It’s not often that I can say I wish I had less fish in my diet, but this week that’s what I’ve been saying.  My kids went fishing over the weekend with their brother and brought home a gallon-sized freezer bag of fresh rainbow and brook trout.  Even for a fish lover like me, that’s an awful lot of fish to go through.

Luckily all of the fish came to me cleaned.

With fish this fresh, I didn’t have the heart to do much to them at all.  The flavor of freshly caught fish is something that requires little or nothing to make it perfect.  Because trout can be eaten in its entirety, I simply floured the fish and fried it in a nice hot wok.

The boys didn’t even flinch.  The fish was gone in minutes.

It really does taste better when you catch it yourself.

As for the rest of the fish in my fridge, you’ll just have to come back in a few days to see what direction I’m going with them.  I’m sure you’ll like it.

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(From the archives: this is one of my earliest recipes and I noticed that it could use some polish and a bit of a facelift.  The recipe has ben rewritten to read more clearly, etc,  Enjoy!)

While chili (particularly “Texas Red”, and yes, that means no beans.) is the official state food of Texas, there is little doubt that the unofficial state food of Texas is the chicken fried steak.

I’ve known the wonderful delight of chicken fried steak all my life. While I grew up in California’s wine country, my family and many others were originally dust bowl immigrants from Texas, Oklahoma and Arkansas. Southern cuisine was my staple as a boy, mixed with a strange variety of Italian, Mexican, Hungarian and Asian influences. The restaurants of Northern California don’t serve “country fried steak” they serve chicken fried steak, and that’s the way we like it.

I know that there are some Texans who will rail at me for even hinting that any Californian can produce a real chicken fried steak, but we do, at least it’s done well North of San Francisco, where the population is mostly rural. That being said, this is still a Texan tradition, and I’m passing it on as such, as is only fair, since it moved with our families from Texas, Texoma, Oklahoma and Arkansas.

If you’ve never had, or heard of chicken fried steak, you may wonder exactly what it is. In a nutshell, it’s a steak cooked in the same manner as Southern fried chicken. That is to say it’s breaded and fried in a cast iron skillet with plenty of oil (read Crisco, lard or perhaps, in rare cases, suet) until it’s crisp, juicy and delicious and slathered in gravy, either made from the pan drippings (not my preference, I just don’t like beef gravy) or in Southern White Gravy.

If served for breakfast or brunch, you’ll find it with a side of fried potatoes or hash browns. When served for dinner it will usually be found accompanied with mashed potatoes, also slathered in gravy, and some form of vegetable or other. (This is where your basic green bean or, better yet some fried okra comes into play.)

So, no matter where you hang your hat, kick your feet up, set a spell and make up a bit of Texas for supper tonight. You’ll be glad you did, I assure you.

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