Idaho Finger Steaks & Cocktail Sauce.

Have you heard of finger steaks? I hadn't until I met Jake. From what I've heard, "they're an Idaho thing." People think of potatoes when they think of Idaho, but according to Idahoans, we should be thinking of finger steaks. These things are one of Jake's favorite foods ever, I mean, as soon as we moved to Idaho this is the first thing we had to go get.

After several trips to the local diner for finger steaks I decided I would make them myself. Jake was pretty dubious about my finger steak making abilities. I looked around on the internet until I found the supposed original recipe from the Torch Cafe in Boise.

The batter is really thick and smells delicious. 

Ingredients:
1 1/2 c. milk
1 tsp. dried thyme
1 tsp. marjoram
1 tsp. salt (all of the comments recommend to skip this step or it ends up too salty, I skipped it)
2 Tbs. seasoned salt
3/4 Tbs. Worcestershire
2 1/2 c. flour
oil for deep frying
3 lbs. beef tenderloin cut into small strips

Mix first 6 ingredients in a bowl. Slowly mix in flour until you have a nice thick batter. Refrigerate for 2 hours.

Heat oil in a pot. You don't have to use a lot, just enough to completely cover the strips of meat. I heated mine to medium, if the oil is too hot it'll cook the meat too quickly and burn it.

Cover the strips in batter, gently set in the bottom of the pot to cook. Be sure to wear long sleeves so the oil that splatters won't burn you. Cook them in small batches so they don't stick together. It takes about 5 min. per batch.

I ended up cutting larger pieces with a knife and going back and cutting them into smaller strips with scissors.

Now, if you're going to have finger steaks you must also have either bbq or cocktail sauce. Jake wanted cocktail sauce so I decided to try my hand at making that as well.

Ingredients:
2 Tbs. grated horseradish root (I just used creamy horseradish I had in the fridge)
1 tsp. brown sugar
1/8 tsp. fresh lemon juice
6 Tbs. ketchup

Mix all ingredients together in a small bowl and refrigerate. Adjust the amount of horseradish to your tastes.

I asked if these were as good as the ones from the restaurant and Jake just nodded as his mouth was stuffed with finger steaks. He's been asking me to make more ever since, definitely a keeper.