If you’ve been around and reading this blog since Individual Beef Wellingtons then you know the provenance of the beef for this
stroganoff. I had half of a filet mignon
or tenderloin and used the thick side to make two generous steaks. The skinny end of the tenderloin, I sliced up
into pieces suitable for stir-fry or stroganoff and threw them, bagged
carefully, into the freezer. In fact, I labeled
the bag: stroganoff meat. It wasn’t a lot
of meat, but I knew it could be bulked out with onions and mushrooms and,
served over linguine, make another generous meal for two or three. And so it did.
Ingredients
1 cup sour cream (or 1 cup whipping cream, 1 tablespoon
white vinegar, plus 1 pinch of salt)
320g or 11.25 oz beef, cut into thin pieces
2 medium onions
200g or 7 oz Swiss brown or other mushroom of your choice
1/2 cup dry white wine
1 beef stock cube
300g or 10.5 oz linguine or other dried pasta of your choice
15g butter
Olive oil
Sea salt
Black pepper
Method
First, I make my sour cream.
Obviously skip this step if you have store-bought. Add a tablespoon of white vinegar to your
measuring cup. Fill to the 1-cup line with heavy whipping cream. Stir thoroughly. Add a pinch of sea salt. Stir again and set aside. This will continue to thicken and will be just like store-bought sour cream by the time you need to use it. (This can be used anytime sour cream is called for in a recipe, sweet or savory.)
Add the onions to the pan and sauté gently until they are
soft and translucent. This could take
as many as 10 or 15 minutes over a low flame.
Meanwhile, slice your mushrooms.
Add the 1/2 cup white wine to the pan and cook till it’s hot
again.
Add the beef cube and keep cooking over a low heat until the
wine is almost completely reduced. Once
again, this could take 10 minutes or more.
You want the onions dissolving almost to a mush.
Put water on to boil and cook your pasta according to
package instructions.
When the onions are pretty dry again, move them to a small
bowl off the heat.
Turn the fire up high and get your pan really hot. Add the beef all at once and continue to cook
over a high fire so it browns. You can
add another couple of glugs of olive oil at this point.
When the meat is mostly cooked, add the onions back in and
then add the sliced mushrooms. Your heat
is still on high at this point. Let this
cook for several more minutes, until the mushrooms have softened and then turn
the fire right back down to simmer.
Add in the sour cream, stirring gently. Let it bubble along for a few more minutes
until it thickens slightly. Serve over
the cooked pasta.
