Tuesday, July 10, 2007

Beef Stroganoff

So I haven't made this recipe myself, but it looked relatively easy, used mainly ingredients that you are familiar with, and I could have sworn you liked the dish.

A couple of things I thought of regarding the dish - for beef, I'd use either tenderloin or top sirloin. You could also use ground beef or ground turkey if you want to make it a quicker dish. You could also leave out the mushrooms, since I know you're not a fan of mushrooms.

Shop:
6 Tbsp butter
1 pound of top sirloin or tenderloin, cut thin into 1-inch wide by 2 1/2-inch long strips (Note: you could use a cheaper cut of meat if you want...use some meat tenderizer or pound it...if you don't want to spend the money. You could also use ground beef or turkey.)
1/3 cup chopped shallots (can substitute onions) (Note: I KNOW you know how to cut shallots now!)
1/2 pound cremini mushrooms, sliced (Note: these taste quite different from regular mushrooms)
Salt to taste (Hopefully you are still using kosher or sea salt)
Pepper to taste (Do you have a grinder for fresh ground pepper?)
1/8 teaspoon nutmeg (good to have in your spice rack)
1/2 teaspoon of dry tarragon or 2 teaspoons of chopped fresh tarragon (I'd use fresh)
1 cup of sour cream at room temperature (I'll try and find another recipe that uses sour cream so you can get rid of your leftovers after this)
1 bag of egg noodles

Prep:
This is listed in the ingredients, but slice the beef, chop the shallots/onions, mushrooms and tarragon.

Cook:
1. Cook the egg pasta in salted, boiling water. Drain the pasta and set aside. If you want, you can do the prep work while the water is heating up/pasta is cooking.

2. Melt 3 Tbsp of butter in a large skillet on medium heat. Increase the heat to high/med-high and add the strips of beef. You want to cook the beef quickly, browning on each side, so the temp needs to be high enough to brown the beef, but not so high as to burn the butter. You may need to work in batches, since if you put all the beef in the pan, it will not cook evenly. While cooking the beef, sprinkle with some salt and pepper. When both sides are browned, remove the beef (use tongs or something, don't pour it since you want to save the oil and drippings in the pan) to a bowl and set aside.

2. In the same pan, reduce the heat to medium and add the shallots. Cook the shallots for a minute or two, allowing them to soak up any meat drippings. Remove the shallots to the same bowl as the meat and set aside.

3. In the same pan, melt another 3 Tbsp of butter. Increase heat to medium high and add the mushrooms. Cook, stirring occasionally for about 4 minutes. While cooking, sprinkle the nutmeg and the tarragon on the mushrooms.

4. Reduce the heat to low and add the sour cream to the mushrooms. You may want to add a tablespoon or two of water to thin the sauce (or not). Mix in the sour cream thoroughly. Do not let it come to a simmer or boil or the sour cream will curdle. Stir in the beef and shallots. Add salt and pepper to taste.

5. Serve immediately over egg noodles.

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