicholas.gavin

Great question! Maple syrup isn't a common ingredient in chicken fried steak.

In early discussions with Grant (before starting development) he said chicken-fried steak was one of his favorite breakfast dishes. I thought it might be fun to play up some of those flavors. But after pursuing this I'm realizing I'm pigeon holing the flavor profile by playing up the maple too much. But I think some sweetness is key for balancing flavor and texture in the crust.

I know what you mean, you hardly find recipes without using both onion powder and garlic powder. But I urge anyone to try the powders side by side and ask yourself what each one is bringing to the table? Are they needed in unison? I feel as though onion powder brings a really nice rounded sweetness to the table and so does garlic powder. So why both?

The meat was jaccarded. I'm finding that I like to start with 1-inch steaks, jaccard before pounding out to about 1/4-inch. Pounding before or without jaccarding a tough cut like chuck can be quite difficult and can just produce a meat paste of sorts.

tim.d.chin

Looks like you significantly bumped the liquid ratio of the batter in 3.4? That gives you a useful data point.

Time willing, I'd be curious about the extreme direction: Omitting all flour/starch from the batter. As in, dipped straight in buttermilk/maple and dredged in your locked AP/saltine mixture. You likely wouldn't be satisfied with the outcome, but it would give you a broad strokes idea of a baseline texture, and any trend effect from adding starch/flour to the batter.

Your instinct to go up on native starch from 3.4 seems like a reasonable solve.

I'm also looking at your relative "hydration" in the batter of liquid to dry (I say "hydration" bc maple syrup is ~33% water/67% sugar). Making some reasonable assumptions, (and please correct me if I'm off base):

3.4: (310 buttermilk + 80 maple)/(50 AP + 50 Cstarch + 25 Pstarch)= 310% "hydration"

3.3: 460/210=219% "hydration"

3.2: 340/210=162% "hydration"

3.1: 162% "hydration"

These numbers don't account for relative water content of each liquid (buttermilk, alcohol, or maple syrup), viscosity of the liquids, etc. But again gives you a rough idea of trend. If I had to guess, my armchair suggestion is: Yes, go up on native starch (bc AP flour is giving you sticky proteins), and match the "hydration" to something between 3.3 and 3.4 (anywhere from 250% to 280%) so that your crust layer isn't so thick

But idk, I'm just basing this off your log and observations

julian.garcia

I'm so hyped for this thread. And it has nothing to do with chicken fried steak.

csmulka1

What is the functional difference between the potato starch vs. the cornstarch here? Why use the combination rather than just one?

nicholas.gavin

My man, Tim Chin! I like where your head is at with this. I'm going to give that (omitting all flour/starch) a try this week. I think you're right, cut out all the noise and build it back up.

nicholas.gavin

Cornstarch: Cornstarch improves the ability of the dredge and batter to stick to the meat, and reduces the overall concentration of gluten, which helps improve crispness. Adding cornstarch helps produce a more cohesive fried coating. However, using cornstarch as the only adjunct starch can produce a coating that's quite thin and, sometimes, a little sandy or chalky.

Potato starch: Potato starch is better than cornstarch for maximizing crisp, crunch, and blistering because its starch granule size is larger, and because it contains a higher ratio of amylopectin (which swells a lot, then collapses into a shattery/glassy crust).

Tim and I have had a lot of success using these starches together to achieve amazing fry textures.

tim.d.chin

To add to this, the textural difference between cornstarch and potato starch in fried coatings comes down to brittle crisp vs. glassy crunch.

The main idea supporting this difference is granule size. Potato starch granules are larger (40-50 microns) than cornstarch (13-15 microns). Bigger granule size correlates with greater perception of crunch (think big empty, cavernous spaces that shatter when you bite into them, like a puffed up fried pita chip). Cornstarch fries up into smaller pockets, so when you bite into that coating, it reads more brittle or thin, i.e. crispy.

The downside of using potato starch alone is that the resulting coating can sometimes read a little greasy (especially if you're hydrating the starch to any significant degree) as the oil gets trapped in those larger spaces over the frying process. Using cornstarch can cut down on this perception of greasiness.

rragnell

Here in the CFS capital of Texas, we never use maple syrup. It should be savory, not sweet. And unlike your trials, we use an egg/buttermilk based batter or marinade for dredging. Give it a try.

ereeder

Another (ex) Texan here. I couldn't believe it when I saw the maple syrup. Growing up it was always cube steak (jaccarded round steak), egg/buttermilk batter, flour dredge (salted and heavily peppered), a little cayenne cooked in a cast iron skillet.

You might want to try

https://www.homesicktexan.com/independence-and-chicken-fried-steak/

and see how it compares with yours.

nicholas.gavin

Very happy to see a few Texans in the mix here. It's always great when developing to hear from people that eat and/or from a region that sees it on a regular basis.

Happy to report I landed in a place that sits close to the beloved classic.

Batter: Main components consisting of eggs, buttermilk, black pepper, cayenne, small amount of flour to thicken.
Dredge: Flour, (some) cornstarch for crisp, and saltines per Grants preference.

To pay tribute and show what a more classic version would look in the recipe page I took some side by side photos. Some of the classic cuts of meat you would see, different tenderization methods (cubed/jaccarded), and a breaded steak with and without saltines.

I also decided that it would be a smarter approach to avoid putting maple syrup in the chicken-fried steak recipe and save it as an ingredient within the milk (cream) gravy recipe. Hang on bear with me. The milk gravy will lead as a peppercorn packed milk-style gravy with a TIP within the recipe for turning it into a sausage gravy that has some maple syrup.

I had a lot of fun working on this recipe and looking forward to getting it published soon. Thanks for coming on this journey with me!