Thursday, November 15, 2007

Comfort Food: Beef Stroganoff

The night I made this, it was cold and damp outside... enter more comfort food!

My cooking ways have given way to heartier meat dishes this season; the beef I purchased for this was a single pound of hormone-free extra lean stew meat (perfect for high pressure cooking, so that it gets tender). It was easy to fill in the gaps with a bunch of cremini mushrooms, straight from an Illinois farm. Next time, though, I'd like to double the recipe.

This dish was prepared in a pressure-cooker; though I haven't tried it, I'm sure it would also work on the stove top or a cozy baking dish.

1 lb beef stew meat
3 T olive oil
2 T flour
1 onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, pressed or minced
1 c broth (I used a veg bouillion cube)
1 T Worcestershire sauce
1 c sour cream
sea salt & pepper
egg noodles, cooked for serving
paprika for garnish (optional)

In the bottom of the pressure cooker, brown the meat in the oil. Add onions, cook about a minute. Add flour, and coat beef and onions. Add the rest of the ingredients, except the sour cream. Seal the lid and start building pressure inside the cooker. Once the pressure has built up, let it cook for about 20 minutes. After the pressure has been released, stir in the sour cream and season. Serve with the cooked egg noodles, and sprinkle with a little paprika.

4 comments:

Dave M. said...

Thanks for leaving the recipe out on the web. Until I came here, I was looking for a pressure cooked beef stroganoff but only found poor ideas and bad techniques.

Using slightly under 2 pounds of trimmed round steak cut into 1" thick by 1 /4" wide strips, your recipe got me started. With more meat, I increased the liquid to a cup beef broth plus one cup white wine. (A month ago, the grocery store had a sale on 4-packs of little bottles of a semi good white wine. Drinkable if cold. I thought little bottles would be a great way to keep white wine on hand for sauces...) I also could not help but to add a few teaspoons butter to the cooked package of egg noodles. Whole wheat flour thickened the sauce. A 16 oz container of “natural” sour cream went into the end product.

Since the meat was cut in thinner strips and browned, I reduced the cook-under-pressure time to a bit more than 12 minutes and a natural release.

The meat changed from tough to fork tender. A spoon was used to break up the longer cuts of meat. The sauce heartwarming yet complex. You don’t find anything like this as a frozen entree in the grocery store.

Thanks.

Anonymous said...

The bottom of my pressure cooker was completely scorched after cooking this and there were black bits through out the sauce. The pattern I've noticed is that whenever I add a starch (e.g. flour) before pressure cooking, I get a burnt pan. You should thicken the sauce with flour after pressure cooking.

Anonymous said...

Appreaciate for the work you have done into the post, this helps clear up a few questions I had.

Jess said...

Thanks, good to hear it has been helpful!