For many years, members of the Jackson old age club shared fond memories of the Hickory House (RIP). It was a flat roof, cinder block joint, located in the 2300 block (I think) of West Capitol Street across from Cedarlawn Cemetery (I'm pretty sure), a half mile east of the "Old Ladies Home" (I can't remember what year they tore down the OLH). I have a really good memory for an old fart, don't I? However, there is one thing I remember, with full, absolute certainty: the Hickory House steak finger baskets were tasty good.
Steak Fingers, somewhat close copycat recipe - A post by ZeroBear PolyBear
For nearly forty years, the Hickory House was a popular, post-WWII, food and beverage establishment in Jackson, MS. From its West Capitol Street location, the restaurant provided carhop service, food, and amber beverages to hungry WWII Veterans and their families.
I have been told, if one went inside (where access inside was denied to kids), the amber beverages could be enjoyed on tap, by the glass, frozen mug, or pitcher. I think only canned versions were available on the gravel lot served by the carhop ladies out of a plywood alcove with a pass-through window connecting it to the kitchen.
As I remember, the canned beverage options at Hickory House were varied, including PBR, Budweiser, Falstaff, Schlitz, Jax and for those who liked their chilled beverage in tiny/short little cans, Country Club Malt Liquor. Cokes? Sure! In bottles, since kids couldn't drink beer. Menu treats included hamburgers, sliced pork BBQ on a bun, fried shrimp, oyster and steak finger baskets, all of these were served as baskets, with slender kitchen cut Russet Potato fries that still had the skin, The non-sandwich baskets included a butter toasted hamburger bun. In the few times Dad took us to the gravel lot for carhop delivered dinner, Mom always ordered the fried oyster basket if the month had an "r", but the only thing I can ever remember asking for was the steak finger basket. For me, it has been the standard all other steak fingers have failed to meet.
How do you order carhop food from a gravel lot beside a Beer Joint? Easy-Peazy! You pull in an empty space and flash your headlights once or twice and the girl comes out, leans into the driver window and says, "Wha'cha having tonight, Hon?" Maybe ten minutes later, she will come back with a tray to hang on the driver's side window with your baskets, hot from the fryer and ready to eat. We went enough times before I turned 18 for me to learn the exact way to do this.
It might or might not have been better, but life certainly was simpler back then.
Unfortunately, the recipe for steak fingers died (in 1972?) when the Hickory House closed, I have seen many recipes shared over the years claiming to be their steak finger. Several of these recipes claimed to be straight from the lips of Miss Alma, or Ms. Louise or one of the other cooks who had worked there forever, cooking steak finger baskets. I think I have tried all of them and none came close to my memories of the Hickory House Steak Finger. I have tried to reverse engineer their recipe and have failed many times over the years. I have made good steak fingers, just not any that matched Hickory House Steak Fingers!
For the record, a Hickory House Steak Finger was round and slender, like a 25 cent hand rolled cigar, with seasoned ground meat wrapped or covered in a seasoned flour wrapper and fried to an old grease (lard?) brown. The taste would make an angel weep for joy.
I endured so many failures to match this old-time beer joint treat. Then one night, I came as close as I ever have to achieving steak finger nirvana, and thought I'd share what I did.
I started with a one-pound package of ground sirloin.
I sliced it across the grind grain into half inch strips and gently compressed them into roundish finger long shapes, trying to not disrupt the grind any more than absolutely needed to form them as shown below.
When I finished forming the fingers (the pack made 13) I put them on a freezer pan on plastic wrap, dusted them liberally with black pepper, Lawry's Garlic salt and put them into the freezer to solidify. Hickory House would have used powered garlic since there was no such thing as Lawry's Garlic Salt back in the 1950s. I also doubt they ever froze theirs, but it was just easier for me to do it that way.
When ready to cook, I mixed 1 cup AP flour, 1/4 cup corn starch, black pepper and a little Lawry's in the coating mixture, then dredged each frozen strip in the flour mixture, then into buttermilk and then back into the flour mixture, working to press the coating smooth and tightly against the meat. When finished with that, I put them back into the freezer while I heated my vegetable oil (I bet Hickory House used lard) to 350 f and then deep fried them.
The results were as close as I have ever come, the meat was tender and the crust was really close to what I remember eating about a hundred times. What I failed to do was to make home fries cut from russet potatoes with the skin still in place, the butter toasted hamburger bun and the tall can of ice-cold PBR.
The fried pickles shown in my photos were my choice. I can't remember ever having them from the Hickory House. We will talk about fried pickles and Frank's Famous Fried Plate from George Street Grocery some other time.
Sorry for my failure to take photos of the breading and frying process. My hands were covered in buttermilk and four/crust that night.
Thanks for looking at my post. If you have another recipe option for the Hickory House Steak Finger, especially one with a wrapped pastry crust, I'd love to see you share it in the comments.
Thanks for looking at my post.
God Bless You.
25 comments:
I remember the Hickory house. I was a kid, but once in a while we stopped by and my brothers and I shared that steak fingers basket. It was so good. I saw a fb post once that showed the recipe. Supposedly from Ms.Clark. I think your recipe is pretty close but the one from Ms Clark showed frozen cube steak.
Perfect description of The Hickory House.
This gives other professional "foodies" a run for their money...and he allows comments!!
Wish I had one of those steak-finger baskets right now. They might even rival those of the sixties at the Varsity Restaurants in both Cleveland and Belzoni (same ownership at the time).
13 on a sheet is messin' with my OCD. The only way to cure that anxiety is with a PBR. Or 2.
11:28 - I have made them many times using cube steaks. There is something about the density of the meat that doesn't seem right when I do. That is why I changed to ground meat.
By the way, the Clarks lived on West Hillsdale back then and we lived on Fair Court, a dead-end street off of East Hillsdale - the other side of the Hillsdale circle. They had a light brown (Dodge?) station wagon with the Hickory house Name painted on the driver and passenger doors. I was a little kid back then and for reasons I can't explain, was so impressed with that company car. I bet I rode my used 20-inch balloon tired Indian Cycle bike past their house a thousand times when we lived there before moving to Clinton in 1961.
I drool over PolyBear recipes far more than RSJ's.
No shade to RSJ and his fans, but this is more my speed and I am now starving just recalling Hickory House.
And thanks to Kingfish for adding the old newspaper ad. Not sure where he found that.
I really like Zero's columns and recipes. I don't remember the Hickory House,
maybe I'm too young, but I love steak fingers. Now I know how to make them! Genius to use semi-frozen ground beef, easy to cut, helps retain shape, and easy to chew.
We order takeout from Wynndale Steak house whenever the electricity goes out and we can't cook at home. If you like the flavor of hickory smoked meat, I recommend their beef tenderloin shisk-ka-bobs. Order them early, they sell out fast.
Those look delicious. Can you please give us a recipe for fried chicken livers with rice and gravy? I love it but rarely get to eat any.
Served with French fries and cardiology? Chicken fried steak and gravy at summer camp OK at 10 years old, but fried dinners later in life are greasy tickets to the Grim Reaper.
I don't reckon I've seen ground sirloin in the meat case. Should I just point to a top sirloin and ask him to grind it up?
@ 3:16 - Would you ask a French Chef how to boil an egg?
Just dredge your livers well in plain flour (which has been peppered and salted) and lay them in hot (375) grease, flip them once.
Rice and gravy, well...You know.
"Can you please give us a recipe for fried chicken livers"
The best fried chicken livers were served at the High Street Texaco during the early 1990's.
I hope someone still has their recipe.
BTW, the best fried chicken gizzards go to the " B-Quick" in Oxford.
But that was a long time ago ... mid 1980's.
3:16 The very best chicken livers are commonly found in the heated display cabinets of gas stations 2 examples - Th epure Oil station on the square in Dekalb and the Exxon station on the corner of Northside Drive and Pinehaven in CLinton. I know there are other stations we need to be aware of because a good fried chicken liver is a real treat.
I would soak my livers in milk, or buttermilk for a couple of hours. Add some salt and black pepper to the milk. A little garlic powder is nice too, but mostly black pepper.
Mix black pepper and salt into flour and dredge the wet livers in the seasoned flour. leave them there for a bit while heating the oil to 350 degrees F. Add the livers a few at a time, so that they do not touch. Be careful when frying because they will pop and spit hot oil as they fry. Salt a little when you take them out to drain on a paper towel. If ou use a lid when they are frying, leave a crack to let the moisture escape. You want them to fry and not braise.
My best advice? Shop around and find a gas station that frys chicken and see when they fry livers, then show up on those days. I like the taste and they usually are sold in 6 count baskets. I hat it when the folks working the counter don;t understand that a liver comes in two large lobes and try to sell my a half liver counted as a whole liver.
There is a franchise gas station brand called KrispyKrunchy Chicken. Their chicken recipe (seasoned flour) is very good. Look for their sign and stop at them if possible.
When I would spend summers in Belzoni as a child I remember how the The Varsity in Belzoni had really great steak finger baskets which they served with french fries and hot dog buns that matched the length of the steak fingers.
Appreciate the post.
Heard about these from my folks, native Jacksonians
I don’t have time to do it now. And if possible, could a kind reader convert this recipe into a format that RSJ uses? I screenshot them and use them for cooking.
Thanks.
My mother instilled in me the wise words of eating oysters only in months with the letter “r” and so far has not let me down. Glad to see it somewhere else in print.
Their onion rings were very good, as well. Turn the blinker on in your car and they bring you another frosty mug of beer.
I'm a fried chicken lover too. When frying that Thanksgiving turkey, be sure to place ten or twelve well-dredged livers in a wire basket (with handle) and lower it slowly into the same grease the turkey is in. This is a snack prior to lunch.
Raise the basket slightly above the grease a few times, shaking the livers and they'll stay separated.
When you know they're done, dump them onto a cookie sheet lined with paper towels.
This is a special for the guys standing around outside telling lies and sipping Tennessee whiskey.
For dipping, I prefer a small bowl of catsup mixed with several generous shots of Wooster.
As an aside, it would be hard to beat the fried chicken wings (and livers) at the Kangaroo in Kosciusko. Get a sack and head back south on the Trace and pull in at the rest stop and pig out.
Don't remember the Hickory House, but do remember the Dog-N-Suds on West Capital and the old ladies home...memories!
One of those cinder block joints? oh okay.
My Hickory House Memories: My family lived in a duplex on Grenada St. a couple of blocks from the Hickory House. For a short time the Clarks lived in the other apartment in our duplex. This was probably when Mr. Clark first opened the Hickory House.
There was a fried chicken basket with onion rings that I had many times. I always wondered how they were able to get all that thick batter to stick to the onion rings. There was also
an ice cream stand in front of the Hickory House that was added later, I think.
A man that we knew would sometimes go to the Hickory House to drink beer inside. He would sometimes stay all day at the Hickory House. When his wife
wanted him to come home, she would send my 4 or 5 year old brother up to the
Hickory House to tell him to come home. The man really liked my brother and he would always leave and come home when my brother went there to get him.
Grew up in Belzoni consuming vast quantities of steak fingers at the Kilpatrick's Varsity. An added treat was being there when Debra K. was working the counter -- the absolute prettiest girl ever to come out of Belzoni.
Not a steak finger, but I fry "Delta Deer Rolls" a couple times a year and will do so real soon. They are modeled after a Filipino egg roll that everyone raved about when I was a kid, if you were lucky enough to know Maggie Luciano in Ruleville and she would make you some that is. She would show up to birthday parties or other get togethers with a big batch, so simple and delicious. She used ground beef, green onion and salt and pepper. I use ground deer, thus the new name i gave them. Mix well, put in freezer for a short time to firm/not freeze similar to the recipe above, then get to work wrapping and frying. I beat some egg to help the wrappers stick. She used traditional Filipino wrappers so they were always fairly small, crunchy and oh so good. Mine are good, but never the same .. and sometimes i use the Filipino wrappers, sometimes larger egg roll or other wrappers. A little soy sauce and some sweet and sour for dipping and you are ready to enjoy.
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