Take 1" thick venison steaks and pound flat with meat tenderizing mallet until about twice as wide or more- thinner is better.
Put pounded thin steaks in ziplock bag, pour in buttermilk and squeeze out excess air. Refrigerate for 4 to 24 hours, gets tendered the longer you marinate.
Remove steaks from bag and dredge in 50:50 wheat flour mixed with cornmeal, or cracker crumbs or cornflake crumbs, or unseasoned bread crumbs- Whatever suits you. Use no salt, unless you've chosen plain cornmeal. All other crumbs have plenty of salt already. I also like to add a good bit of ground thyme, some black pepper, paprika, granulated garlic and a pinch of sugar to the breading mix too.
Whip up an egg wash, 1 egg to 1Tablespoon of milk. Dip the dredged steaks in the egg wash, then dredge AGAIN in more of the flour mix- you want a HEAVY coating on these.
Fry in 1/2" or so of hot oil or lard. The batch shown was fried in rendered chicken fat from this year's excess roosters...
For the gravy: melt 1Tablespoon of butter or chicken fat in heavy saucepan, add 1Tablespoon of flour and heat with frequent stirring until flour turns light brown and smells a bit "toasty". Whisk in 1 Cup of hot chicken stock, add a pinch of thyme, sage, black pepper, granulated garlic as you like. Don't add salt without tasting , probably plenty in the chicken stock already. Bring to a simmer while whisking frequently.
Serve over/with chicken fried steak. I put some of my chickens eggs fried in the same pan as steaks over the top- Biscuits are nice too...
(Then go out and work in the cold to burn off the INCREDIBLE amount of calories!)
