Monday, July 13, 2009

When You're Tired of Chicken...

I really love Paula Deen, I like to watch her cook, I like her magazines, I entertain the idea of visiting her restaurant, I love her house, etc. I read her magazines alot and occasionally venture after a recipe or two.

Anyhow the point of this post is a recipe I suppose. My kids love chicken strips and I get tired of making them so I tried a Paula recipe.

Steak Fingers!!! Basically you take two cubed minute steaks and cut into two inch strips. Mix flour, cracker crumbs, salt, pepper, and paprika together in a bowl. Fill a large skillet with about 1/2 inch of canola oil (or other oil) and heat on medium heat. Dip the steak strips into the flour/cracker crumbs then into buttermilk (the recipe called for egg and milk but I substitute buttermilk for everything and it works great!) then dip back into the crumbs and place in hot oil. Cook for about 3 or 4 minutes per side until really brown and crispy.

The best part? After you cook and drain the steak strips onto paper towels you reserve about 2 Tbs of the hot oil and the crunchy stuff in the pan and cook with 4 T of flour and some milk and salt and pepper and it makes GREAT gravy to dip it in! We had the steak fingers and gravy with Texas toast and corn on the cob fresh from the garden and it was too yummy!!! Oh and the 2nd best part? The entire meal took be about 20 minutes to make and there are plenty of left overs for Travis to take to work tomorrow! Go Paula!!!! The third best part? The recipe wasn't originally "Allergen friendly" but it was very very easy to substitute a couple of items to make it safe for the munchkins who can't eat eggs.

5 comments:

Carol said...

Sounds great! When are you cooking it again so I can come over and try it? :-)

jparsley said...

Well I do have some left over in the fridge but you'd have to wrestle it away from Trav and it might make him feel guily to take it away from an expecting mama!!!

Stephanie said...

That sounds really yummy! Where can I get the measurements on the ingredients?

jparsley said...

I supppose I could be more precise couldn't I? The crumb/flour mix is 1 1/2 c all purpose flour (but I used self rising) and 1 sleeve crushed cracker crumbs, 1/2 t of paprika, 1/2 t of black pepper and 2 t salt. It says for 2 lbs of cubed steak. As far as the gravy, you make it kind of like breakfast gravy...just leave a little of the oil in the pan and add about 4 TBS of flour and then cook that for 1 minute (whisk the WHOLE time) then add as much milk as you want gravy, ( I used about 1 1/2 cups probably) but you could use more and then add salt and pepper to taste. Hope this helps!!!

Lesley said...

I am thinking it DOES sound like the perfect company food. I'm just saying ...