Swiss Steak

I can’t speak for the Swiss as a whole, but my Swiss German ancestors—Portmanns who dropped the second "n" during World War I, after immigrating to the US—were thrifty people. My grandfather, Bill Portman, used to stuff free snacks in his coat pockets to give to us grandkids later. It's not a stretch to imagine the dairy farmers in my family tree tenderizing and slow-cooking less desirable cuts from their retired cows for the family dinner table.

That said, the experts seem to agree that there's nothing Swiss about Swiss steak, a comfort food classic made by pounding or needling a tough piece of beef into submission and then braising it to fork-tenderness in a tomato-and-onion gravy. (The name probably comes from the term “swissing,” referencing mechanical tenderizing.) Instead, Swiss steak, popular throughout the Midwest, is more likely an example of American culinary ingenuity, popularized by brands like Hunt's and Reynolds Wrap in the mid-20th century.

Either way, it's part of my heritage because it was a staple at our Lebanon, Ohio, family business, The Golden Lamb Inn, for decades.

Swiss steak was basically home cooking for my dad's side of the family in the 1960s, when Joan Jones Portman, Bill's wife, was the general manager at the hotel and restaurant. She had grown up there, in an apartment that's now a private dining room, and she raised her family the way her parents raised her—on restaurant leftovers. Like many braises, Swiss steak is even better when reheated, making it an ideal take-home for a busy family. With enough vegetables to constitute a complete meal, it beat a TV dinner.

The Portmans weren't the only ones who made a habit of it. "It always sold very well,” says Nick Roudebush, the executive chef at the Golden Lamb today, who's been around long enough—17 years—that he used to make it when it was still on the menu. "It was up there with the fried chicken and the turkey dinner as one of the most popular dishes in the dining room." 

But as the menu evolved to accommodate a new generation of diners, Swiss steak became a casualty. "It felt more like something grandma would make than a restaurant dish—like pot roast," Roudebush says.

I missed it. So, I called Roudebush to talk through the basics.

The Best Cut of Beef for Swiss Steak

The Golden Lamb used eye of round steaks, sliced about an inch thick, and run through a tenderizer three times. When developing this recipe, I was tempted to use a cut with better marbling, such as chuck, for a Serious Eats version of Swiss steak that's more forgiving and doesn’t dry out as easily. But all the early recipes I’ve seen call for round, and I didn't want to abandon the lean cut this preparation was made for. Plus, sliced chuck can fall apart in a long braise. This is supposed to be steak, not flaky pot roast. Round is so tough to begin with that it holds its shape until the end.

I tried using top and bottom round steaks instead of eye. Eye of round worked just as well, and it's more visually appealing, with an oval shape that suggests a filet.

You will have to wail on it before you put it in the oven. "You almost can't pound it too much," says Roudebush, who recommends asking a butcher to tenderize (cube) it or investing in an at-home meat tenderizer. Either of those will save you some work, but you can achieve the right texture with a meat mallet and some pent-up aggression.

The Requisite Tomato-and-Onion Gravy

Traditional Swiss steak must include a tomato-and-onion gravy. Many versions use canned whole or diced tomatoes or tomato sauce, but the Golden Lamb's recipe only uses tomato paste—and I like it that way. The paste functions like it does in a beef stock, adding an umami boost and some sweetness without taking the dish into Sunday gravy or vegetable stew territory.

In my gravy, I complement the umami flavor of caramelized tomato paste with a tablespoon of soy sauce, replacing the Kitchen Bouquet in the original recipe (remember, it's vintage) with a more appealing browning and flavoring agent.

Many Swiss steak recipes, including the Golden Lamb's, also include both carrots and celery. While the celery melts into the braise with the onions, the carrot stands out, which I didn't like, until I started thinking of it as a built-in vegetable side. "The richness of the sauce and the tenderness of the meat obviously appeal to a lot of people,” Roudebush says, "but there's something about those fork-tender carrots coming out of the sauce that reminds me of my mom's cooking.” Rather than thinly slicing or dicing the carrots, I chop them into baby-carrot-sized rounds to enjoy alongside the steak.

The Braise

At an oven temperature of 325°F (165°C), the gravy should rise to and maintain a temperature of 205–210°F (96–99°C) in your braising pan. In that range, the collagen in the beef slowly dissolves into gelatin, tenderizing the meat and enriching the sauce. 

The steak should reach 210°F (99°C) after an hour or so. Holding it there for another hour gives the connective tissue time to break down, delivering a "steak" that cuts like meatloaf. If your steak seems dry or tough after cooking, it may actually need more time to cook. The most effective way to test that is with a fork, not a thermometer. You should be able to shred a piece off with minimal effort. "It should be firm enough to hold its shape, but once you put a fork in it, it should kind of fall apart," Roudebush says.

The end result is an American classic in the pot roast and Salisbury steak tradition, so comforting that Golden Lamb customers are still asking about it more than a decade after it left the menu. Roudebush says he's planning to bring it back as a special this fall. With his help, it now has a permanent place in my home cooking repertoire.