MONTANA: Chicken-Fried Steak

This chicken-fried steak is not for classicists. Forget the typical thick-breaded crust and Friolator hot-oil bath, as cooks Mike and Sheila Candelaria prefer to baby their beef. Each chicken-fried steak served at Candel's By-Way is cut to order; you'll hear it being pounded thin and tender in the kitchen. It gets a microthin coat of breading and is grill-fried like the most urbane steak Milanese, arriving at your place with a light, crisp crust and insides that spout rich beef juices when severed with a knife. We highly recommend coming to Candel's at dawn (when you can get the breakfast version, served with an egg) or dusk on a clear winter day, for this is Montana's Judith Basin, in the heart of the state, where Charles M. Russell found the vast, red-tinged skies that crown so many of his enchanting Western paintings.

Candel's By-Way
Junction Highway 187 and 200
Stanford, Montana
Tel: 406 566 2992