- Scout in Harper Lee's To Kill A Mockingbird
I love Lane Cake, and so did Edna Lewis and Harper Lee, apparently. Making Smothered Steak really took me back to third grade. The smell of a cheap cut of meat, dredged in flour and sizzling with onions in bacon fat transported me back to my mother's kitchen, with that shitty-ass electric stove blazing, and my father (the chef) not cooking but occasionally coming over to give instruction. Now that was some good times! Ha. I was relegated to peeling potatoes (hated it) or cutting the bad parts out of the strawberries that were too ugly to sell at our fruit stand. The strawberries would then be cooked down with pectin and made into a jam that got stored in the quilted ball jars with homemade wax on top. We ate it over Ricotta pancakes that my mom made all the time. How funny. I haven't thought about that in about 25 years.
At any rate, making Smothered Steak may not transport you back to your childhood in Phoenix, but it will save your ass even if no one ever taught you to make gravy, because it makes its own. The flour breaks down into the water and bacon fat and meat juices and creates some of the best damn gravy you ever ate... and you didn't have to *DO* anything but cover it and turn on the oven. Praise the Lord and Pass the Biscuits!
Read on....
We started you hungry kiddies off with an old-school comfort food favorite, Deviled Eggs, which gave Karl the opportunity to break out his shmancy new pastry bag and tips... He loves the kitchen gadgets. I'm constantly coming across some new squoosher or slicer in the kitchen drawers...
Despite initial nozzle cloggage, the filling of the egg whites went off without a hitch.
Then, we sliced up a fuckload of delicious green market potatoes and turnips, and put them in a pan with chicken stock, butter, salt and pepper. They roasted covered in the oven for 45 minutes...
At some point, we realized we had over-brothed the mixture, so we pulled out some of the delicious vegetable/potato/chicken liquid with a baster, and set it aside.
There were beautiful Chiogga Beets from the Union Square Greenmarket, which we boiled with some other red beets, peeled while hot, and dressed in oil and sherry vinegar. Just gorgeous.
Remember that delicious chicken/potato/turnip water? We mixed it with the last of our beautiful pork pot liquor, onion, garlic and a hambone...
Sometimes, the simpler a recipe, the better it is. I took a few jars of the delicious Jersey Tomatoes I put up back in the summertime, sauteed them with garlic, onions, allspice and fresh grated nutmeg and put them in a roasty pan. I then topped them with slices of buttered farm bread, and baked in the oven until crispy. Voila! Baked Tomatoes With Crusty Bread. Just wonderful.
...gave 'em a little toss and a beat down...
...fried 'em up in the pan in some bacon fat left from the bacon I had previously fried...
...arranged 'em in a roasting pan with sauteed onion slices on top and some more of that chicken stock mixture left over from the potatoes. I covered them tightly with tin foil and left them to cook sloooooow in the oven.
Fantastic.
Soak that up with a little bread...
Served them with some warm Roasted Apples for a little sweet/savory, and a gorgeous mixed green salad with (you guessed it! Hot Bacon Dressing), and called it good.
Smashy smashy.
Karl beat the hell out of a couple of coconuts, grated them up in the Cuisinart, and mixed in a few different kinds of raisins and pecans. This got mixed in a hot pan with a dozen egg yolks and sugar, and then cooled with a whole CUP of bourbon. I shit you not.
While the filling/icing cools, we baked three layers of cake that was full of egg whites (you were wondering about all the yolks, weren't you?)
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