(upbeat music) - [Announcer 1] This is a production of PBS Charlotte.

(upbeat music fading) - [Announcer 2] The following episode of, "Charlotte Cooks", is brought to you by Central Piedmont Community College and viewers like you.

Thank you.

(upbeat music) - Coming up on this episode of "Charlotte Cooks," we have Chef Jill Aker-Ray in the kitchen with us, and we're gonna be cooking up some country fried steak.

(upbeat music) (upbeat music fading) Welcome to this edition of, "Charlotte Cooks".

I'm Chef Pamela Roberts and in the kitchen today joining me is Chef Jill Aker-Ray.

How are you doing?

- I'm good.

I'm so glad to be back.

Thank you for having me.

- I'm glad you're here.

- Thank you.

- So Jill, you're gonna be making us some country fried steak today, but that's not all we're gonna be putting on the plate.

- No, because you really can't have country fried steak without mashed potatoes, pure homemade, delicious mashed potatoes.

So that's where we're gonna start.

- Yeah I'm so glad you're gonna show us how to make a real mashed potato instead of using those things out of the bag.

So, yeah I know, right?

So tell us what do we need to do for our mashed potatoes?

- So the most important thing with mashed potatoes is the kind of potato you use.

So the first thing that you need to know is that russet potatoes, your actual baking potatoes, are usually the best potato because they have a really high starch content, which helps you get a nice, fluffy mashed potato, helps it not be gluey and glutenous.

What you wanna start with is cold water.

- Yes.

- Do not put your potatoes in hot water.

- No.

- So we have a pot of cold water.

We have potatoes that are cut only in half.

People get the idea that they want to cut them into smaller pieces to cook them faster, but the truth is, the more surface area you have, the better they're gonna turn out.

- It's because they don't absorb as much water.

- Correct.

- And you don't want a lot of water in your mashed potatoes, that keeps them from getting nice and fluffy.

And you got a trick to show us later too about that too, don't you?

- I do.

I do.

So first thing we need to do, obviously, is just peel- - Peel the potato.

- [Jill] We're gonna peel our potatoes.

- Now can you leave the peels on if you want to?

- I wouldn't on the russet potatoes.

If I make this with a red skinned potato, I will leave the peels on.

And then when I mash them, you get that nice, the color in with it.

- Yes.

Yes.

- But with the russets, I like to go ahead and get all the skin off.

I love country fried steak and I see it more on menus here in the south.

I've been here 35 years.

But I grew up in Michigan and you didn't see it as much with eggs, which I love it with.

But you saw it more as a dinner item.

And when I was growing up, it was my favorite birthday meal.

- Oh, fun.

- Always what I requested.

But we didn't call it country fried steak, we called it pound steak.

- Why did you call it pound steak?

- Well in a few minutes we're gonna go over and I'll show you why.

But you now can buy, you know, we're spoiled, we can buy cube steaks and they're already cubed with a special machine.

Back in the day, we were the machine.

- Yeah.

- So we had a mallet and we had some frustration to get out and we had to pound the steak.

- Yes.

- We took round steak, cut it, pounded it.

- Yes.

- So I called it pound steak all my life, I didn't know any different.

- Yes.

They're good.

- So you know, this is the easy part.

- Okay.

- The cold water, like we talked about.

And then we're gonna put these into our cold water, turn it on high, and then we're gonna turn it down and let them, they'll boil, but more of a simmer.

- Right.

Right.

- You know, not an aggressive boil.

- Right.

- And the secret too is a lot of salt.

- Okay.

- Go ahead and salt that water once they get going.

- Yes.

- And let those flavors start to, you know, soak into the potatoes.

- [Pamela] So we're gonna add our salt.

We're going to let this come to a boil that's gonna simmer for about how long, Jill?

- 15 to 20 minutes, it depends.

You're gonna check it, you want it to be really fork tender.

I would err on the side of cooking them a little too long.

- Yeah.

- Than I would cooking them- - Yeah 'cause you can't- - Al dante.

- [Pamela] So next, what are we going to do?

- [Jill] Well we're going to go ahead and do the step of blanching our green beans.

- Okay.

- So we're gonna make some green beans almondine, it's beautiful on the plate, it's the perfect accompaniment along with the potatoes to your country fried steak.

But the trick to getting that beautiful color that you see in the restaurant that we like to get at home is to blanch them.

So we're boiling some water.

These are already cleaned and stemmed.

- And you want me to go ahead and salt this for you?

- That would be great, please.

- All right.

Once again, don't salt your water early.

There you go.

- Be a little gentle.

Careful.

- Drop your beans in.

- Drop your beans in.

- The nice thing about this guys, you're gonna see that color pop right away.

- And this step, which seems like a little bit of an extra step, you can do this a day ahead of time.

Now they're gonna get a little ice bath.

- And all this is gonna do, the purpose of the ice bath is just to stop the cooking.

- Stop the cooking process.

- It preserves that beautiful green color too, doesn't it?

We have our potatoes in the water, they're gonna cook about 15, 20 minutes to get them all the way done.

So while those are going, we're gonna hop on over here and we're gonna get our steak ready, right?

- Okay.

- All right.

Let's get our steak.

- Star of the show.

So what we have here is we have an already cubed steak.

- [Pamela] Tell us what cubed means.

- Okay so you can now buy them already cubed.

They run through a machine that kind of shreds the meat and tenderizes it.

But we used to do it back in the day, just do it ourselves.

You can still do that, you can buy round steak, have it cut at the butcher or you can cut it yourself.

And then you can come home and basically, the first thing you wanna do is make sure, when you're gonna go into any kind of breading that this meat is dry.

- [Pamela] That's gonna make a difference with your breading sticking or not sticking.

- Absolutely.

And as you can see, they're basically shredded through with that cuber.

- Yeah.

Yeah.

- So you wanna be careful now not to be too aggressive when you've already got cubed steak.

Because- - So we're not gonna wail into this.

- So, but you know, back in the day - You would, you would have to because round steak is tough of shoes.

- [Jill] So here I'm just gonna pound out the little corners that might not have gotten attention in the cuber when it went through.

You know, the little ends and that kind of thing.

With these, you know... - The waffle end.

- [Jill] The waffle end.

Thank you.

'Cause I wouldn't have been able to think of that.

- All right.

- And then we're gonna go into our breading process.

- [Pamela] Okay.

What is the breading process?

Can you explain that?

- I basically use flour.

- Okay.

Just regular all purpose flour.

- Just regular all purpose flour.

- Okay.

And does it need to be sifted?

If it's lumpy, you should sift it, but.

- You should sift it.

And I'm gonna, you know what I'm gonna do?

I'm gonna sift it with a fork.

- [Pamela] Yeah.

That's goods.

That's good.

Oh, so you're putting flour in two spots.

- I am.

- Ah.

- What I have found is that you need that extra flour at the end so that you have a dry... - Yes.

- So that you don't have that moisture.

- Okay.

- Okay?

So regular AP flour in both of these.

(metal rattling) There's the extent of my sifting.

Get all those big- - Yeah.

- You know, you don't want clumps of it.

- Yeah.

- So then our next step, which is a delicious step, is buttermilk.

- [Pamela] Ooh.

Buttermilk.

- So I like the buttermilk breading.

If you do not have buttermilk and you have whole milk, you can add a little bit of vinegar or lemon juice to regular milk, let it sit for 10 minutes.

Voila.

- And it'll coagulate just like buttermilk.

- Voila.

You've got buttermilk.

And then I like to usually use two eggs.

- [Pamela] Okay.

And that trusty fork, you're gonna whisk them up.

- You know, that's what my grandma used.

What we wanna do is we want these well seasoned, both the flour, the meat and this buttermilk mixture.

We wanna turn on, preferably a cast iron skillet, it does not have to be, but that is the best vessel you can use at home for this particular thing.

- I love cast iron skillets.

- And we're gonna do what's called a shallow fry.

- Okay.

- Of a very neutral oil, don't use extra virgin oil or grape seed oil, just a... That's good.

- That's good?

- Mm-hm.

- Okay.

We've got vegetable oil here that we're using.

- Perfect.

- Just straight up vegetable oil.

- Perfect.

We've got seasoned salt.

- Okay.

- [Jill] Black pepper.

We're gonna use a lot of it.

- Okay.

- And then I've got some mixture of garlic powder and a few other things in here.

- Okay.

- Secret ingredients.

- [Pamela] Oh, all right.

- The oil needs to be about 350 degrees.

What I do generally is I'll leave a little extra flour, which I'm gonna have.

And as I'm going along, I turn it onto a medium heat, maybe a little higher to medium high and then watch it carefully.

And as you can see, I think there's already some bubbles in there.

- Yes.

Yes.

- [Jill] We're gonna put some flour in there.

They cook pretty fast, two and a half to three minutes a side.

But you don't want to burn that beautiful breading.

- Right.

- You want it to stay golden.

So now what I want to tell you is, and I've learned this over the years, trial and error, when the breading comes off and I want to cry because I've made these beautiful country fried steaks or fried chicken or anything that you're breading and you get it in the pan and then you turn it over.

- The breading comes over.

Right.

- And it can happen.

- Yep.

- And if it does, it's okay, there's more cube steak here.

But what really seems to be very helpful, and I know you probably teach your students this in class.

First of all, this is your best friend in the kitchen, a pan with the wire rack on top, so many things you can do.

- So many things.

- So what we want to see here is we want to this to be dry.

- Okay.

- Okay?

And we want to put it on the rack.

And if there's wet spots, put the flour mixture on there.

- Let it absorb.

- Exactly.

You wanna leave that, either set it aside about 30 minutes, which we've done here, or if you have the time, go ahead and put it in the refrigerator on this rack overnight.

It seems to make all the difference in the world.

- Yeah.

- And the buttermilk, of course, it tenderizes it.

- Yes.

- It's got that acidity.

So you've got that more tender steak.

It's not that you want a bunch of lumpy flour on there, but you want it to be dry.

- Dry.

- Okay?

- And even if it sits for a little bit and you see a little bit of moisture come up, you can always add a little more of your flour if you want to.

- I always end up, yeah.

- Yeah.

- [Jill] You're kind of patching it up.

- Patting it on.

Yeah.

- [Jill] Just giving it a little patch.

- Okay I think, is that ready?

- Yes, I think it is.

- All right.

- Okay so remember at home, just make sure that when you are putting anything into hot oil, that you are doing it away from you.

- Away from you.

Don't put it in so it splashes towards you.

So if it splashes, it's gonna go that way.

- You want away from you.

You also do not want to crowd this pan.

- Right.

- Right?

Because you want it to fry, you don't want it to steam.

So ideally, put it where you want it and leave it there.

(oil sizzling) - There we go.

- Okay.

We're gonna wait two and a half to three minutes.

How we'll know when to turn it is we'll start to see... - Golden brown or (indistinct).

- Well we're gonna start to see a little bit of blood from that steak come up through.

- Oh right, right, right, right, right.

- And because of that, you know that it's cooked on that side.

So two and a half to three minutes.

You can check it at about a minute because we might need to adjust our heat.

We don't want to burn.

Okay so see what we were talking about?

- Yeah.

- I mean, I hate that that's the description, but that's really what you're looking for.

- That's what you're looking for, yeah.

- So it's cooking, that's coming up through.

I did adjust it down a little bit- - Okay.

- 'Cause it seemed a little high.

And look at that.

- [Pamela] Beautiful golden brown.

Look at that crust.

- [Jill] And it's sticking really well.

- [Pamela] Yes it is.

- If you end up at the end, once you've cooked both sides, if you have some area where you feel like it needs a little extra love to get golden brown, feel free to flip it over.

- Okay.

- Just don't do a lot of, we don't want a lot of movement going on there.

- Right.

The more you flip it, the more movement there is, the bigger your chance that the breading is gonna fall off.

- Exactly.

- These look delicious, Jill.

- So I think we're ready to go.

We know that they're cooked through, now it's just a matter of, you're just looking for the color on them.

So I'm gonna leave that one for another minute.

I have some paper towels in a tray to drain.

I want you to take off and be really careful when you're doing this part.

Anytime you're doing that shallow fry.

We've got those, they're gonna take a little rest.

And what we're going to do, this is probably the hardest part of this whole process, while we're waiting for our potatoes, I have poured out most of the oil.

I like to leave about two to three tablespoons.

- Okay.

- Because that's a neutral oil and doesn't have much flavor on its own.

- We've gotta add some flavor with butter - I like to add maybe- - Yeah.

Butter's a good flavor.

- Maybe two tabs of butter.

And we're gonna turn our pan back on.

So this is a pepper cream gravy.

- Okay.

- You don't want the roux, you want it blonde.

- Okay.

- You want it light.

So you want, your gonna cook our flour in it, but we don't want it to get browned.

I like a white gravy.

And I'm gonna show you what I love to use for any kind of pan gravy that I'm doing.

- There is a special flour for it.

If you just use regular flour, it will lump on you.

But this one won't.

- This is a very finely sifted.

The answer to this, if you can't get this, is to go ahead and what we talked about earlier in the show is to sift, sift, sift.

- Sift, sift, sift.

- I love this flour because it's probably triple, quadruple sifted.

It's still an all purpose flour, but it is specifically for gravy and sauces.

- Yes it is.

'cause it doesn't lump.

- And I like this about medium.

We got that butter in there and we've got all those extra bits from our breading.

- Yes.

- And those are gonna help with our gravy.

So you want equal parts of flour to fat.

- Okay.

- As you know from...

So if we had three to four tablespoons, that's probably what we're gonna do here.

I'm not big on measuring, I kinda like to eye it.

We're not trying to get this too brown, you know, we're not making gumbo or something.

We're making a cream gravy, but what we want to do is cook that flour taste out of there.

- Yes.

- So get your flour in first.

And then immediately we're gonna start adding flavor again.

- Okay.

What flavors are we adding this time?

- Well we're gonna stick with what we have going on already.

- Seasoned already.

Okay.

- So let's keep it consistent.

- Okay.

- So we've got my little special blend.

Garlic, shallot, maybe a few other things.

- [Pamela] Oh, that's lovely.

- You cannot have enough pepper in the pepper gravy.

Do not be afraid of this.

The recipe that I have calls for cayenne, I did not do that today.

- Yeah.

- Because I don't want to take away from the country fried steak.

So while I like cayenne, some other people may not.

- Yeah.

- So.

- And to me, cayenne, when you get that heat going on, it sort of takes away from the other flavors that aren't hot, I think.

- Right, right.

Sometimes it can be, you know when you get Nashville hot chicken and it's just hot.

- Yeah.

- It's not flavorful, it's just hot.

- No, it's just hot.

Right.

- So yeah.

So we don't wanna achieve that.

So we've got this going, we get a little bit of a simmer on that.

One of the things I love to put in here, I'm a big fan of worcestershire sauce.

- Yes.

- So you get that like umami flavor, you get a little bit of cutting of the richness of the gravy.

But you'll kind of have it in the back and you'll go, "Hm, I wonder what, that gravy's really good".

- It's got a real nice compliment to me.

- Love it.

- Yes.

- And if you don't have that, you can use a little bit of balsamic vinegar.

- Oh, there you go.

Yes, yes, yes.

- Do the same thing.

Gives that little bit of flavor.

So we don't want it any further along than that, as far as color.

So then we just start adding our milk.

- And this is just whole milk, right?

- This is just whole milk.

(whisk scraping) Gravy looks a little funny when you first start out, doesn't it?

- Yeah.

- But, oh, the results.

And I might end up needing a little bit more milk, but I have milk.

And gravy is just, you know, it's a little labor of love, so.

- Don't rush it.

- Don't rush it.

Our steaks can go on the rack.

They can go in the oven for warmth, just keep them warm.

I think we need to taste.

- All right.

Got a couple spoons here.

- See what we've got.

Okay.

- Little spoon for you, spoon for me.

Salt.

(Pamela laughs) - And isn't that surprising?

- It's needs salt.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

- It's surprising.

- Yeah, absolutely.

- I'm going to use this little salt blend.

- Okay.

This is your special blend?

- Mm-hm.

- All right.

- I know, just when you think it possibly can't take any more salt.

How's the pepper?

Do you like the- - Peppers good.

- Get it at the end?

- I think the pepper's good.

I get it on the back.

Yep.

- Okay.

Okay.

All right, what do you think?

- Oh, now there you go.

- There!

- What do you think?

- We got it.

And can you taste the worcestershire?

- No.

- Just there's this little- - I get that umami.

I get some umami in there.

- Something.

So that's, you want your gravy to pop a little bit.

- Mm-hm.

Yep.

- So we're good here.

- Yep.

- You wanna cover that so that you don't get a skin on your gravy.

- Yes.

- And then we're ready to get the mashed potatoes salted.

- All right, let's go to our mashed potatoes.

- Okay.

So we have drained our potatoes.

And you can drain them pretty thoroughly, but when you put them back in, you might have a little residual water.

So what I like to do, just turn it on 30 seconds to a minute and make sure- - To evaporate any extra water that might be in there.

- Exactly.

There are many ways to mash.

A lot of people like the smooth, beautiful texture of putting them through a potato ricer, which is this little guy, this device.

You can adjust this according to how small you want- - As fine or large as you want.

Yeah.

- Exactly.

My husband likes them a little, shall I say lumpy.

- Okay.

- [Jill] And I grew up with them that way.

- Okay.

- [Jill] I've turned my burner off and without anything else in here... - Just potatoes.

- I'm just going to mash.

- Okay.

- You do not want to use a mixer.

- No.

- Or a food processor.

- No.

- Because you'll end up with glue.

- Yes.

Because what it does is it brings the starches and makes the starches form long strands of molecules.

This way the molecules are broken up and they're separated.

But when you put them in a mixer, they combine and they become really gluey and- - Not good.

- Mm-mm.

Not good at all.

- That is not what you want.

- There are gonna be fluffy.

- [Jill] So you're gonna go about twice around the pan.

Then what you want, certainly you want butter.

- Butter.

- Some people add or use sour cream, there's a lot of substitutions.

Cream cheese.

There are things you can use.

You can melt the butter.

I seem to like it just, I like it softened.

- Okay.

- Very softened but not- - Not melted.

- Not melted.

- Okay.

- So see how, I mean super soft?

- Yeah, it's really soft.

- [Jill] That's a stick.

And while that may not be enough, we'll start there.

- Okay.

Okay.

- And I like to do the butter before the milk because then you can adjust the milk accordingly.

Because while I might say it's a cup of milk, whole milk, preferably warm, so that it's gonna evaporate into your potatoes better, it's not gonna cool off your potatoes.

Okay so we kind of get that a little bit incorporated before we start to see how much milk we need.

- Okay.

- Then we're gonna add some of our warm milk.

- [Pamela] I'm just gonna add a little bit at a time, you tell me if you want more.

- Because I agree and I think, you know, how thin or thick you like your mashed potatoes is a very personal choice.

- Yes.

Absolutely.

- Now remember we salted that water that we cooked these in.

- So theoretically, the potatoes should have plenty of salt in them.

- Then... - Oh, here's your secret.

- The secret ingredient to the fluffiest mashed potatoes ever.

It depends on how many potatoes, here you only need probably a teaspoon.

- Okay.

- Baking powder.

- Baking powder.

- Baking powder makes your baked goods rise.

- Yes.

- Guess what else?

It makes your mashed potatoes rise and be a little more fluffy.

- Alright, let's see this.

(Pamela laughs) - And you won't see it, but you will taste the difference.

- Okay.

- And only a, you know- - Like you said, a teaspoon.

- Don't overdo it.

A teaspoon for these.

- Okay.

A teaspoon and this was six potatoes, right?

- Six potatoes.

So if you were making a five pound bag, you'd put a tablespoon.

Here's my test.

- Okay.

- Because my grandmother, I used to think it was really fancy on my birthday to- - Have a scoop of potatoes on your plate.

- So you if can scoop it and then you could make a little ice cream.

- Oh, okay.

- Then I'm like, okay, I think that's the right.

And then if you can still make a well.

Now you will see pieces of potato in there.

- 'Cause that's why you used the masher instead of the ricer.

- And if you like the other, use the ricer.

But do not use the mixer.

- [Pamela] Next we have to just saute our green beans and plate, right?

- And we're done.

- Let's do it.

- So we have our drained blanched green beans shocked.

And I have some extra ingredients that don't always go in green beans almondine.

Certainly the almonds do.

- Yes.

- So you have the pan on medium.

But with nuts, you've got to be so careful not to over toast them.

- Yes.

- They will burn.

- Yes, they will.

- For our purposes here, I'm gonna dry roast them very quickly and take them back out and then I'm gonna cook the rest of my things with the beans.

I don't want them to burn.

And you know, they go from light and blonde and non roasted to uh-oh.

- I know.

Really fast too.

I think they're good.

- I think so too.

- So we got lots of nice golden brown- - 'Cause you go from that to nothing, to you know.

- Right.

- Okay and I'm just gonna try to stick them back in this pan right here.

And with your green beans, again, they're somewhat cooked already.

I like to use shallots instead of garlic.

But if garlic's what you have at home, for sure use that.

I like a little bit of butter to start.

Some people like to use olive oil and I use that sometimes too.

Got a little bit of freeze dried shallots, which is a nice way to keep shallots without having to keep them fresh.

- Yes, exactly.

- I love using freeze dried shallots.

- Yes.

Yeah.

- 'Cause most of the work is done for you.

- [Pamela] Yes.

And all you have to do is open the jar.

(Pamela laughs) - Right.

And I could, you know, I could do more than that, but I'm just gonna- - Yeah.

- I'm just gonna be a little conservative.

Then you wanna put your green beans in and you wanna get a kinda nice little sizzle on those.

Don't wanna lose one.

(beans sizzling) And again, then you might have to turn it down a little bit because remember you just have butter in there.

- Right.

- A way to combat that or to to help that is to use half butter, half olive oil.

Then you have a little bit more control of that smoke point.

And again, you're not really doing much with these.

I mean, I could get fancy if this was a big pan and...

But right now I probably would just have them all over here, so I won't.

Feel free if you'd like to.

- Let me give them a toss.

- [Jill] That's a small pan.

- It is a small pan - Given that's a little difficult one.

- And the beans are large.

So let's...

I like lined up.

- Chef Pamela is a professional, don't try this at home.

- You could try it, I encourage you to try it.

All right.

- Okay so we have that.

And then what we're going to add is some flavor.

Lemon zest.

So I've taken a lemon, zested it.

- And that means just to take the color off, not the white stuff underneath.

- Don't get down to the white.

- Just like the yellow or the orange or the green.

- So we got the zest.

- Not the white underneath.

- And then- - A little bit of juice.

- We want the juice.

I'm gonna use my fingers as the strainer.

And we don't want both of these halves, 'cause we don't want it overdone.

Another thing I love at the end of this, and I didn't do it today, but I like it as a flavor.

Thank you.

Is a little bit of soy sauce or amino acids.

- Oh.

Okay.

And that will bring an umami flavor to this.

- And I just wanted to today because I felt like we needed, I like a little color.

This is not- - Okay.

- This is not traditional in your green beans almondine.

But this is, I always have a jar of pimentos for my pimento cheese.

So I wanted a little color in there, I think that might be nice.

- Looks beautiful.

- And then I need some seasoning.

So if you want to, you can salt and pepper these.

- What kind of seasonings?

- [Jill] Just salt and pepper.

- Now how much salt, just over?

- Well based on today.

(Jill laughs) More than we think.

Which is why you like food in the restaurant.

- And what kind of pepper do you want, white or black?

- Let's do white because then we're not gonna see those little pieces in there.

- [Pamela] And you see that was a decision she just made.

We wanted white, 'cause we didn't wanna see the pieces.

- Then I'm gonna turn it up just a touch.

I'm gonna hear it sizzle to make sure that they're warmed.

And then we're ready.

- Ready to plate.

- We are ready.

- All right.

Pass me that bowl, Jill, let's fill it up with some potatoes.

- Oh yes, let's do it.

- Because that cube steak looks so good.

- So we've got our cube steak plated - And looks lonely without these potatoes.

- And really, that's the best part.

And then will you make that special well in the middle like grandma used to make for the gravy to go- - We'll let you do it.

- Okay.

My grandma used to, I used to watch, I was like, oh.

Or my mom.

You know?

So you get the well.

- Oh yeah.

There you go.

- And you're like, oh, here comes the potatoes.

I can't wait.

- And you want me to put some gravy in there?

- Yes, please.

- All right.

Hold it right there.

Bring it up to the pan.

Ooh, look at that.

Another one?

- Yes.

One more.

Let it roll over the sides of the volcano.

Can you put a little bit of gravy on top of the- - On top of the meat?

- Yes.

- You want it top of the meat?

- [Jill] And then what's fabulous too, is this in the morning, like we talked about with some based eggs, poached eggs.

- Ooh.

- Scrambled eggs and grits.

- Ooh.

Is that enough?

- And a biscuit.

Another whole meal.

And if you would, Pamela, will you grab that parsley?

In my world growing up, parsley was it.

- On which?

- That was it.

I think on the country fried steak.

- Okay.

- But that's when we knew it was a special dinner.

- Oh, when you got the parsley.

- Was when parsley went on.

- Jill, this looks unbelievable.

Here guys, we have a country fried steak with homemade mashed potatoes with Jill's special secret.

And then we have our green beans almondine with a little pop of color with some pimento and lemon.

And here we have our side of gravy, because we always need more gravy with this dish.

All right guys, thank you for watching this episode of, "Charlotte Cooks".

Jill, thank you for being with us today.

- Oh, I'm thrilled to be here.

- If y'all want to get our recipes, grab them off of our website at pbscharlotte.org and we are gonna catch you next time on, "Charlotte Cooks".

Thanks for watching.

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