Recipe Advice?
My wife's mother passed away when she was still young. For decades I've been hearing about mom's famous baked steak, it was my wife's favorite. Her aunt recently was cleaning and found mom's recipe. My wife asked if I'd make it for her. She doesn't cook, I generally do all the cooking and would consider myself a "mediocre" home cook. Anyway, the "recipe" if you can call it that was:
Cube steaks
Flour
1 onion
Salt
Pepper
Coat cube steaks in flour. Fry on stove to brown and set aside. Slice onion. Layer steaks and onion in slow cooker and add salt and pepper. Add water to cover. Cook on low for 4 hours. Remove steaks. Set slow cooker to high. Shake water and flour in a jar and add to "juice" to make gravy. Serve.
So yeah, I made it. My wife got a wonderful hit of nostalgia of her mom's cooking. Then we agreed it wasn't very good. Any advice on how I can improve this but still keep it in the same vein? I figure using beef stock instead of water and making gravy from a roux instead of the slurry would help. What else can I do? Any tips?
Thanks!