This is a South Dakota specialty that’s pretty basic but is its own thing. The classic involves lamb but lamb is pretty much unobtainable these days, not a bad thing, so this recipe uses beef.
INGREDIENTS
- Â 1 lb. top sirloin or other steak
- 2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
- 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
- 1/2 teaspoon seasoned salt
- 1/2 teaspoon crushed black pepper
- Canola oil, for deep frying
- Dried Parmesan cheese (optional)
- Crushed red pepper (optional)
- Green onion, chopped (optional)
- Â Saltine crackers, for serving
DIPPING SAUCE
- 1/3 cup mayonnaise
- 1 tablespoon sriracha sauce
- Â 1/2 teaspoon sugar
INSTRUCTIONS
- Cut steak into bite-sized pieces or cubes.
- Place in a bowl and add Worcestershire sauce, garlic powder, and seasoned salt. Mix to ensure meat pieces are evenly coated. Allow to marinate for several hours, or overnight.
- Pour in about an inch of cooking oil into a large, heavy-bottomed pot. Turn on heat to high and allow the oil to heat up for about 3 minutes (to 375F). To test the temperature, take one piece of beef and dip it in the hot oil. If it sizzles right away, the oil is hot enough.
- Fry 4 pieces of beef at a time for about one minute, until medium-rare.
- Remove beef from oil with a slotted spoon, and place on a paper towel-lined plate to absorb excess oil.
- Continue frying all of the meat.
- Sprinkle with Parmesan cheese, red pepper flakes, and sliced green onion (optional).
- Serve with dipping sauce (mix all sauce ingredients together) and saltine crackers on the side*.
*Five years ago I didn’t realize saltines still existed but I can’t tell you how many I’ve consumed in the last three or four years as I’ve wandered like Odysseus through the American health care system. I also like this recipe because it involves deep frying, sort of. I think in a past life I was a fry cook at a roadside diner. For the dip, make sure you use the eggiest, most heart-stopping mayo that you can find.
This looks great. This is about the only time of year that lamb is easy to find in my grocery store, and I often try to buy a leg and bone it for grilling. My knife skills are pretty bad and there’s usually a bunch of leftover bits, and this would be a good way to use them up.
Oh look, I’m back!
Who is going to be the first to post a wedding cake design/recipe, in light of the happy news from myo and trag? My great aunt worked in a high-end bakery and woe betide the bride in her orbit who did not order their wedding cake from her. Unfortunately she was on my mother’s side, the frosty, Canadian Congregationalist wing of our far-flung gang of rogues, and there were feuds and reconciliations, so I never met her until she had retired.
But I remember two things about her apartment. For some reason she always had books that would appeal to children, despite being childless herself. One of those books made me fluent in the stories of the Greek gods and muses and monsters and stories when I was about in the third grade. The other thing was, she never gave up baking, so you’d go over there, and the question would be, “Who would like some of this cinnamon roll?”
She also allowed smoking, which my parents enjoyed, and something her sister, my mother’s cheerless mother forbade in her own apartment. She also enjoyed a glass, so my father would join her at her kitchen table and talk about God knows what and I’d retreat to a nook and read about the rape of Europa.
Good for the DeadSplinter carnivores!
Since this is my post, I’ll burden you with a “New York Post” post.
Tilda Swinton and Bruce Springsteen (of all people) separated at birth!
Blinded by the white (hair.)
He looks great at 74 years old. I wonder why people want him to “age” like Dick Clark.
I myself have white hair and a very pale complexion and I have often said that I’m whiter than Tilda Swinton, but I haven’t actually crossed the barrier where I could be confused for her.
Seventy-four, though, good for Bruce. I’ve actually made a couple of trips to the Stone Pony in Asbury Park because fans from out of town wanted to go. It never seems to be open, but the town is much, much gentrified since the 1970s, and is, for some reason, a gay getaway. There’s a lively boardwalk with decent restaurants and leashed hounds and people doing the American version of the passeggiata. Victorian architecture, twee knick-knack shops, sure signs that you are in “the home of the homo,” as one of my friends so memorably put it.
This looks very good. I’m a little conflicted about eating lamb because I have so many friends who happen to be lambs. However, I do plan on hitting up a Greek restaurant on my next trip to Chicago. Is there a 500 mile rule on eating friends?
Consult your conscience, my son.
I used to buy and serve a ton of lamb and veal (I mean, not literally, “a ton”) but slowly but surely my guests would request that I alter the dinner menu (ethical qualms) and it became more difficult to procure, and more and more vegetarians came into my life, so I never really make it anymore.
I think the concept of eating veal or lamb is now on par with eating horse, dog, or cat. I mean, it is done, and some restaurants I’ve been to have been so sketchy that I’m pretty sure I’ve sampled all of this, under different guises. For all I know, I’ve unwittingly indulged in cannibalism. There was this one restaurant in Chinatown where, it was rumored, it was run by a Chinese tong. They were especially vicious and apparently they disposed of the bodies of their enemies by serving their meat in stews. I’m an old Chinatown hand because of my relentless jury duty. The courts border Chinatown. It’s why you see the characters on “L&O” constantly picking food out of their containers with chopsticks during late-night strategy sessions.
Never had a case of food poisoning from any of them, which is more than I can say for that trendy ultra-chic and ultra-gay bistro on 8th Avenue in Chelsea that served me a simple cheeseburger that almost sent me to the emergency room.