Stroganoff has always been one of my favorite meals. Mom made a mean one, and I clearly recall asking for it for my birthday dinner more than once. It was the mushrooms, really. I love mushrooms in any way, shape or form, and that was one dish where I was guaranteed to get a good sized helping of mushrooms. The ultimate in irony now is that I don’t make this dish very often because my own children hate mushrooms. And I mean hate! I didn’t realize how deeply down this hatred for mushrooms went until this week when I tried to bribe them to at least try them. To my memory, neither of them have ever actually eaten a mushroom, so we set $1.50 in front of each of them and told them if they took just one bit of mushroom, the money was theirs.
They just couldn’t do it. I don’t know… a deep fried blooming onion got them into the camp of tolerating onions, so maybe we need to go somewhere that makes deep fried mushrooms…
Anyway, back to the stroganoff. There’s many a recipe out there for this delicious dinner that involves a can or two of cream of mushroom soup. Hey, if you want to use it, knock yourself out, but it turns out, there’s really no need for that can of preservative-laden stuff. A scratch version of Beef Stroganoff is really simple to do, and amazingly delicious.
The one thing I will suggest is that your simmering time will depend on your beef. If it’s a tougher cut of meat, you’ll need to give it a longer simmer time to tenderize the beef. If you’re using beef that is already tender, your simmer time will be less. Just taste a piece of beef a few times along the way, and when it’s to your degree of tenderness, proceed with adding the sour cream. I used sirloin tip steaks, and they were on the tough side. Unfortunately, I needed an extra 15 minutes that I didn’t have, so the beef was just this side of tough. Fifteen more minutes and it would have been perfect.
Beef Stroganoff
1 1/2 pounds beef, cut into 1/2-inch cubes 1/4 teaspoon seasoning salt 1/4 teaspoon garlic pepper 4 tablespoons vegetable oil, divided 1 medium onion 8 ounces mushrooms, sliced 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme salt and pepper to taste 2 1/2 cups beef broth 1 cup sour cream 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour 1 teaspoon dijon mustard Hot, cooked egg noodles for servingDirections:
In a dutch oven or stew pot, heat two tablespoons of the vegetable oil over medium-high heat. Combine the beef cubes, seasoning salt and garlic pepper in a bowl and toss to evenly coat. Pour half of the beef into the hot oil. Cook for about 7 minutes, tossing to brown all sides of the beef evenly. Pour the beef and any drippings into a bowl and set aside.
Repeat, heating the oil, and adding the remaining half of the beef cubes. Brown on all sides. This time though, remove the beef from the pot with a slotted spoon, leaving behind any beef drippings. If you have no beef drippings, you will need to add an extra tablespoon or two of oil to the pot once the beef has been removed.
Add the onions to the pot, cook for two minutes, stirring once or twice. Add the mushrooms to the pot. Cook for eight minutes or so. While you’re cooking the mushrooms, it will suddenly look like you need to add more oil to the pot. Don’t do this- be patient, and the mushrooms will eventually start weeping their own juices and moisten the pan more than enough. Once the mushrooms start to share their juices, add the dried thyme to the pot, along with a small pinch of salt and pepper.
Add your beef broth to the pot. Cover, and bring to a boil, then turn down the heat to simmer. Simmer for at least 30 minutes, and up to a full hour, depending on how tender your beef is.
In a small bowl, combine the sour cream, flour and dijon mustard.
Remove the cover from the stroganoff, and turn the heat back up to medium. Add the sour cream mixture to the pot, and stir well to fully combine. Cook and stir until the mixture just starts to boil. Remove from the heat and serve immediately over hot noodles.
