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Round Steak Platter, Country Style
2 pounds round steak Mazola Argo or Kingsford's Cornstarch Mashed potato Karo-d carrots Order the steak cut one-half inch thick, then pound until it is tender and quite thin. Cut in pieces for serving. Dust with salt, pepper and cornstarch and brown first on one side, then the other, in Mazola, using just enough to keep it from sticking. Cover closely and cook a few minutes on the back of the range. Then transfer to a platter and pour a gravy over made from the drippings in the pan. Put fluffy mashed potato on either end and the carrots on each side. French Fried Onions may be put on top of the steak if desired.
A branded booklet recipe built around one company's products, and it assumes a coal range and a butcher who will cut to order. The pounding is the whole recipe: round is a lean, hard-working muscle, and if it is not beaten thin it will be leathery no matter how it is cooked.
- Pound it properlyHalf-inch round should go down to something like a quarter inch, with the muscle fibres visibly broken. A ridged mallet or the edge of a heavy plate works; supermarket "cube steak" is the same thing done by machine and can be substituted directly.
- Mazola, Argo, Kingsford'sMazola is corn oil, Argo and Kingsford's are cornstarch. Mazola and Argo are still sold; Kingsford's survives only as a name tied to Argo. Any neutral oil and any cornstarch will do. The brand names are here because the booklet was published to sell them.
- Karo-d carrotsNot a term you will find elsewhere; in a booklet of this kind it most likely indicates carrots cooked and glazed with Karo corn syrup, another product of the same company. Light corn syrup, honey or a spoonful of sugar with butter gives the same effect.
- "The back of the range"On a wood or coal stove this was the coolest zone, used for long gentle holding. Translate it as the lowest burner setting, or a tightly covered pan in a low oven.
- "A few minutes" is shortPounded thin and browned hard, the meat is cooked through in five to ten minutes covered. If your steak is thicker than a quarter inch, expect 30 to 45 minutes of covered simmering with a splash of water or stock — round needs either speed or time, and nothing in between.
- The gravyNo quantities are given. For the drippings from 2 lb of steak, work in about 2 tablespoons flour or 1 tablespoon cornstarch slaked in cold water, then 1 1/2 to 2 cups of milk, stock or the pan liquid, and season again at the end.
- Browning surface"Just enough to keep it from sticking" assumes cast iron. In a thin modern nonstick pan the cornstarch dusting will not brown the same way; use heavy cast iron or carbon steel and get it hot before the meat goes in.
- YieldTwo pounds of steak with potato and carrots serves four generously, five at a stretch.
This comes from one of the promotional cookbooks issued by the Corn Products Refining Company in the early twentieth century — the reason every ingredient with a capital letter (Mazola corn oil, Argo and Kingsford's cornstarch, Karo syrup) belongs to a single manufacturer. Mazola was introduced in the 1910s and such booklets were the standard way of persuading cooks that corn oil could replace lard or butter in frying, and that corn syrup had a place beside sugar on the vegetable plate. The dish itself is the American home-kitchen answer to a cheap cut: pounded round steak, dusted with starch, browned and then covered to finish, a technique that runs through Swiss steak, smothered steak and chicken-fried steak alike. "Country style" here signals nothing more precise than the composed platter — meat in the middle, mashed potato at the ends, carrots down the sides.