Beef Stroganoff!

I was sitting here thinking about food (nothing new) and realised that unlike other food bloggers I never really have a clever little back story to go with my recipes, nothing that really details why I decided to cook a certain dish that day, how it tasted, what the weather was doing that day, what colour underpants we all had on (Annie the Poodle included)…

Truth is, there generally isn’t a rosy cheeked sunny day kind of story to accompany a dish like Beef Stroganoff. I saw a jar of strog sauce in the supermarket and decided to try and cook it from scratch. That’s the end of that exciting story! It reminds me of my childhood, but it was never my favourite dish so I don’t get all warm and fuzzy like I would thinking about Roast Beef and Yorkshire Puddings. 

I think about food from the minute I wake up till the minute I go to bed, throwing some sporadic thoughts about work in there and occasionally day dreaming about how many cosmetic products I could buy if I was a millionaire (too damn many that’s how many!!) but that's about as interesting as it gets... I know, not that interesting haha!

However my food thinking is now fairly focused on what other classic home style dishes that really don’t take much longer to cook with fresh whole ingredients rather than packet seasoning or a jar of anaemic looking sauce… I need suggestions!! I am going to cook a Steak and Mushroom Shepherds pie hybrid tonight which I cannot WAIT to put into my mouth! (note: I ended up making two, plus had SOOO much meat left over so now have at least 6 meals out of one batch of meat! I bought a 1.2 kilo blade roast which was $9 a kilo and cooked for around 1.5 hours with seasonings etc on the stovetop, but it would be great in the slow cooker! The meat was SOOOO tender!)

OK so here it is, what you have read through all that nonsense to get to... *drum roll please* Introducing Beef Stroganoff recipe which I based on the same by Julie Goodwin who wont the first Australian Masterchef! I just made changes to the type of steak and made it gluten free by using cornflour instead of plain flour! This ended up being one of our absolute favourite "from scratch" meals I have made... I was positively delicious!!

Beef Stroganoff

Ingredients

1 kg steak, trimmed and sliced very thinly 

(I used the heart smart steak from Woolworths as it was on special)

1/3 cup corn flour

½ teaspoon salt

¼ teaspoon ground white pepper

2 teaspoons smoked sweet paprika

¼ cup coconut oil

300g button mushrooms, sliced

3 cloves garlic, chopped

¼ cup tomato paste

½ cup beef stock 

2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce

300ml sour cream

Method

ombine the flour, salt, pepper and paprika in a bowl.  Toss the beef strips through the mixture so they are well coated.

In a large, non-stick fyring pan, heat ¼ of the oil over high heat.  Place 1/3 of the beef mixture into the pan and cook, tossing and stiring for 2 minutes until it is golden brown. Repeat this process with remaining oil and beef mixture. Removing the cooked beef before putting a new lot in.

Remove the last of the beef from the frying pan and sit aside.

Reduce the heat to medium high.  

Place the last of the oil in the pan and cook the mushrooms and garlic until softened. 

 Add tomato paste and stir for a further minute.  

Add stock, Worcestershire sauce and sour cream to the pan.  

Return the beef and stir for a minute or two until well combined and warmed through.

We served with mashed potato as I had some potatoes that needed to be used, but would also be fantastic served with pasta!

Steam some greens and serve on top. This is sure to be a family favourite, especially in the darkest depths of winter!

Share your photos with me if you make this, I would love to see them!

Happy Cooking (from scratch!)

Erica xx