[Sca-cooks] OOP: Query on Steak Smothered In Onions...

[grizly]

-----Original Message-----
> > > > > > as a child and into teens, yes!  quite often.  it was my
> father's speciality.  but we are talking 45 years ago or
> so. 8)
>
> he used round steak, where a bit of smothering and
> braising worked nicely.  he used it because it was cheap
> and quick.  please remember he was a fighting army cook in
> the phillipines (WWII) so his recipes were often...
> interesting.

Yes, but this is exactly what I think I've been looking for. They may
have been interesting, but there's a good chance a WWII army cook
would at least know (if not always be able to practice in an
industrial setting) the "essential" form of what may once have been a
rather homely dish by some people's standards, but which now seems at
some point to have crept up on the social scale, and now may be going
out of fashion again to some extent. < < < < < <

As the low-income people spawned and their progeny moved up the
socio-economic scale, the love of such dishes has come along for the ride.
Our childhood dishes will fade, then show back up in the hip cuisine when we
are in our 40's.  We'll pay for that emotive experience of our childhood.

Another, but different, cousin is the smothered country fried steak.  This
breaded and braised jewel is all southern, but disappeared for a while from
anywhere I could find it. It's popping back up 17 years later in restaurants
again.  Basically a dredged (flour-egg-flour) cubed steak of some variey
(the whole muscle nearly minced state) pan fried, removed, and then braised
for a short while in the pan gravy assembled from the pan drippings.  It's
h at ll on the arteries and the BMI, but it is a true comfort food in some
southern households.  Heresy in other who contend the gravy is ONLY for the
rice/mashed potatoes/insert starch here.  Used to be a diner staple, but
went away for a while.  It will be back in force in a coupleyears as it gets
back into the small, independent, home-cooking shops.

niccolo