Week #50: Wyoming: Chicken Fried Steak & Gravy Pizza

State: Wyoming

No surprise here, but I have never been to Wyoming.  From what I hear, it is beautiful if you are the outdoors type.  After doing research, I discovered that Chicken Fried Steak & Gravy is big in Wyoming.  Since this is my last pizza and I have never made chicken fried steak before, I wanted to use this for a pizza.  I hope you enjoy!

Ingredients:

Steak:
1 pound cube steak
1/2 cup milk
1 egg, beaten
1 cup flour
1 tsp. of onion powder
1 teaspoon or preferred amount of ground black pepper
Canola oil

Gravy:
3 heaping tablespoons flour
2 cups cold milk
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

1 pizza crust
1/2 cup of mozzarella cheese

Gravy:

After cooking the steaks, scoop out about 4 tablespoons of the drippings and oil from the pan.  Please make sure not to include the brown cooked bits, which will make the gravy taste burnt.  Add the flour, stirring until well mixed. Over medium heat, slowly add the milk while stirring constantly. Cook until the gravy comes to a boil and season with salt and pepper. Remove from heat and set aside.

Meat:

Cover the bottom of a large frying pan with enough oil to reach about 1/4-inch up the pan. Heat pan over medium-high heat. 

Whisk together the milk and egg in a shallow bowl.  Set aside. Place the flour in a shallow dish with salt and pepper.   Coat the steaks in the egg mixture, then toss in the bowl of flour.  Repeat the step one more time and then add to the pan. Cook until the bottom of the steak is nice and brown or around 3-5 minutes.  Flip steak over and cook for 2 to 3 minutes more. Be careful to not overcook or the flour will burn.  Continue this process until all the steaks are cooked and place onto a paper towel-lined plate.

Pizza:

Preheat oven to 450.  Cook crust for 10 minutes or until slightly browned.  Turn down heat to 400 degrees.  Coat the entire base of the pizza with the gravy.  Next, add the pieces of the steak onto the pizza, spreading out so each slice will have an even share of meat.  Sprinkle meat with some more gravy and add the cheese along the pizza.  Put into oven for 5 minutes.  Remove from oven and allow to pizza cool before cutting or eating. 

Pairing:

For this pizza, you need something hoppy or something to bring out some richness into the dish.  I would choose an IPA or an Imperial Ale to bring out some flavor pairing with the two.  Cheers!

Learning Moments:

This is the first time I have ever made chicken fried steak and may not be the last.  This pizza was the final state inspired dish of this challenge and I have challenged myself along the way to get inspired by some of these local favorite dishes.  See blog section for a recap of all the pizzas and my top 5.  Enjoy!