DINNER IN MINUTES
Coconut milk, broth turn to creamy sauce for chicken breasts in just 10 minutes.
In Saving Southern Recipes, Southern Kitchen’s Kate Williams explores the deep heritage of Southern cooking through the lens of passeddown, old family recipes.
Perhaps second only to Jell-O salad, country-style steak is one of the last things I ever expected to make. I mean, it’s not really my thing — I prefer my steak grill-kissed and medium rare, with perhaps a chimichurri sauce on the side. Very Californian, I know. But when my great uncle Leland asked me to make the family recipe for a recent reunion, I couldn’t really say no.
Leland’s grandmother, Sarah Hendry, aka “Nama,” was famous for her countrystyle steak and onions. It was so entrenched in Leland’s and my grandfather Loren’s memories that the dish had a place at the table for decades after she passed away.
My grandfather would, later, make it for all of the various family reunions, but it had been missing from family gatherings since he died in 2009.
Leland was determined to bring it back, and as the oldest grandchild and most prolific cook, this task fell to me.
It’s a simple, practical recipe: steak, pounded thin and dredged in flour, simmered for hours with a passel of onions until they melt into their own juices. It is most akin to smothered steak — there’s no chicken-fried, crisp breading or cream gravy.
My grandfather, who claimed a direct line to Scottish-American colonists, would have be thrilled to know that our version of country-style steak likely has more in common with Scottish collops than the Texanstyle chicken-fried variety. In old Scottish recipes, “collops” or “cutlets,” most often of veal, were typically panfried and then simmered in a flavorful stock.
When I cooked the dish, I was aiming to serve close to 20 people, so I scaled it way up to a 10-pound bag of onions and two whole bottom round roasts. It was a hilarious undertaking in a rental kitchen, dull knives, unfamiliar stovetops and all, but, along with some help slicing onions, and some borrowed Dutch ovens, I managed.
After a little poking and prodding at the pot, Leland proclaimed, “You’ve done it.” The steak and onions passed muster with everyone else, too.