Beef Stroganoff

I’ve always been very fond of cream sauces. One of my favorite memories is that one time my mother served lengua pastel during the feast of St. Josemaria Escriva. The recipe was a bit complicated, so my mother never repeated the performance. The memory lingers, however, and the hunger manifests in other ways. The term “pastel,” if I am not mistaken, refers to the fact that the meat mixture is placed in a pastry (pasta, pâte, etc.), but in my mind, it also describes the way the dish looks like when it is covered in a blanket of white sauce: reds become pinks, browns become beiges, and greens become seafoam (okay, that was a bit of a stretch).

As I do not have the time to create this magnificent dish, I find other ways to satisfy my craving for creamy sauces. Beef stroganoff, a Russian dish of beef served in a sour cream sauce, is one of the easiest comfort dishes I have come across. In fact, the most time consuming procedure for this dish is to slice the beef into strips (and to julienne the vegetables, if you prefer a version with vegetables). This recipe is for a “white” stroganoff as opposed to a “red” stroganoff that has tomato paste. I love the white and red reference though; it’s so Russia circa 1917.

The photo below comes from the website fortas.eu, a restaurant in Vilnius, Lithuania.

As with all my recipes, use with discretion. I abhor measuring anything, but I taste a lot during cooking, and make my adjustments then. My family belongs to a mutant race of salt eaters, so any amount of salt that I put into my dishes should be...taken with a grain of salt (I am definitely losing my mind).

Ingredients:

About a pound of beef. Any cut that one uses for steak, sliced in strips

4 large cloves of garlic. I tend to go insane with the garlic, but this should be enough;

1 large yellow onion, julienned

white wine, maybe about a cup of it, depending on how dry or saucy you want the dish to be

a cup of sour cream

sliced vegetables (carrots, button mushrooms and broccoli)

enough olive oil to brown the meat

salt and freshly cracked pepper

good amount of parmesan cheese


Brown the meat in batches. This is important so that the meat will sear instead of braising. You don’t need to cook it at this stage...a minute or two in the pan is probably enough. Remove meat from the pan. Some people like to dredge the meat in flour before browning, but the point of this recipe is to make the dish fast.

In the same pan, cook the garlic and the onions until you have a little bit of caramelization (there are brown bits...good flavor that). Make sure the onions are soft before adding the meat back into the pan. Splash the wine in, making sure to dissolve the brown bits at the bottom of the pan with it. After this, you may add the vegetables, if desired. When most of the liquid has boiled off, add the sour cream, and heat through. Season to taste.

Serve the stroganoff with rice (for a Filipino twist) although this is also good with noodles (I love it with angel hair) and top with a generous amount of parmesan cheese.