Smothered Steak/Swiss Steak

"Smothered Steak," is a traditional part of the cuisine of the American South, "apparently" having been brought there by colonists from England, where the term is also used. In other parts of the U.S. it is known as "Swiss Steak," which has nothing to do with "Swiss cheese, Swiss army knives, Swiss chard, Swiss bank accounts or Swiss chocolate." In fact, it has nothing to do with Switzerland or with the cuisine of that country. The story is, this term "Swiss" comes from the tenderizing pounding process used for the steak (which was/is called "swissing"), which came from tougher, less expensive cuts of beef. There are variations on the recipe, with some using a heavy proportion of tomatoes, and others using less tomatoes and making the sauce into more of an actual gravy, as I've done here. If you'd like the sauce to be more "tomato-y," you could use a half cup of canned diced tomato, with the juice.    

Ingredients:

2 pounds round steak, sliced into serving pieces, then pounded to about a 1/2 inch thin
3/4 cup flour
1 tablespoon seasoned salt (your favorite brand)
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1 1/2 cups chopped onion
1 cup sliced or chopped button mushrooms
1 cup sliced or chopped baby bella mushrooms
5 tablespoons olive oil (don't be afraid to use more oil, if needed)
2 cups beef stock
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
1/4 cup chopped tomatoes, fresh or canned. If canned, you can drain or use the juice, your choice.
1/2 teaspoon savory
2 to 3 tablespoons flour mixed with 3 to 4 tablespoons water

Mix the flour, black pepper and seasoned salt together on a plate. Dredge the pieces of steak in seasoned flour, then place each piece between plastic wrap, and, using a meat mallet or edge of a plate, pound it thinner. The point is to pound the seasoned flour into the steak, while tenderizing the steak at the same time. Heat the oil in a skillet over medium heat. If you use an oven safe skillet, it will be one less thing to wash later. Anyway, brown the seasoned and tenderized steak pieces in batches. Heat the oven to 350 F. To the skillet, if using, or to a baking dish, add the onion, the mushrooms, the tomatoes, the savory, the beef stock and the Worcestershire sauce. Stir to mix. Add the browned steak pieces and cover the skillet or dish. Bake at 350 F for 30 minutes, then reduce heat to 300 F and bake about another 90 minutes, or until the steak pieces are very tender. Remove from the oven. If using the skillet, place the steak pieces on a separate plate and put the skillet on a burner at medium heat. It should quickly bubble, then gradually stir in the flour/water mixture until the gravy/sauce reaches the desired thickness. I'm a mashed potatoes guy, but many often serve it with buttered noodles.

I had mine with mashed potatoes, carrots and cottage cheese.

WORD HISTORY:
Smother-This word, distantly related to "smolder" and "smell," "seems" to go back to an Indo European "smur/smul," likely variants of some unknown Indo European root. There are other Indo European relatives to the word outside of Germanic. The notion lying behind the meaning seemingly has to do with "heat, fire, burn," and the results of such; that is, "smoke coming from," and, "smoke covering someone or something." From the Indo European came an Old Germanic offspring like, "smuronan," which meant, "to choke or to choke to death from smoke," which only remained in West Germanic, which gave Old English (Anglo-Saxon) "smorian," which meant, "to choke, to suffocate." Its third person singular was "smoraþ" (=smorath), which produced the noun "smorther," meaning "heavy or thick smoke;" that is, "smoke so thick as to choke a person." Later the verb became "smortheren," before the word contracted to "smoth(e)ren," and then to "smother." The word also took on the cooking meaning, "to cover and cook slowly," sometimes rendered as "smoren," perhaps by influence of the same spelling in the related Low German, Dutch and Flemish words. Relatives of "smother" in the other Germanic languages: German has "schmoren," meaning, "to braise, to cook meat slowly in a covered pan with liquid," but this was borrowed from Low German in the 1600s. In German it also has the figurative meaning, "to stew," as in the English expression, "to stew in one's own juices;" that is, "to worry over and fret about the consequences of one's own deeds." Further, it means, "to swelter in hot weather." Low German "smoren/smorten," meaning, "to choke;" Dutch "smoren" (to choke, but also the cooking usage "braise").