Dallas Food - CFS à la Mode

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CFS à la Mode
Posted on Monday, November 06 @ 21:17:13 PST
Topic: Chicken-fried Steak

Chicken-fried steak has been on my mind, as well as my plate, all year. Some months ago, I came back from the Dallas Farmers Market with a few pints of ripe Texas blackberries and a couple pounds of top butt. The blackberries were for ice cream, the beef for chicken-fried steak. The next evening, as I watched the blue-black base swirl and churn in the ice cream maker, a thought crossed my mind. At first, I set it aside. But by the time I put the blackberry ice cream in the freezer to firm up, the passing thought had reasserted itself, becoming a fixed determination. I would make chicken-fried steak ice cream. On to the food...

In the classic short story, "The Imp of the Perverse," Edgar Allen Poe describes the psychological peculiarity of "perverseness"--of taking actions "because we feel that we should not. Beyond or behind this there is no intelligible principle...."

Can the idea of chicken-fried steak ice cream be attributed solely to perverseness? Possibly. But as Poe acknowledges, "we might, indeed, deem this perverseness a direct instigation of the Arch-Fiend, were it not occasionally known to operate in furtherance of good."

Ferran Adrià has a long history of making savory ice creams (e.g., parmesan, polenta, foie gras, etc.) that complement his menus. Heston Blumenthal makes harissa ice cream, Pommery mustard ice cream, and "bacon and eggs" ice cream. Grant Achatz has made applewood ice cream. Homaro Cantu has made green curry ice cream, romaine lettuce ice cream, squash ice cream, sour cream & bacon ice cream, and fried chicken ice cream (pictured above, on top of confit of capon leg wrapped in a slice of sous vide breast, and plated with a beet and walnut puree, sunflower seeds, and trumpet royal mushrooms). By most accounts, these peculiar savory ice cream flavors work. Is chicken-fried steak ice cream any odder than those?

Once you start looking at it more closely, chicken-fried steak ice cream doesn't sound that far out. Ice cream is just dairy, eggs, and sugar. The classic CFS breading consists of flour, dairy, and eggs. The traditional sauce (in Texas) is a thick, sweet, dairy-based gravy, with or without meat drippings. With a little tweaking, one should be able to make a savory ice cream that, in effect, is like a rich, meaty, frozen cream gravy. Serving it over a hot chicken-fried steak would provide an unexpected temperature contrast. A scoop of ice cream wouldn't damage the crust of the CFS nearly as much as a blanket of warm gravy would. But, as the ice cream melts over the meat, the taste would (in theory) be rather familiar.

On to the kitchen...

Since the goal is "chicken-fried steak ice cream," some meat flavor is essential. So we start with the basic prep work for CFS. A cubed round steak is dredged in flour, dipped in a batter of egg and milk (seasoned with salt and black pepper), then dredged again, lightly shaking off any excess flour.

The steak goes directly into the cast iron skillet with about a half-inch of bacon grease and lard preheated to a little north of 360. The first side will be cooking for a while, so preparations can get underway for the ice cream base.

For the egg component, a couple of yolks are mixed lightly with a fork, then combined with a tablespoon of sugar. Since this is a savory ice cream, little sugar is called for. More can be added later, if necessary.

After flipping the CFS and cooking the B-side, we remove it from the pan and set it on a wire rack to drain of any excess grease. The skillet is drained well, without scraping away any of the remaining meaty bits. After letting the skillet cool down for a spell, it's back on the burner at medium heat for deglazing with a half cup of milk.

A cup of heavy cream goes in next. This brings the temperature down further. With a metal spatula, we make sure all the meaty goodness is broken loose from the pan's surface and swimming happily. There'll be some bigger pieces that won't dissolve, but they'll be dealt with later. A pinch of salt and small sprig of thyme go in to round out the flavor.

The temperature of the dairy is brought up to 175.

Once the dairy is hot enough, we stir a quarter cup of it briskly into the egg/sugar mixture to raise its temperature. Then the tempered eggs are whisked into the skillet.

Now that all the components are together, the temperature is raised above 180 to pasteurize the yolks and cook the custard until it reaches the right viscosity. When it's thick enough to coat the back of a wooden spoon, it comes off the heat.

The finished custard is strained to remove the thyme, undissolved CFS remnants, chalazae, and any overcooked bits of egg. The completed custard is allowed to cool to room temperature in an ice-water bath before being covered with plastic wrap and placed in the refrigerator to chill.

Since this is a small batch, churning for about 18 minutes suffices with my ice cream maker. We scrape it out of the canister and into a freezer-chilled, airtight container, cover the surface of the ice cream with plastic wrap, and put it in the freezer for a few hours to firm up.

Voilà! Chicken-fried steak à la mode. The dish looked almost exactly as I'd envisioned it--a smooth, tawny quenelle of ice cream slowly melting over a hot, crisp chicken-fried steak. Texturally, the ice cream was everything I could hope for. Smooth, dense, and not a hint of iciness. The light brown ice cream, with flecks of pepper, was reasonably attractive on the CFS.

Flavorwise, this was hands down the most disgusting ice cream I've ever had the misfortune to taste. All my opining about the conceptual affinities between ice cream and cream gravy went out the window with the first bite of the meaty frozen custard. The melted ice cream, intended to simulate a rich cream gravy, tasted like fried beef crème anglaise. (Crème Texan?) I quickly flipped the aberrant dollop into the sink, where it landed with a dull, metallic thump.

What went wrong? Should I have gone Philadelphia-style instead of French? Should I have steeped an actual, cooked CFS in the dairy instead of deglazing the skillet? What if I had used condensed milk as a sweetener instead of sugar? Could Homaro Cantu take this idea and make it fly better than I did?

I suppose it was the Imp of the Perverse. "That single thought is enough. The impulse increases to a wish, the wish to a desire, the desire to an uncontrollable longing, and the longing (to the deep regret and mortification of the [cook], and in defiance of all consequences) is indulged." Believe me when I say that this is one indulgence better foregone.

Epilogue.

So, you've got a pint of chicken-fried steak ice cream in your freezer and, having tasted it, you know that's one pint too many. Conscience says, "Put it down the drain." But then the Imp of the Perverse reappears. After the backyard barbecue, dessert is served. Homemade vanilla bean ice cream is handed out in sugar cones to all, except for one special, deserving guest. Bon appétit!

Links to other CFS reports: Introduction; Part 1 (#50-46); Part 2 (#45-41); Part 3 (#40-36); Interlude in Austin; Part 4 (#35-31); Part 5 (#30-26); Calibration in Fort Worth and Suburbs; Part 6 (#25-21); Part 7 (#20-16); Part 8 (#15-11); Calibration in Houston; Part 9 (#10-6); Chicken-fried Steak: The Album; Part 10 (#5-3); CFS à la Mode.