Beef Stroganoff: Not the Stuff You'd Find at the Bottom of an Outhouse, Though It Looks Like It

Beef Stroganoff is one of the most repellent looking dishes you can cook. It's chunky and brownish and roughly the consistency and color of the terrifying pat of feces that always sits immediately below the seat of all National Park pit restrooms.

However, it has all of the makings of an American classic for two reasons: 1. It contains beef and mushrooms as primary ingredients, and 2. It can be cooked from a packet. Because of this, most of us have never actually eaten decent Stroganoff. The prepackaged stuff tastes unremarkably like "brown" until you add sour cream, at which point it tastes kind of like sour cream. 

Stroganoff actually is Russian in origin, (which means it's really French in origin), though there are conflicting stories about exactly how it came to be, both involving members of the countly Stroganov family. The first guess is that it was the brainchild of an anonymous chef who worked for the toothless old Grigory Stroganov in the late 18th century, who created a dish that the old fellow could gum to his satisfaction. The latter theory attributes the dish to Pavel Stroganov's chef, Charles Briere, who won first prize with the dish in a cooking contest  in 1891. As a trained historian, I give far more credence to the first claim for two very good reasons: 

1. The dish itself is atypical of the noble food that was popular at the time, and frankly has the aura of the decrepit about it. The gumming theory  just makes sense. 

2. There is an entry in a cookbook published in in 1871 that refers to a similar, far simpler dish for middle class housewives. Whatever Beiere used was already in circulation - it's possible that he just made it more exciting. 

And Stroganoff can actually be rather exciting. America got its first published taste of it in John MacPhearson's 1934 cookbook Mystery Chef's Own Cookbook, which added Worcestershire sauce to heighten the flavor. As I mentioned elsewhere in this blog, Worcestershire is made using fermented fish sauce, much like the Roman garam. Which, coincidentally, is how they originally synthesized MSG, that magical flavor enhancer. 

I serve my Stroganoff over a plate of buttered noodles, but it occurred to me that it might be good on short grain rice if you were so inclined, or even polenta if we're going to get crazy. 

A fun modification struck me a second ago - why not try using dark, malty beer (like Moose Drool) to deglaze instead of wine? 

Ingredients for Beef Stroganoff

1 pound of beef, cut into thin strips

8 cremini (brown) or white mushrooms 

1 onion

3 cloves garlic

1 tbsp good paprika

2 tbsp tomato paste

2 cups beef broth

1/4 cup red wine for deglazing

1 tsp raw sugar

1 1/2 tsp Worcestershire sauce

flour for dredging 

2 tsp fresh parsley

sour cream/creme fraiche/lebneh

oil

1 tbsp butter

salt

pepper

Prep Work: 

1. Chop (I mince for the texture) your onion and put aside. 

2. Destem your mushroom caps, cut them in half and then in half again and chop thinly - add these to your onion pile. 

3. Smash the garlic cloves and mince them up - put them in a bowl to add to the onions when cooking

4. Shave off rather thin strips of beef at a 45 degree angle to the grain and dredge them in flour, salt and pepper.

Step 1: Beef

 Heat oil in a deep flat bottomed pan on medium-high and brown the meat for about a minute, then pull off and set aside

Step 2: Your "veggies"

Ha. Onions are roots and mushrooms are fungi, no veggies here (parsley is a leaf). Anyway, add the butter to the same pan on medium heat now, melt it, and then add your onion and mushrooms. Cook until the onions are soft, then add the garlic and cook for about a minute. 

Step 3: Wine! 

Stir in the paprika and tomato paste, then add the wine and scrape the bottom of the pan to deglaze all of the delicious crud that has accumulated. This will cook off pretty quickly, at which point you add the broth, Worcestershire sauce and meat, then turn down the heat to low and cover. Cook for about 20 minutes, stirring frequently to keep it from sticking to the bottom 

Step 4: Noodles

Make your noodles. I like fetuccini noodles for the texture, but pappardelle would work even better. Butter them up at the end. 

Step 5: Finishing

Turn off the Stroganoff as the noodles start to get soft. Let it cool for a minute and then add the pepper, check the salt and add a dollop of sour cream or creme fraiche (we use lebneh) and stir it in. Let it rest a bit, then serve it next to or on the pasta.