[Sca-cooks] OOP: Query on Steak Smothered In Onions...
ysabeau
ysabeau at mail.ev1.net
Fri Aug 25 07:26:40 PDT 2006
Hmmmmm...I eat this on a regular basis. I think...I don't consider
it unique or different. I thought everyone ate their steaks this
way.
I routinely saute onions in a bit of whatever I have - butter,
olive oil - and then deglaze the pan with whatever I have - white
wine, red wine, beer, even orange juice one time (very
interesting). I either grill the steak or saute it (usually
between the onions and the deglazing). I usually put the onions on
the plate first (just because I've cooked them first and need
someplace other than the pan to put them and don't see a point in
dirtying another dish) then the steak, then drizzle the sauce from
the pan over the top. My dad would add mushrooms to the mix. If
I'm in a hurry or only cooking for myself, I'll cook the onions
and the steak at the same time on different sides of the skillet.
If I'm grilling, I'll prepare the onions a couple of hours ahead
of time and just reheat them. One of the things I've started
seeing in the stores here are sauces that are designed to be used
for deglazing pans to create a sauce...most have some kind of
alcohol base - whiskey, wine.
The other version I don't make at all, I usually order it at the
ubiquitous roadside restaurant, usually the seedier the better.
They basically take a chicken fried steak, put grilled onions on
top, and then a brown gravy. Sometimes they add those canned fried
onions you see in green bean casseroles. How breaded the steak is
depends on the restaurant and whether they are using the pre-
breaded frozen ones or if they are breading them themselves. I
prefer the lighter breaded ones. It is usually a round steak that
has been tenderized to the point of almost hamburger. There is a
restaurant here in Austin that serves a good smothered whatever
(chicken, pork chop, or steak) called Hoover's. I haven't been
there in years though.
I seem to remember eating some schnitzel in Germany that was
similar - maybe zigeuner schnitzel? but it was a pork steak.
I never really thought of it, but maybe it is a southern thing? I
know smothered pork chops and chicken are considered "soul food"
in these parts and usually served with a side of greens. The best
restaurants for that kind of food is usually on "the wrong side of
the tracks". The price of beef is much higher so most people
prefer to not sully the flavor of a good steak as much as they did
in the "old days" when the cuts were tougher and needed to be
braised. I think the smothered steak may have gone out when
barbecuing and grilling hit the main stage and that became the de
rigeur way of preparing steak...maybe?
Ysabeau (who is now craving steak smothered in onions, dang you!)
Barony of Bryn Gwlad, Ansteorra
---------- Original Message ----------------------------------
From: "Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius"
<adamantius.magister at verizon.net>
Reply-To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
Date: Fri, 25 Aug 2006 09:29:42 -0400
>Hullo, the list!
>
>I'm not sure if we talked about this before, and I don't think
it's
>necessarily the kind of thing that would find its way into the
>Florilegium, so here's what I'm wondering about...
>
>I'm interested in the sorta-kinda-archetypal dish of steak
smothered
>in onions, and any relationship it may or may not have to other
>smothered dishes, such as chicken (which I gather is somewhat
similar
>to some people's concept of a fricassee), and pork chops (which
>appear to be a basic braise).
>
> From what I'm seeing, the "steak smothered in onions" thing
seems to
>have reached its height in the US in the 1940's and '50's, but as
far
>as I can tell it's mostly a presentation/method of service, and
not a
>specific cooking method, at least by that time: the steak gets
>smothered on the plate, not in the pan.
>
>I believe I've seen references to SSIO as a Depression-era truck
stop
>lunch-counter type of item, cooked on a griddle alongside such
>yummies as the world-famous Hamburger Steak Sandwich (for which
>latter some early recipes exist indicating that the beef is
neither
>ground nor chopped, but repeatedly pounded). The steak would be
a
>cheap cut, possibly pounded, seared until brown and then
finished
>among a pile of fried/sauteed onions on the cool spot at the rear
of
>the griddle, similar (I think) to the modern Midwestern "pepper
>steak" (which is neither the Cantonese dish nor tournedos au
poivre).
>
>I believe Andy Smith (not the late SCAdian duke, the food
historian
>with the tomato fixation) sent me an e-mail which included a
>nineteenth-century recipe for smothered steaks which featured
onions,
>and ISTR it was pretty similar to a smothered pork chop recipe,
but I
>now can't locate the message.
>
>I was just wondering if anyone had actually eaten this, possibly
as a
>child, and whether it was cooked in combination or assembled on
the
>plate. It seems to be one of those things that has become a sort
of
>cultural icon, but which few of us have probably eaten within
the
>past year. You'd have to be certifiably insane to cheerfully
spend an
>evening setting up side-by-side taste tests on things like this,
>wouldn't you?
>
>BTW, when I did the taste test, the winner for sheer essential-
ness
>was the very lightly floured, pounded piece of boneless chuck,
more
>or less country-fried and then left to macerate in a mound of
very
>soft, almost conserved, sauteed onions in an iron pan over a low
>flame for 20-30 minutes.
>
>Adamantius
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>Sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org
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>
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