Always a family favorite, coated and panfried meat with gravy, has many variations. Coatings can range from simply breadcrumbs to cornmeal, crushed tortilla chips, instant potatoes, cornflakes, ground nuts or potato chips or a combination of several coatings. With a freezer full of wild game and fish, we are blessed to be able to have lots to choose from and on any given day may enjoy deer, elk, antelope, caribou, sheep, wild boar, wild turkey, abalone, clams, salmon, steelhead or trout, breaded and panfried using this method. Today’s lunch was courtesy of Braxton and Kazden’s assignment for their culinary arts class. The actual lab was for panfried chicken but they just used what we had available, caribou. Follow along as they outline their step-by-step procedure.
We found this recipe for Crunchy Pan Fried Chicken and used it as a guide for our creation. We didn’t have the Cornmeal Breading Mix or the fine breadcrumbs called for in the recipe so we just used regular corn meal, panko and added our own salt and pepper.
After thawing meat, remove all silverskin and off-colored meat from the backstrap. Our mom let us use her new Kai Luna Utility Knife and it worked great. It is so nice to be able to use good quality, sharp knives while preparing food.
We sliced the backstrap into 1/2″ thick steaks.
We placed the steaks about 1″ apart on to waxed paper.
After covering with another layer of waxed paper, we pounded the steaks to about 1/4″ thick so they would cook faster and be more tender.
In one dish, we cracked the eggs and beat them with about 1 tablespoon of water. In the other dish we mixed 1/2 cup panko and 1/2 cup yellow cornmeal. We salted and peppered both dishes.
We put about 1/4″ of oil in a skillet. Sometimes we use coconut oil if we want this to be healthier. We heated the oil on medium-high heat.
After dunking the meat in egg, we rolled them around, coating them with the dry mixture.
Our mom showed us a neat trick when pan frying any kind of meat. Coat all the meat you are going to put in a pan and put it on a plate while the pan heats up. This way you can add the meat all at once and everything will get done at the same time.
Fry meat until it begins to brown on one side, about 2 minutes. Then, flip it over to finish cooking, maybe another 2 minutes. You don’t want to overcook game meat. This would take longer with chicken.
Once meat is browned on both sides, put it on paper towels to absorb leftover oil.
Caribou is ready to eat… unless, you decide you need gravy. Which after the first batch, we decided would be a good thing to learn how to make.
For pan gravy all you need is butter, milk, flour, beef bouillon and whatever is left in your pan.
Melt butter (about 2 tbsp.) and mix bouillon (about 1 tbsp.) in pan.
Whisk in a heaping tbsp. of flour.
Stir in milk until gravy thins out. Add more milk as the gravy gets thicker. This is something my mom just does and never uses a recipe or any measurement. She told us it is kind of instinctual.
Cook 2-3 minutes until gravy is how you like it. Taste and add more salt if needed.
Be sure to take your picture before you inhale your beautiful creation! Oh, and garnish with something green so it looks pretty. We used chopped chives from the garden.
For more information on this new series of knives, visit Kai, USA.
