SCENE 1
The Food Gallery

    Good evening and welcome once again to The Food Gallery. Tonight, let us stroll through the Hall of Home-Cooked Horrors. Liver and onions are on permanent display here along with other suppertime nightmares of our youth like beets, and of course, who could forget mom's "Don't ask, don't tell" casserole.
    These, of course, pale in comparison to the horrors of cube steak. In any sane universe, this prodigiously perforated montage of mismatched meat would be used to patch tires rather than fill stomachs. Most moms make matters worse by encasing each slab in a thick morass of flavorless, fried flour which they then top with "gravy".
    But like many a monster from childhood mythology, the only thing cube steak needs is a little love, a little consideration, a little home-spun know-how. Because when it's treated right, even the cheapest cutlet in town can cast a tall culinary shadow. Whether it's slow-cooked or chicken-fried, cube steak can and will be ...

["Good Eats" theme plays]

SCENE 2
Whole Foods: Atlanta, GA - 9:30 am

GUESTS: USDA Agents #1, #2 and #3

    Now where might you find such a bit of goodness? Well, of all the primal cuts, I would say that the round is the best candidate. Of course, it's divided into the top round, the bottom round, and the knuckle. And of all of these, the bottom round is ideal for cube steak. It's lean, fairly tough because it does a lot of exercising. But, it's also got a great deal of flavor in it. And it can be had for a very, very reasonable price.
    Now when shopping for a cube steak, you're probably going to run across two different types: cube steak, and special cube steak. What's the difference?

AGENT #1: According to The North American Meat Processors Association, item #1100, a.k.a "cube steak", can be prepared from any portion of the carcass excluding the shank and heel meat. However, item #1101, a.k.a. "beef cube steak, special", is to be prepared exclusively from the round, loin, rib, or chuck sections. Additionally, the knitting together of two or more pieces of meat, or the folding of the meat during the cubing process is permissible only in the cut sold as "cube steak", not as "cube steak, special".

    That's right, he said, "knitting". But in this case, he's not talking about making a sweater. He's talking about the process of melding multiple pieces of meat into one single Frankensteak.
    Now these look pretty good. But in some cases, you may not be able to tell which body parts went into your cube steak. And for me, well, that's reason enough to just avoid them altogether. Besides, a two-pound bottom roast—a bottom round roast—when perforated personally in the privacy of your kitchen, will taste better and it will probably be a good bit cheaper. Now you can cut this yourself. But if your butcher is ready and willing—and most are—just ask them to slice it down into 1/2-inch pieces. That'll be perfect.

SCENE 3
The Kitchen

GUEST: The Dungeon Master

    Now if we are going to cube our meat ourselves, we will need a device: a device of lethal cunning capable of going medieval on a piece of meat. To that end, I put a call in this morning to my dungeon keeper.

SCENE 4
The Dungeon

GUEST: The Dungeon Master

AB: Hello, anybody home?
DUNGEON MASTER: [is typing on a laptop.]
AB: What are you doing? You're supposed to be building stuff.
DM: Oh, Master, don't be jealous that I've been chatting online with babes all day.
AB: You know, that's fine. I'll get what I need from "W".
DM: Oh no, master mustn't. Mean and cruel she is. She hateses us. Look, look what I made for you, Master, with my own loving handses. [Grabs AB and drags him to the next room]
AB: Ewww.
DM: Look, master. Look [uncovers a professional knitting machine]. Ha ha he heh heh heh heh. Eighty-six tenderizing blades. Eleventy hundred and eighteen cutting edges. Slices and knits meats simultaneously from both edges.
AB: Ahh.
DM: And if you happen to have any bad bunnies around ... [goes to put a stuffed bunny in to the machine]
AB: [stops him] Hey, hey, that's, that's fine. I get the point.
DM: Not if you use the hand guard. Safety first, master.
AB: This is, this is very snazzy. Made it yourself, did you?
DM: Oh, yes. I had a lot more time on my hands since you made me cut back on the torturing and all.
AB: Yeah. I can't help but notice it says here, "Made in Switzerland".
DM: Why do you hate me so, Master?
AB: You bought this on the Internet, didn't you?
DM: Oh, a couple of parts, perhaps.
AB: How'd you pay for it?
DM: Oh, this little plastic thing with the numbers on it.
AB: It's my credit card!
DM: Ohhhhh  ...
AB: [indignantly] How much?
DM: Oh, not much. Fifteen ...
AB:  ... dollars?
DM:  Hundred.
AB: [yells]
DM: Oh, please, have mercy on us. We only wishes to please and maybe cube a guppy or two.
AB: No, no, no, it goes back now. I'll find another way of doing this. And you, Sir, you've been a very bad Dungeon Master ...
DM: Yes.
AB:  ... and as punishment, I want you to go skim the moat.
DM: [happily] Oh, ha ha. [reaches for a used straw] Lucky straw. [runs away gleefully] Hoo hoo hoo hee hee ha ha.

SCENE 5
The Kitchen

    If, like me, you are not willing to part company with 1500 dollars just to cube some steaks, there are some alternatives. For instance, hunters really like this little hand-crank model that supposedly cubes meat. But I think it really just kind of cuts it into pieces. No, no good. Oh, you can go with a more classic tool. For instance, every American home has one of these. It's called a meat tenderizer. It isn't. It should be called a musher, because that's all it does is mush things into, you know, blech. There is another little device, though, that not too many people know about. I like to think of it as my own little personal secret. Check this out. It's called a needler. Check this out.
    For the sake of illustration, let us pretend that this slab of gelatin is a steak to be cubed. Observe. [uses the needler on the gelatin] Now remember, the goal is to break down as many fibers of connective tissue as possible. So I like to make four or five passes across the meat in one direction and then turn the device 90 degrees, and make four more passes. Flip and repeat on the other side.
    Check it out. See all those little perforations? [sees that the camera angle and lighting makes this difficult] Oh, let me help. [turns on a back light] There. Now you see them? Imagine if each one of those was cutting a piece of connective tissue. Imagine the tenderizing power that would have. Of course, before we actually puncture a perfectly good piece of meat, we should consider some cooking options.

Want to cube?
Feed your favorite search engine "48 blade meat tenderizer".

SCENE 6
Joe's Diner

GUEST: Diner Server

SERVER: [puts a plate of food down in front of AB]
AB: [to his server] Thank You!

... because there is no better place. Of course, if you could pick the diner up and move it around the country, you would probably find that cube steak-related terms and definitions change with the topography.

    Well, in the name of culinary clarity, I'm going to stick out my neck and declare that a cube steak, lightly dredged in flour, lightly pan-fried, and then braised in a brown sauce is indeed, country-style steak. It's a beautiful tune and here's how it goes.

SCENE 7
The Kitchen

GUEST: Swiss Girl

    So, punch in both directions, both sides of the meat. It'll take a few minutes, but it's fun. And then we return to the dredging pan for another coating of flour. Make sure you dust off all of the extra and then lay that out on a wire rack over a sheet pan.

    When they are nicely browned on both sides, move them to a plate, or in this case, the pot lid, and cover with a nice big piece of foil until you are done with the rest of the meat. When those last pieces are ready to exit the pan, you want to get them out pretty quickly because you don't want the little brown bits on the bottom of the pan to burn. I know, you can't see it, but they're there.

    Ahh, this is what we call DMT: Deep Mahogany and Tender. So tender, you don't even need a knife to cut it. You know, the long, slow, covered, moist cooking method, or braising, that we used, not only converted the humble liquids that we added into a delicious sauce, it finished what the needles began, that is, the complete decimation of connective tissue.
    Now this is a cooking method that lends itself well to a wide variety of dishes all based on this same cheap cut of meat. Now one that comes to mind right off the top of my head is Swiss steak, which, uh ...

SWISS GIRL: [Brett dressed in Swiss drag, appears in the window and winks at AB]

... is not really what it seems, like ... never mind. [exits]
    Although conventions of culinary nomenclature would suggest that Swiss steak would originate in a place called Switzerland, the term actually comes from an old British word, 'swissing,' which is a process of running a piece of fabric through a set of rollers in order to soften it. Now the beginning of the procedure is exactly, precisely like the browning phase of our country-style steak, which is where we will pick up the action.

According to the Texas Restaurant Association, some 800,000
orders of chicken-fried steak are served daily.

SCENE 8
The Kitchen

    Bring that brew up to a boil, and then add the steaks back to the pot being careful to thoroughly submerge them. Be certain that you literally wiggle the steaks down into the vegetation because if they float up to the surface during their time in the oven, then they'll only get half the flavor that they so richly deserve.

SCENE 9
Joe's Diner

GUEST: Deb Duchon, Nutritional Anthropologist
            Chef Hal

    Ahh, what a delectable device, smothered in onions, and infused with a smoky goodness that can only be called good eats.

DD: Hey mister, you can't bring your own food in here. You gotta order something.
AB: You know, I used to have to say, "nutritional anthropologist" to summon you up. Now you just pop in and out whenever you want. What's up with that?
DD: Well I just happen to be here doing undercover social research on middle-age suburbanite males and social bonding through caffeine consumption.
AB: Fascinating.
DD: So, what are you gonna have?
AB: Well, I think I'll have a CFS—that's chicken fried steak, the unofficial state dish of Texas, which just happens to be based on ...
DD: ... weinerschnitzel.
AB: That is correct. But what I want to know, is how a nice little German cutlet became the cornerstone of Lone Star cuisine?
DD: Cultural adaptation. You see, during the 19th century, thousands of Germans actually emigrated into the hill country of central Texas.
AB: Which explains why I like Texan beer so much, I guess.
DD: When they got there, they found there was lots of beef, but no market for veal. And so they just adapted their weinerschnitzel recipe by tenderizing tougher cuts of meat. Even that light gravy that they put on chicken fried steak, that has roots in German cuisine, from ramenschnitzel, which is a fried cutlet with cream sauce. But over time, chuck wagon cooks started making it and that resulted in the myriad varieties we have today. Even our genius chef here in the diner is experimenting with using crème fraiche, and chanterelles.
AB: Ew, well, you know, in that case, Deb, maybe I'll just take matters into my own hands. See 'ya.
CHEF HAL: [off camera] Order up, Deb!
DD: Oh, keep your pants on, Hal!

SCENE 10
The Kitchen

    Again, we do not want to crowd the pan but we don't want to waste time or energy either. Always place the rounded part of the meat towards the rounded part of the pan. If I do this right, I should be able to get three pieces in here. I've got a small one. There we go. Now these are going to cook for about four minutes per side. In the meantime, you want to make sure that you have a waiting place for these to sit. I've got a wire cooling rack over a half sheet pan.

Smoked paprika is made by drying ripe peppers in adobe smokehouses;
gently heated by slow-burning oak wood.

SCENE 11
The Kitchen

    [approaches a bunch of cans, suspended with springs compressed inside them, to represent starch granules] I mean, we suspended all those little flour granules in fat, right, so that they're evenly distributed now through the broth. And as the broth gets hotter, these little guys will all of a sudden open up delivering their starchy payload all through the liquid. Ha ha ha ha. And of course, what does that do? Well, all these little tangles form a mesh to trap liquid. Thus, we have gravy. [notices that he has gone a little over the top] Sorry.
    Chicken fried steak won't be chicken fried steak if it doesn't have a white gravy on it. White gravy means dairy. The question is, which one? We have some heavy cream here. Nice, but not for this kind of gravy because it'll separate, become greasy, before it even gets to the table. Half-and-half doesn't have as much fat, but it's still a little too much. It'll overwhelm the subtle peppery flavor that we are going to have. Skim milk, too far in the other direction. It's basically just, you know, white water. So the ideal suggestion: one-half cup of good old fashioned whole milk. You just can't beat it for saw mill gravy.

    Now that, my friends, is cubed steak taken to its highest possible elevation. Ahh, chewy on the inside, a little crusty on the outside, all smothered in a peppery creamy gravy. Yep, there's only one thing missing from this picture. [a mug of beer comes into view]. Correction. Life's complete! Ha ha ha!

SCENE 12
The Food Gallery

GUESTS: Gallery Workers #1 & #2

GALLERY WORKERS #1 & #2: [remove the cube steak from its display case]

    Well, it appears that cube steak doesn't deserve to be in this exhibit after all. Cubing, like atom smashing, is a mighty force. But with a little know-how in your noggin, you too can use your power for good ... eats, that is.

Transcribed by Michael Roberts
Proofread by Michael Menninger

Last Edited on 08/27/2010