Chicken Fried Chicken or Chicken Fried Steak

I made this chicken fried chicken and Scott immediately said, "This is a birthday meal request." So, it was pretty darn good, I would say!

I have used this same recipe now to make Chicken Fried Steak (just swapping the chicken for cube steak) and it turned out great.

Chicken Fried Chicken

or

Chicken Fried Steak

Ingredients:

• 2 boneless chicken breasts, cut in half length-wise (or cube steak)
• salt, pepper, garlic powder
• 2/3 cup of oil (or more if needed)
• 1 cup of flour
• 2 tsp each of salt, pepper, paprika, garlic powder, and steak seasoning (for flour mixture)
• 1 cup of milk
• 1 egg

Gravy:

• 1/3 cup of grease from frying the chicken
• 1/3 cup of flour
• 3 cups of milk
• salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

1. If you haven't already done so, cut chicken breasts in half lengthwise to make them thinner. Pound any thick parts with a meat mallet until the chicken is a uniform thickness. Season chicken on both sides with some salt, pepper, and garlic powder.
• I like my chicken to be nice. When it's tough, even if it's fully cooked, it can feel undercooked to my brain, so I would pound the chicken a little extra for tenderness once I got the thickness about where I wanted it.
2. In a pan heat oil over medium heat. While the pan is heating up mix together 1 cup of flour, 2 tsp each of salt, pepper, paprika, garlic powder, and steak seasoning.
3. In a separate bowl or container mix together 1 cup of milk and 1 egg. Dredge chicken in flour mixture, egg mixture, and back in the flour mixture.
4. Once the oil is hot fry the chicken for a few minutes on each side until they are golden brown and reach a temperature of 165 degrees F with a meat thermometer.
• With the oil at 325 degrees in my deep fryer, it took about 8 minutes to get the chicken up to temperature.
5. Remove the chicken from the pan and pour out all but about 1/3 cup of the grease. To make the gravy add 1/3 cup of flour to the grease making a roux. Once grease and flour are well incorporated add 3 cups of milk and keep stirring constantly. Add salt and pepper to taste. Once thickened serve over fried chicken.

Marsha's Notes:

Our grocery store just seems to have the biggest chicken breasts, so I bought a tray of four and cut them in half length-wise to make eight chicken fried chickens. Making this much chicken meant that I needed to double the dredging flour mixture, but I felt like I really didn't need to double the egg wash.

My family gave me this breader as a gift, and it works perfect for this recipe:

On our current stove, I found that heating the oil up to "4" was perfect.

For Lucas's 16th birthday, he requested I made chicken fried steak, so I used this chicken fried chicken recipe and it turned out great! The method works for both kinds of meat.