Beef Stroganoff

If your beef stroganoff recipe calls for canned cream soup, chuck it.

This here Sassy version is simple and delicious, and you'll never miss the canned soup.

All you need are some basic ingredients and a pretty little 8 year old sous chef.

This is Elsa.  She does not look like her mother, but she cooks and eats and tastes and adds and pinches and loves food just like her mother does.  She's not afraid of knives or gas stoves or strange things like anchovies and stinky cheese.

She's just about the best thing going.

Beef Stroganoff


I'm just going to talk you through this.  Use your own favorite ingredients and TASTE while you cook.  Sheesh, I say that a lot, don't I?

Start out with about 1 1/2 pounds (or 2) of beef.  You can use stew meat, stir fry meat, cubed sirloin, or chuck.  The tougher the cut, the more flavor, but the longer the cooking time.

Get a dutch oven on the stove, and add 3 tablespoons of butter and 1 tablespoon of grapeseed oil.  Get that going over medium heat, and then start adding the beef in batches.  Only enough to cover the bottom of the pan.  Make sure it's hot enough in there to sizzle, but not brown the butter too much.  Sprinkle each batch with salt and pepper, brown a bit on both sides, and then remove from the pot with a slotted spoon.  Repeat until all the meat is done.  Keep that in a bowl and don't lose any of the juice!

Now, into the pot goes one sliced or roughly chopped onion, medium size.  Also, mushrooms!  We love fungus at our house, so we tend to favor the "more is better" here, but at least 8 ounces, sliced, and as much as a whole pound.  White button mushrooms are great.  Cook the onion and mushrooms in the beef juice/butter liquid for just a few minutes.  You only want the onions to get soft.  The mushrooms should retain a bit of bite.  Slicing them thicker than thinner helps.

After about 5 minutes, dump the beef and accumulated juice back into the pot.  Over this mixture, sprinkle 1/4 cup all-purpose flour.  Mix it all around well, and pour in 1/4 cup white wine or dry vermouth and 2 tablespoons dry sherry or marsala wine.  You can use all white wine if you have no sherry.  Do NOT use red wine, unless you like pink stroganoff.  Ick.

Stir it well, and it will get thick quickly.  This is the time to stir in 2 cups of beef broth, or chicken broth, or even water!  I had to use water today, all out of broth, tragedy of all tragedies.  Stir well again.  Cook for a couple of minutes to get the floury taste out of there.

Now for the flavor!  2 tablespoons of Worcestershire sauce, 1 tablespoon ketchup (yeah, whatever), a few big pinches of dried parsley and marjoram (or oregano).  More salt and pepper.  Now TASTE, please.

Turn down the heat and let this all simmer for some minutes, more for tougher beef, less for more tender.  Test the beef, don't trust the name of the cut.

Is it done?  Turn off the heat.  Gently stir in at least one cup of full-fat sour cream.


Go ahead and serve it over some eggy, buttery wide noodles.  Sprinkle with some chopped fresh parsley.  (I didn't have any.)

A batch this size feeds my hungry crowd for a dinner, and maybe a few get some for lunch the next day.