Oh man, you guys, I LOVE Beef Stroganoff. My mom used to make it–this exact recipe if I’m not mistaken–and I always looked forward to it. Anything that combines beef, sour cream, mushrooms and gravy is aces in my book. For the most part, I followed Betty Crocker’s recipe, though I went with Round Eye steak for the beef and a medley of baby bella, shitake and oyster mushrooms to kick things up a bit. I also had to use some of the broth from the Tomato & Beef Soup I made yesterday because I originally intended to cook something else on Tuesday night, but I hadn’t realized that took several hours to marinate. I had planned on making beef broth, but that would have taken several hours and I had just gotten back from the grocery store and it was five. So, I scooped out and strained the broth from that soup and put it to good use in my Beef Stroganoff.
Aside from that, this recipe is cake, though it does take a bit of time between cutting up all those mushrooms (I will not dice them up so much next time, I like bigger pieces), onions and beef. Anyway, I got a pot of water boiling for the egg noodles (that’s how Mom made them and my wife and I both prefer) while I got to chopping. After starting with the beef, I got two tablespoons of butter into a pan and got cooking. I then put the ketchup, salt and garlic together in a dish and dumped that in when appropriate along with most of the beef broth.
That simmered for ten minutes before adding the mushrooms and onions. While those cooked, I did as the recipe said and combined a small amount of the broth with four in a container with a lid and shook. I was surprised to see how quickly it turned into a paste (only took a shake or two, really). That got stirred in followed by the sour cream and then everything was served over the noodles.
I loved how this dish turned out and it proved something my mom always said, that the basic Betty Crocker Cookbook is a must have. I like it because it gives you so many recipe building blocks that you can experiment with as you grow as a cook. I honestly don’t know if Eye Round steak was a good choice for my beef selection or not (still need to do more meat research), but trying it out was fun and tasted great. Again, you can not go wrong with beef, gravy, sour cream and mushrooms. I could eat this every week, but I think I’d gain 300 pounds.
Pop Poppa 