Thursday with a Monster

Sometimes I just regard the computer as a monster. A physical monster, that is. It takes up a lot of space, the way I have it set up. I don't like having it dominate my living room.

I have begged Theodore to let me set it up in the garage, on his workbench. Too hot in summer, too cold in winter, he says.  And he doesn't want to give up his long space even though the chances of his making anything much up there aren't very big, any more.

I have railed at Benjamin, our son who helped me choose the computer, for not making me get a laptop. 'You insisted," he reminds me, none too kindly. But that matters little. Laptop or desktop, I would still have monitor, computer, keyboard, printer and sheaves of paper cluttering up a large untidy space.

My present thought is to go to the library and establish an account and go over there to write my blog. Then I could just unplug this monster and set it aside until I get my way about the garage. Why shouldn't the computer be in the garage? If we had a barn or loft, I'd have it there. Or in a little fairy garden house. Or in a shed.

Just thinking.

As for cooking, today, I think I will talk about my grandmother's chicken fried steak.  She was a delicate little lady who had great energy in the kitchen. If one had to pound steak, she could pound. And, to make good chicken fried steak, you do have to pound.  With a hammer.

Get your round steak and wash it and trim it.  You need a hammer (ball peen is good) and a large bowl with ice water in it. You need a big piece of wood to hammer on. 

Cut the steak into pieces, following more or less the natural shapes. The large piece will have to be cut into strips. Take a piece and lay it on the board, and begin to pound.  The point is to break down the strong fibers of the meat, while not breaking through completely to make lacework of your steak. It's always seemed to me that you do have to break through, however. So pound away. When you have virtually macerated that piece of meat, drop it into the ice water.  Proceed with the rest of the pieces.

When you are ready to cook the meat,  place a lot of fat (she used Crisco, the old fashioned Crisco made of hydrogenated cottonseed oil ) into a large black iron frying pan.  Heat it up at a moderate heat until it's quite hot.

Make a nice mix of flour, salt and pepper. Do not stint on the seasonings.  Dredge the rescued pieces of steak in the flour and drop into the fat. Make sure it is hot enough by testing with a teeny pinch of the mix.  Fry one side, and turn and fry the other. My grandmother took it out and laid it on a brown paper bag to drain. It fries up quite fast, and leaves a lot of black stuff in the pan, so if you have to repeat this process many times, be prepared to start over in the middle with a new batch of fat.  When all are done, you can pour out the majority of the fat, add a little new flour, and make a rich thick gravy with the rest of the pan scrapings. That's why it doesn't work with burnt flour...gravy should be creamy brown, not blackish gray.

That's all. It's such a simple recipe, almost primitive. Hard to see how so many restaurants make such a disaster of it, turning out a product that's glutinous, pre-boiled, or otherwise made a travesty.  It is the best steak in the world. I fry it now in safflower oil, not as good a frying medium as the cottonseed oil, but still--good. YAZZYBEL