Boise man reveals ‘original’ Torch Lounge finger steaks recipe, internet explodes

If you’ve lived in Boise for more than a minute, chances are, you’ve tasted finger steaks.

Served at restaurants and bars across Idaho, the deep-fried, battered meat strips are legendary in these parts.

How legendary? Decades after the Torch Lounge, 1826 W. Main St., transformed into a bikini-dancer bar in 1997 and stopped serving finger steaks, Boiseans remain infatuated with the “original” recipe. Want proof? On Sunday, it supposedly was unveiled on the internet in a Facebook group called “History of Boise, Idaho — From 1863.” Within a day, it had been shared nearly 700 times and generated hundreds of comments.

To its credit, this recipe looks old. It is written on an ancient, stained sheet of notepad paper. “Everyone has been talking about the Torch and its legendary finger steaks,” Allen Haumann posted. “I decided I’d do y’all a favor and reveal the recipe! My father, Paul “Sonny” Ashley Jr. (nephew of Mylo the inventor) scribbled his recipe onto a piece of scrap paper. He renamed it for himself, but this is it. I’m not guaranteeing that the Torch didn’t alter the recipe a bit after Mylo passed away, but this is the original. Please promise me you won’t overcook them!”

“Sonny’s Secret Finger Steak Recipe,” as it’s called, even tells you how to make the dipping sauce.

But is this the real deal? And for that matter, did chef Mylo Bybee even truly invent finger steaks? That’s part of what makes this subject so irresistible for Boiseans.

Finger steaks are as mysterious as they are delicious. Crowning them as one of “150 Boise Icons” to celebrate the city’s sesquicentennial in 2013, the Idaho Statesman described finger steaks as “Boise originals.”

“The truth about whether finger steaks were invented in Boise is one of those things that can never be proved,” the Statesman wrote. “But, like the persistent rumor that Boise’s underground supports a tangled web of Chinese tunnels, the story lives on. ...

“Some say the Torch Lounge (whose neon sign is, itself, iconic) was the first restaurant to serve them. Some say chef Mylo Bybee invented them before joining the Torch’s kitchen staff in the late 1940s. Some say the original Torch owners invented them. Whatever the truth, Idahoans’ affection for the finger steak lives on.”

And on. And on. In 2008, an Idaho Statesman reader asked for a source for the famous Torch recipe. Longtime columnist Tim Woodward had no luck finding one, but he did provide more historical perspective.

Woodward wrote that Bybee “claimed to have invented finger steaks while wondering what to do with leftover tenderloin scraps when he was working as a butcher for the U.S. Forest Service in McCall. Bybee went to work as a chef at the Torch in 1946. Finger steaks reportedly were on the menu there since 1957.

“Much of this is from old newspaper accounts supplied by the ever-helpful reference librarians at Boise’s public library. What I know from personal experience is that Torch finger steaks were without a close second as the best around. The Torch was a popular Boise institution, especially with the late-night crowd. It was open 24 hours, and the aroma of finger steaks punctuated many an after-hours story.

“You’re far from the first reader, incidentally, to ask for the recipe. Romaine Hon, the late Statesman food writer, fielded a number of requests for it through the years — to no avail.”

So is the hand-scrawled recipe on Facebook the holy grail? You’ll notice at least one commenter who seems to refute that. Whatever the case, reading all the comments from older Idahoans with memories of dining and working at the Torch is a hoot.

Now please excuse me while I go gobble my way through a finger-steak tour of Boise — including a stop at Chef Lou Aaron’s Westside Drive In. In 2009, Guy Fieri savored Westside’s finger steaks on Food Network’s “Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives.”

Unlike the Torch’s near-mythical recipe, Westside’s ingredients aren’t a secret. The Idaho Beef Council has step-by-step instructions for Westside finger steaks on its website.

But wait a minute. That online recipe credited to Chef Lou Aaron doesn’t seem to exactly match one described by the Statesman in an article a decade ago — after Westside won Best Finger Steaks in the Best of Treasure Valley readers poll.

Whatever. It all just adds to the powerful lore of Idaho finger steaks.

“Aaron rolls the beef strips in 17 spices, garlic and flour, dips them in a tempura and fries them, briefly, in canola oil,” the Statesman wrote. “ ‘The trick is you don’t cook it very long; they only take about 45 seconds,’ he said. Then, rather than a mayonnaise or ketchup for dipping, Aaron serves with a cocktail sauce he learned to make at The Gamekeeper in the 1970s.

“ ‘It just goes very well,’ he said. Finger steaks remain an Idaho icon, despite Aaron’s proselytizing when he cooked in Colorado, Georgia and Texas. ‘It got rejected. People didn’t have a clue what it was.’ ”

This story was originally published May 25, 2021 at 4:00 AM.