All That Glitters is Milanesa and Chicken Fried Steak

My name is Eva Longoria and I am Myra and welcome to Hungry for History, a podcast that explores our past and present through food. On every episode, we'll talk about the history of some of our favorite dishes, ingredients, and beverages from our culture.

So make yourself at home. Echel. People are kind of think all we want to do is talk about meat.

I know, but this time we're talking about the breaded and fried kind of meat.

I mean, who did like breaded and fried meat? Today's episode is all about Mila Nacy and the.

Chicken fried and steak.

I have the best memories eating chicken fried steak. It was a big deal in our house because there was a place down the street like steakhouse. It was what was it so lloin Stockade and you know, graduate or baptism. We would get to go out to eat at this thik dancy place and I would always order.

The chicken bride steak.

So did you eat more chicken fried steak than Milanisa at home?

You know?

Growing I've never had Milanisa. I never had milanesa growing up, you had Milanisa.

I never.

I didn't have chicken fried steak until I moved to college. We had melanessa, but not like the chicken milanaise, which is what I make now all the time. It was beef like thin beef, tenderized beef, breaded and.

Like Italian like Italian style.

Like Italian style, And that's what I always had, and it's one of my greatest food memories because it's something that my mom made all the time.

No, but we've established it. You had a bougier growing up than I did, because.

Well, you know what I think it is.

I think it's more that Laredo is more mechs right, is more Mexican. And even I just learned this recently when this area, Texas became part of the Republic of Texas.

For those ten years, Laredo was like, no, we're good, We're Mexican.

So Laredo is so Mexican, and I think that this is why so different.

No, I grew up with chicken fried stak, which is, by the way, not a Panco kind of breadedness.

It is a.

Thick batter. It's like more batter than beef, you know what I mean. It's like very very batter heavy.

Chicken fr stiak is such a Texas dish. Right when I think of Texas. I think of chili barbecue and chicken fried stake. Chicken fried steak you have to eat with gravy totally. You have to otherwise It's like, what's the point the Milanessa that we would have it was just the milanesa on the plate. And I think when we were kids, my mom would make like French fries or something like that, or salad, and we always had it in lime and I had it with a one sauce.

See, you were fancy.

A fancy one sauce was fancy in our house.

You had a one sauce. Good for you, we did.

I'm gonna I'm in Laredo and I'm gonna make it with my mom. It's like I haven't had my mom's been ascent forever.

But let me let's talk about it, Like where does it come from?

Because I feel like when you say milanesa, it's milanaise, you know, I mean, yes, Italian.

It comes from the which is a classic of Milan's cuisine. So yes Italian, and it gets the name of the dish. It comes from the meat that was traditionally used for it, that is traditionally used for it, called l which is a whole inch of thick bone in veal, so it's a thick veal chop right, and it's been a specialty of this area since the twelfth century a Milan, Yes, Milan,

Came because because of the region exactly wiener Schnitzel.

Wait, so there, what's a weener Shitzel. The wener Schnitzel. Theitle is the which I say Wiener.

I say wiener Schnitzel because I am American and not that educated.

I say, but yes, it's the Veener Schnitzel.

Is basically like a cousin of the gotto let la milanis, so it's similar. Common theory is that the gotoleta la Milana was introduced to Vienna in eighteen fifty seven by a field Marshal Joseph Radetski, who was in Lombardi.

That was then a part of the Austrian Empire. But so this is.

A but in reality, breaded cutlets have appeared in Austrian cookbooks well before this time.

There is a debate.

The debate is that veener schnitzel is so central to the country's cuisine that the ingredients that make up the dish are defined by law. So it has to be made from a veal cutlet, which is pounded super thin than dredge and flour, egg bread comes and then fried and lard or butter.

Vienna, So stitchel veener snitchel Schnitzel, I can't do it. It's the cutlet from Vienna, cutlet.

All right.

Veen is the name of Vienna, the capital of Austria, and snitzel is cutlet.

Why are we having such a hard time, my.

God, Jesus, really hard. It's just the cut of meat. That's the only difference, right one. The mela, they say, is loin and boning, and the schnitzel is without bone, comes from the flank or the rump, and that's very similar.

Very similar.

If fried food is king in America, then chicken brid steak is royalty.

At least for us. Right because we're from Texas. Correct, Yes, don't go anywhere.

We're diving into the history of chicken fried steak next. So you did have chicken fried steak? Right?

Are you team white gravy or brown gravy?

I think for chicken fried steak white gavy, white, creamy, white and creamy and just.

Peppery, peppery peppers of pepper.

Yes, like it has that woomph to each bite. And what is its connection to Texas?

Well, it has it's connected to these two dishes. So there's one theory that claims that a man named Jimmy Don Perkins, he was a short arder cook at Lamasa, Texas, at a place called Ethel's Home Cooking, and that he invented the dish by accident in nineteen eleven. According to legend, Jimmy down misread an order for chicken and fried seake and chicken fried steak was born. But in reality, the dish was introduced in the mid eighteen hundreds by German, Austrian and Czech in Yeah.

Yeah, that makes sense because you know tekano music is based on German polka.

Yes, so there was a lot of German influence in Texas. A lot. Yeah.

In the eighteen hundreds, thousands of primarily middle class farmers and artisans from West and central Germany arrived in Texas seeking opportunities, and by the twentieth century, more than forty thousand Germans populated a stretch of Texas known as the German Belt.

So it's close to.

San Antonio, New Bronfas and Curvelle. In Curvelle, Yeah, they settled there and they found a ton of beef.

Oh my god, wait, is this true that during the Civil War Texas supplied the Confederacy with beef, which led to a steep rise in cattle population. Yesn't that wild.

We supplied, We supplied the beef to the I know, it's horrible. Yeah, I know, come on, Dixes. But then they switched to cheaper cuts of beef. The one thing I would do say is like I prefer the texture of a chicken price steak because it's thicker, but it's tougher. You gotta you have apt a sharp knife, and it's like, it's not the best cut of meat.

And it never was. It never was like you gotta cut, you gotta cut deep.

And so the the switching to a cheaper cut of meat obviously occurred somewhere along the line.

Yeah, exactly, pounded, tenderize it like crazy, and then bred it and fry the hell out of it.

Right.

It just reflected the tougher times in Texas, right, like the tough struggles of early settlers trying to make something out of nothing. Uh, you know, like kind of all home cooked dishes. I'm sure there was many variations then.

Yeah, like you said, the struggles, so the dish, they're trying to make something delicious, delectable out of, you know, a tough cut of meat. Texans call it the perfect marriage of meat batter in Greece.

Yeah, you gotta, you gotta pound that meat. And and you know this is our. The batter for chicken freast steak is milk flour. You know, it's not pancoa.

It's not panco no, no, no, it's flour.

It's egg.

It's flour again. And then it's fried and large and lard and gold and brown. Like you said, with mashed potatoes and gravy just clog those arteries.

There's a West Texas version that just does the meat and flour, no egg, and that's what cowboys called pan fried steak.

I actually heard of that one before pan brad steak.

East Texas has a version dipped an egg and then flour, similar to Southern fried chicken, and then Central Texas is closer to the venersintil with bread crumbs instead of flours, so they're different variations. But an early printed American recipe is in the La Times from nineteen twenty four, so it appears as beef steak rolled and flour fried in a pan and served with country gravy, so the steak placed over the gravy.

I've always had it the other way around. Where can you find the best chicken fried steak? Is it only a Texas sneak?

I think it's a Southern like a Kansas and Oklahoma also have chicken fried steak, But I had an amazing one at a restaurant in Bandera last summer called the Old Spanish Trail Restaurant, and it's one of the oldest continuously operating restaurants in the state. It's been in business for over one hundred years and they claim to have world's best chicken steak. I'm such a sucker for people that say world's best this or Texas best that but that is the best chicken fried steak that I've ever had.

What about you in Katula, Texas, if anybody's passing through Coatula, Texas, Jaj's Country Store, that's really good country pri steak.

And let me tell you dairy queen, dairy queen.

In Texas with the if you can find one that serves food, and if you find one that has the steak fingers, the steak finger basket, it's it's chicken fried steak, but instead of like chicken fingers, it's steak and you dip it in your gravy.

It's the best. That's dairy it's like the best days queen. Really.

Yes, Laredo for sure, dairy Queen Laredo's have it. Falfouria's had it. Falfouria's dairy queen. And in the Valley and Corpus Christie there's still one dairy queen that has chicken fried steak fingers.

Okay, because I'm in Laredo and there's dairy queen not far from my mom's house, yes, take it out.

You know.

It's like it's very hard to find a dairy queen that serves food nowadays.

And if they do.

Yeah, they don't serve the food anymore. And now if they do, it's a burger, it's a burger and fries thing. But there's certain places that have the steak binger bascot.

Yeah, I have to try it. I've never I've only ever had their their dipped. Well not just that, but I have all the ice cream.

It's the best. Oh my god. I was just in a studios.

I was just in a studios and I ate and you asked me, and I was like, I have.

No idea what you're talking about. And the day you asked me, have you eaten a kutcha pool? A gotcha pool?

Gotcha poo? How do you say it? Pol You're like, have you eaten a katcho pool? And you sent me a picture? I go, no, I've never seen that. I haven't been.

I haven't seen it. I was there for like two weeks, literally the last two days.

That's all I saw.

And I had it.

Yes, I meant to send you a picture. Yes, but.

It's it's so it's veal, but it has ham and cheese.

Inside of it, and it's but it's super thin.

It's definitely pounded out and it's like a cord on blue.

That's what I thought it was.

Yeah, I didn't really associate it with like a a milanaise or Veener schnitzel. I was like, oh, this is a cool cord on blue because it had the ham and cheese inside of it.

But it's breaded and fried. It was bread bread. It was delicious. It was delicious.

I'm not a fan of milonnaise or the Riener Schnitzel or this thing.

Because I find them dry. I find it dry. It's too thin of a cut.

It's like it's that's why I think my chicken fried steak is like with the gravy and it's super battery and it's a thicker cut of meat.

It's like just heartier.

This whole like milanaise with a salad on top, and it's like not my thing. So it wasn't my thing, although I will say, I will say adding the cheese inside the breading made it less dry. And I was going to have any of those three, it would have been the because it was just moist. More moist, because it's right. But I think it's real. I think it is real.

But the main thing is that it's stuffed. Yeah, like a stuffed. Yeah, that's so much because there are these these.

Similar foods, you know, all over this sort of breaded and fried foods.

I've been all over Spain, and that's the only place that has that dish. It's not like, oh, let me go have that in Madrid, or let me go have that in Marbea.

It's not like a Spanish dish. It's righty from the north of Spain, which is weird in relation to Italy or Vienna. It's not any bar. Let's go way back. I always am.

Interested in, like who did it first, Like who dredged meat in flour or whatever and fried it?

Like how far back does this go?

Dredging meat all kinds of meat and flour and frying or baking.

It dates back to ancient times.

Right.

The cooking method really tendorizes the meat and enhances the flavor.

Right, fried stuff tastes good.

So it's impossible really to say who was frying, who was doing it first, because this was being done well before recipes we were recording.

But it's an art. Frying is an art.

Like if the temperature of the oil is too low, the food is kind of gross and greasy. If it's too high, the outside will burn, the inside won't really cook. But if it's just right, this sort of flour egg breadcrumb becomes magic. It sort of instantly becomes the seal, preventing the fat from entering the meat.

So it's just sort of perfect. Where does the term golden brown like that comes from?

What?

I this is something that I that I love to this reference, right, It may come from the practice of gilding food and gold that was popular during the Byzantine era and medieval period. And I say may be because there are some references to this, and some people are like, oh, yes, this is why this idea of gold and brown, that's

Well, you know, I have never been to Argentina, but I have a lot of Argentinian friends, and I know the Italians had a huge settlement in Argentina little way so that milanaise had to be popular in Latin America. I mean it had to have gone with the Italian immigrants.

Yes, in the nineteenth century, tons of Italian immigrants, and so from milanaise to milanais, it's one of the most popular dishes, like you said, in Argentina Nuduay. Huge Italian populations in both countries, and Argentina's first published recipe for milanessa is in a book called in a cookbook al Manaca la Cocina Argentina of eighteen eighties.

Argentina has a milanes a day May third.

But in Mexico we also see early recipes for milanessa in the nineteenth and early twentieth century.

Also because of the.

Italian immigrants, and in Mexico it has always been a staple of home cooking, which is what I grew up with, typically made with thinly pounded bistick or thinly pounded meat. My mom and I had so much fun cooking milanesa together. I hadn't tasted it in so many years. I must say. She got a little nervous once I put the mic on her, warning there are giggles.

Lista okay, that metal.

Plate, okay.

Plate She explains, to lay out three plates, one with flour, one with three beaten eggs, and one with bread crumbs mixed with salt and pepper.

The and there, okay, and the plate.

Where was the new plateau?

That is?

Okay? Le pongo?

No?

I find it out with each other.

Okay, gis as a sender and stay at the end of they go well.

And plato cavili.

When I found saw my younger brother showed up, she forgot she was miked and for a split second sounded like her normal sweet and sassy self.

Turn Hello, do you go hellos.

And flour, egg, bread crumbs dry, wet dry, yeah, super arena wabo fan yellow bell get it and then we fry on both sides until golden brown and lay out on paper towels to absorb any excess oil. It was delicious.

It's come on and chicken price.

Okay, my brother said the Milanessa tasted like a time.

Machine, a.

Machine.

See what are your song? So in Mexico, there is a late nineteenth century recipe from a cookbook from a woman named Martinez from Jalisco, and it's different and it's it's really interesting because it cuts. It calls for cutting the meat into small pieces and then pounding the meat like most of them, for pounding the meat and then putting them in vinegar, salt and pepper, before the beaten egg and bread crumbs and frying and lard. And that one she serves with tomato, sauce, lettuce and radish.

I've really seen that. I have you had that?

Never?

Never, But it's an interesting worst.

It's one of the earliest recorded recipes for milanessa and it's something completely different.

So but it's interesting because our least go is west and you and I are from northern Mexico. Technically, I could see why we have the Zener Schnitzel, But the milanac you grew up with that's so weird to me because I we Di didn't grow up with it, and we don't really have it in Mexico. In Mexico City, where I live, we don't. We don't really. I mean, I'm sure it's that's some restaurants, but it's not like common.

Yeah, I feel like in Laredo, definitely, it's more of a home thing. It's not something that you really see in restaurants. It's more of sort of the steple of home home cooking. It's delicious. It's the ultimate comfort food for me.

Alongside Fierre, alongside Fidel, Tacos best the best. So Argentina has a chicken fried Steak date. Texas has a Chicken fried Steak Day October twenty.

Sixth twenty six and there's a chicken fried steak song.

What Yes.

A singer named Jimmy Baldwin. He wrote Peace, Love, and Chicken fried Steak to fight racism in the States.

Wow, that's actually a good song.

A line in the song says, we've got to learn to love one another, white, black, brown, We're all just brothers.

I'm no guru, but I know what it'll take a taste of chicken fried steak.

I agree, I agree, I agree, Jimmy Baldwin, I agree.

Well, we want to hear from you.

What did you grow up eating Amila Neesa or chicken fried steak or a Wiener Schnitzel.

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