This retro truck stop and diner classic couldn’t be more evocative of vacations on the road, but isn’t hard to make at home.

Grab yourself some cube steak, or tenderize say a round steak yourself. Mix together some flour, salt and pepper in one bowl. Mix together an egg and milk (1/4-1/2 cup?) in another. Dip the steak in the flour mixture then the egg mixture then again in the flour mixture. Heat 1/4″ to 1/2 inch of melted crisco or oil in a heavy pan. Toss the steak in (not literally toss-geez, the oil will be hot and pop enough as is, be careful!) reduce heat to low and cook 4-6 minutes, turning midway through the time.

When you are done with that, remove the steak to a nice warm plate, pour off all but say 2 tablespoons of the oil, add about 3 tablespoons of leftover dredging flour mix, mix well, brown the flour, then gradually add about 1 cup of milk, stirring to keep the lumps out. Reduce heat and thicken (ala making a white sauce. but this will be really thick, of course you can thin it out a bit if you must) Now, that would be the recipe for the cream gravy which technically should be served on the steak but I tend to mostly just put it on my mashed potatoes.