Fried Cube (Round) Steak

Since my husband has been talking about steaks a lot, I decided to be a good little wife and make him a dish I  was pretty sure he would enjoy.  As I mentioned in a previous post, I don't care for steak at all so I was a bit unsure about this but willing to give it a go.  As luck would have it, my go-to blog of choice, Pioneer Woman, had recently posted a dish that I had thought would be something I just might be able to stomach...maybe even like (gasp!).  It called for cube steak (or round steak, but growing up my Mom always called it cube steak so that is how I refer to it), and it involved frying it.  Frying seems to work some kind of wonderful magic, so foods I normally don't care for, like calamari or shrimp, become insanely delicious.  This turned out to be true for cube steak, too! 

Fried Cube Steak - recipe modified from The Pioneer Woman

Ingredients:
4 cube steaks (extra tenderized, so pound those puppies out really good with a studded mallet)
canola oil (enough to coat the bottom of a frying pan)
1 teaspoon black pepper, plus extra for seasoning meat
1 teaspoon sea salt, plus extra for seasoning meat
1/4 cup flour
1 Tbspn butter

Directions:
1.  Pour enough canola oil to just coat the bottom of your frying pan.  Heat oil to medium.  When the oil is nice and hot, add the butter (it should hiss and sizzle at you if the oil is hot enough). 
2.  In a shallow bowl or baking dish, mix the flour, salt and pepper.
3.  Sprinkle salt and pepper on each side of every cube steak, then toss each cube steak one at a time in the flour mixture.  Coat well with the flour and place the steak in the frying pan.
4.  Fry for about 4 minutes, or until the edges turn golden brown.  Flip each steak over and fry another couple minutes. 
5.  Allow to cool before serving.  You might want to pat them gently with a paper towel at this point to soak up some excess oil.