Dinner Tonight: Beef Stroganoff
Tonight’s recipe is taken from a recently purchased Periplus Mini Cookbooks ‘Favourite Everyday Dinners’. The obvious reason for purchasing this book was to compile as many recipes as possible which are easy to make and won’t take much time. This time, I chose one dish I really like but have never tried to cook myself before: beef stroganoff. I must confess that I don’t always follow the recipe to the letter. So this recipe is how I made it (not how it is specified in the book).
Ingredients:
- 400 gr. beef fillet, cut into thin stripes
- 2 tbsp plain flour
- 50 gr butter
- 1 thinly sliced onion
- 1 clove garlic, crushed
- 250 gr button mushroom, sliced
- 50 ml brandy (I actually used cognac)
- 1 cup beef stock or 1 cup water with 1 beef stock cube
- 1 1/2 tbsp tomato paste
- 3/4 cup (185 gr) sour cream
- 1 tbsp chopped fresh flat leaf parsley
Dust the beef strips in flour and shake of any excess. Melt half the butter in a large frying pan and stir fry the onion and garlic over medium heat until they soften. Add the mushrooms and cook for 2-3 minutes, then pour in the brandy (or cognac, whichever you’re using) and simmer until liquid has evaporated. Add the beef and cook until browned, and then add the beef stock and tomato paste. Add the sour cream. Cook for a few minutes until the liquid is slightly reduced. Season to taste with salt and pepper.
Originally the recipe suggests to stir fry the beef separately and then put aside. But I don’t think it made much difference in the end result that I actually fried the beef after the mushroom is cooked. I served it with mashed potato, which went very well with it. It was definitely a keeper, and we had some leftover which we took with us for lunch the day after next. 