Chicken Fried Steak with Gravy- Gluten and Dairy Free!

What a fun day!  I went to our local Riverside Arts Market today to buy grass fed meat and shank bones today.  I got some grass fed cube steaks today.  I grew up eating it and something I had forgotten about until a few years ago.  Many people consider it an inferior cut of beef, but I can tell you when it is cooked right it is a heavenly flavored dish! I feel the same about flank steak.  Both cuts of meat are amazing when cooked right, wonderful flavor!

If you still have reservations about chicken-fried steak, consider these words from the late Fort Worth Star-Telegram columnist Jerry Flemmons: “As splendid and noble as barbecue and Tex-Mex are, both pale before that Great God Beef dish, chicken-fried steak. No single food better defines the Texas character; it has, in fact, become a kind of nutritive metaphor for the romanticized, prairie-hardened personality of Texans.” High praise, indeed!

Chicken-Fried Steak

1 1/2 pounds top-round steak or cube steak
2 cups sweet rice flour flour
3 large eggs
1/2 cup coconut milk
2 teaspoon coarse salt
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1/4 teaspoon cayenne
1 cups sweet rice flour
1 large Vidalia onion, cut in half moons

Place flour in a large bowl and season with salt and pepper. Mix eggs in another large bowl with coconut milk.  Dip the cube steak to coat in flour.  Dip coated beef into egg mixture and then dip back into flour again. 

Heat the pan until medium hot or a little higher. Then add the butter and add steaks when the butter is hot and bubbly.

Heat on medium enough butter to fill halfway up the sides of a of each steak, using a cast-iron skillet.  Take the coated beef and place it in the skillet. When the blood starts bubbling out of the top of the steak (about 3 to 4 minutes) gently turn it over with a long fork as using a spatula can cause the oil to splash out of the skillet. Cook another 5 minutes and then take the chicken-fried steak out of the pan and place on a plate in the oven to stay warm. 

Sauté the onions in the pan with the butter until soft and golden brown.

Add two or three Tablespoons of sweet rice flour and stir quickly, keep stirring until flour is cooked and browned a bit.  You may need to add some more butter.  Deglaze the pan with reduced beef stock (Demi Glace) and scrape the bottom of the pan. Stir until thickened.  Pour over steaks and serve.