Beef Stroganoff

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.)

Over a low fire, melt the butter, adding a couple of tablespoons of olive oil to the skillet. The oil will raise the burning temperature of the butter so it doesn’t burn by accident. While the butter is melting, chop your onions.

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. 

Enjoy!

Smoked Salmon and Avocado Easy Appetizer

As we approach Christmas and too much to do, here’s a simple, yet delicious appetizer that requires little lead time, NO COOKING, and only two ingredients which are a marriage made in heaven.  The salty, flavorful smoked salmon complements the rich, creamy avocado perfectly.

In our house, this is a Christmas Eve staple.  Our tradition requires only appetizer-type food on Christmas Eve, no big meal, no hours in the kitchen.  We eat these salmon and avocado bites, artichoke dip, either angels or devils on horseback (Which ever is the one with smoked oysters, NOT prunes wrapped in bacon.  I can never remember.), caviar, deviled eggs, a selection of cheeses, etc., etc.  And we drink champagne.  And we wrap presents.  And we listen to Christmas music with the fake fireplace video crackling on the flat screen.  Good times. 

Ingredients

150g or 5.25 oz of thinly sliced smoked salmon

2 small to medium just ripe avocados

Sprinkle of fresh ground black pepper (optional)

Method

Cut the avocados in half lengthwise so you have two even halves.

Use your knife to get the seed out.  Do be careful.

Whack the pit with your knife, keeping your fingers well out of the way.

Hold the avocado with one hand and twist the knife and the pit should come out clean.
I couldn't hold mine AND take a photo. 

Hold the avocado half in one hand and, with a sharp pointy knife in the other, carefully cut slices just down to the avocado skin without piercing it.

Using a small spoon, starting at one end, scoop the flesh out of the skin.

Slice your salmon into strips.

Wrap one strip around each piece of avocado.  

That’s it.  Beautiful and delicious.  

You can add a sprinkle of freshly ground black pepper, if you’d like.  Enjoy!

Divinity Fudge or Pecan-Covered Divinity Fluff Balls*

Every Christmas my maternal grandmother would make various candies and fudges to share with friends and family, while my paternal grandmother was the expert in fruitcake.  I know what you all are saying about fruitcake but truly, hers was the only one I would ever eat.  It was moist and delicious and not at all like the store-bought bricks you've tried to choke down.  That said, prejudices are hard to overcome so I won’t even try to get you to make fruitcake. 

Today, I attempted a recipe from the candy-making side called divinity fudge.   Why fudge, I cannot tell you because fudge should be chocolate, right?  And this doesn’t have an ounce.  It does have ample pecans though, like a lot of the fudges and candies from Southern Louisiana.

Ingredients

2 large egg whites

2 cups or 450g sugar

1/2 cup or120ml light corn syrup

1/2 cup or 120ml water

1 teaspoon or 5ml pure vanilla extract

1 cup or 115g pecans

Method

Chop your pecans into pieces. 

Beat the egg whites with an electric mixer until stiff.  

Line a baking sheet with parchment or waxed paper.

Put the sugar, corn syrup, and water in a medium-size heavy pot over medium-high heat.  Stir to dissolve the sugar, bring to a boil and cook until the temperature reaches 260°F or 127°C on a candy thermometer, or the hard-ball stage, when a bit of the mixture dropped into cold water holds its shape.  About 10 to 15 minutes.

Remove from the heat.  Pour in a thin steady stream into the beaten egg whites and beat with an electric mixer on high for about three minutes, scraping down the sides of the bowl.  

Add the vanilla, and continue beating on high just until the candy starts to lose its gloss, five to six minutes.  When the beaters are lifted, the mixture should fall in a ribbon that mounds on itself.

If the mixture flattens out, beat again for one minute more.  If the mixture is too thick to drop, beat in a few drops of hot water until the candy is a softer consistency.  

Add the pecans, stir to mix, and quickly pour into your parchment lined pan.  Let cool and cut apart into small squares.

So, that’s how it’s supposed to go.  And I hope yours does.  But I live in a humid climate and all of a sudden, my grandmother’s words came flooding back to me.  “The damn divinity wouldn’t set.  Too damp today.”  Some years it turned out beautifully and some years, she would curse.  Today was my day for cursing, I guess.  It stayed sticky, sticky, sticky.  How could I have forgotten, in the burst of nostalgia over making her favorite candy, what a pain she often found it?  

Cut it apart and it heals right up again! 

But, not one to take defeat easily, I thought of something I could do to revive the situation.   I got out some more pecans and chopped them finely.   

Then, using two spoons, I scraped up some of the sticky mixture and dropped it into the nuts, like you would a drop cookie on the cookie tray. 

And I rolled it around in the nuts! 

Voila!  Pecan-covered divinity fudge.  Okay, pecan-covered divinity fluff.  It’s not like she used to make in the good years, but I hope my grandmother would be proud.

Enjoy!

*Depending on what sort of day you are having