Hey Everyone!  How are ya? I hope that the answer is FANTASTIC!  Spring is finally here. Warmer weather is finally here.  Mushrooms are finally here (well, where I live, they are)!  It seemed like the winter would never end. The older I get, the longer it takes for the leaves to pop out and the grass to green up.  I have even been out to clean up some of the gardens where the perennials are poking through the earth. I love gardening and I regret that these days I don’t have the time that I would like to devote to my flowers.  The only thing that I do not like about spending time with my plants is the chance that there will be some slithery reptile in amongst the foliage.

I absolutely hate snakes!  Well, actually, I have a phobia of snakes.  I can’t even get close enough to one to hate it.  You see, I grew up on a farm. There were lots of snakes on that farm, including in my yard.  I remember stepping on them with bare feet (I never wore shoes if the weather was warm)…yeeech. Mom’s philosophy was that the only good snake was a dead one. She would run over them with the lawn mower repeatedly just to be sure there was no chance for recovery. I also had a little frog farm in the basement window well and those serpentine uglies would get in and eat my frogs.  Upsetting, to say the least. My brother would kill the snakes for me, but the damage was done. Now, full disclosure, I have eaten fried snake. My husband once assisted in killing a Rattler and brought it home.  His dad fried it up along with some chicken. I did try it and enjoyed it. It tasted kind of like fried chicken. But I must admit that I like this dish much better. It is delicious and doesn’t creep me out.  The recipe that I wanted to share today has a title that is completely deceptive. It is called Rattlesnake. Now, there are no reptiles involved in this dish. Believe me, I would not make it if snakes were involved.

This dish is actually beef.  I have no idea why it is called Rattlesnake.  I do know that it is very tasty. The bite-sized morsels of breaded and fried beef are dipped in a luscious tangy sauce.  The result is an incredibly satisfying and rich entrée. The dish is elegant enough to serve for a special occasion but simple enough for a weeknight meal.

A hundred years ago, when I was a teenager, there was a restaurant in a nearby town that served this dish.  It was kind of a fancy restaurant, relatively speaking. I thought it was fancy, but I was an unsophisticated farm girl.  Anywho, when I did get to that restaurant, I would always order Rattlesnake. It is bite-sized bits of tender beef that are breaded and fried.  Ok, nothing too marvelous about that but the dipping sauce really makes this dish unforgettable. Years after that dining establishment closed, I saw this recipe in a community cookbook.  I nearly jumped for joy! I could make one of my favorite dishes at home. And now, you can too. It is really super easy and can feed many people. I have tweaked the recipe just a bit. The original from the cookbook called for round steak but it would be kind of costly to get enough of that for a whole family.  So, I used charcoal steaks which are a budget-friendly cut at my local grocery store. So, you can use any cut that you want as long as it is tender enough when fried. I think that any beef cut that would be tender enough to grill would be perfectly fine for frying.