Lisa's Beef Stroganoff

I made this last night after searching for the perfect Beef Stroganoff recipe.

I can't believe how many Beef Stroganoff recipes there are out there.

None of them really jumped out at me and said, "That's it! That's the Beef Stroganoff I've been looking for!" So I found one or two recipes that were sort of what I wanted and then I tweaked them (such as browning the meat first, adding soy sauce, etc...) to make my own recipe.

Every once in awhile, you just need to make a dish where you don't worry about calories (one serving will be around 480 calories). I had to do some extra walking to justify eating this, but I think it was worth it.

Feel free to tweak it as you want. That's up to you.


Ingredients:

1 pound (actually, I would use about a pound and a half next time around) top sirloin,
cut into strips

1 sweet onion, chopped

4 garlic cloves, diced fine

1 pkg. sliced bella mushrooms

2 cups (almost one can) of beef broth

3/4 cup red wine

1/4 cup soy sauce (low sodium)

About 2 or 3 dashes of Worcestershire sauce

4 Tbs. flour

Olive oil (a drizzle here and there)

3 Tbs. butter (it doesn't hurt to use a little more, but don't over do it)

1 tub sour cream

1 pkg. Egg Noodles

Spices : (add to taste) salt, pepper, cayenne, paprika (some recipes call for thyme or dill, but I didn't use those). You can also throw in a dash of cumin for a kick.


For this recipe, I used a Dutch Oven on my stove. You don't have to use one of those, if you don't have it, but you will need a fairly large pot with a good sized bottom.

Don't forget to make your noodles to pour the sauce over!
First: Brown top sirloin in a little (tiny bit) olive oil and set aside on a plate
Next: Throw in onions and mushrooms. You may need to add a little more olive oil to pan, but be careful. When they are a little soft (they will soften as you are making sauce, so you don't have to wait for them to turn transparent necessarily), add in the garlic and stir around until fragrant. Quickly add butter and flour and stir around with the onions and mushrooms and garlic for a good minute or two. Make sure to scrape up those brown bits at the bottom of the pan.
Then: SLOWLY add your liquids (broth, wine, soy sauce, worcestershire sauce) and stir as you add. Keep stirring. Stir frequently. Add in your spices to taste. Let sauce turn a delicious darkish brown color and bubble just a bit on the sides. If it boils, your heat is way too high. Taste and spice more if needed.
When sauce thickens, add in browned steak, and stir and simmer some more (about 3 minutes or so)
Last: add in as much sour cream as you want (I used about 3/4 of a tub) and serve over Egg Noodles.

Rumor has it that Beef Stroganoff should have a little tartness to it. Mine did. I don't know how I did that, since I didn't add any lemon, but it had just enough bite to not distract from the savory. Since I'm all about savory flavors, I did not want to have too much tartness in, which is why I omitted lemon juice from my recipe. But if you like tart, by all means, squeeze in some lemon juice.

I served this with a side of petite peas and a nice Bonterra Cabernet (Trader Joe's-$11.00)


Enjoy!