A Legendary Mistake

By Sarah Baird

Sometimes called country-fried steak, chicken-fried steak gets its—admittedly, somewhat confusing—name because it’s a type of beefsteak that’s been crisped up in a way that’s typically reserved for fried chicken. And while there’s sometimes quibbling that country-fried steak is technically pan-fried and chicken-fried steak is technically deep-fried, the two terms are pretty much used interchangeably.

Made using inexpensive cuts of beef like cube steak and round steak, the meat is pounded out into a thin, flat cutlet, dunked in an egg batter, then dredged in simply seasoned flour. The dish bears a strong resemblance to Wiener schnitzel, and is thought to have been introduced to the United States via German and Austrian immigrants who made their homes in Texas—a state where the dish remains extremely popular to this day.

Texas officially recognizes the town of Lamesa as the “legendary” home of chicken fried steak, where, the story goes, the dish was whipped up for the first time by a quick-on-his-feet short order cook in 1911.

“At a cafe here called Ethel's Home Cooking, [a] waitress had two customers come in. One of them ordered fried chicken. The other person ordered steak. She wrote it down as chicken, fried steak,” Lamesa city secretary Maria Hatchett told the Midland ReporterTelegram in 2011. “Jimmy Don [the short order cook] didn't want the waitress to think he didn't know what she was talking about (really he didn't notice the comma), so he decided to batter up a piece of round steak with flour and milk, just like you would fried chicken, and dropped it into a frying pan filled with hot grease. That's kind of how it got started.”

Not so much a side show as a necessary part of the main attraction, gravy is as important to the experience of chicken-fried steak as the meat itself. Typically, peppered white gravy made from the drippings is served with chicken-fried steak, but feel free to take whatever kind of gravy artistic license you want. Truly, there is no wrong answer.