Retro Style Swiss Steak

Swiss steak is one of those meals that people don’t make much anymore. It is good homecooking…comfort food and a great way to create a fork tender piece of meat out of an otherwise inedible cut.

It is cooked slowly in tomato, pepper, onion, and celery. The tomato helps to tenderize the meat. The flavor of this is incredible, totally understandable that it was so popular with Mrs. Cleaver’s crowd back in the day.  One thing I changed that I really loved was I added a chopped Poblano pepper in place of the bell pepper. Added just a touch of spice, and caused my tastebuds to pay attention.

I got the round steaks for 50 percent off on clearance. You know, have some recipes that you can pull out when you find a great deal like that. For the eight of us this Swiss steak dinner was less than five dollars. I was happy and so was my budget.

In a tough economy it is a good idea to browse cookbooks from the earlier decades of the 1900s for frugal recipes. So many of them have been forgotten. I hope you will give this a try. You can make it in the oven as I did here, or in a slow cooker.

Swiss Steak

• 3 to 4 pounds of round steak
• 2 slices of bacon
• 1/2 cup flour
• 2  1/2 teaspoons salt
• 1/2 teaspoon pepper
• Drippings from bacon
• Olive oil as needed
• 1 cup onion, chopped
• 1 cup celery, chopped
• 1 poblano pepper, chopped
• 1 cup chopped carrots
• 2 lbs canned organic tomatoes
• 1 cup water or beef broth

1. Preheat the oven to 300
2. Cook the bacon until crisp, remove bacon from pan but leave drippings
3. Pound meat until thin with a tenderizer
4. Mix flour, salt, and pepper
5. Dredge the meat in the flour
6. Add about 2 tbs of olive oil to pan with bacon drippings
7. Heat oil  until it shimmers a bit, add steak
8. Fry until just golden
9. Flip and fry on the other side.
10. Repeat with all steaks. You may need to add a little more olive oil
11. Lay steaks in a 13 x 9 inch pan
12. Cover with crumbled bacon, peppers, carrots, onions,  and celery.
13. Pour tomatoes over  and add broth or water.
14. Cover tightly with aluminum foil and bake for 2 hours.

Serves 8 (freezes well)

image: Marye Audet