Beef Stroganoff

Count Stroganov

The dish appears in the 1861 cookbook A Gift to Young Housewives by Elena Molokhovets and is linked to the wealthy Stroganov family of St. Petersburg. The canonical explanation — that it was devised for an elderly Count Stroganov who could no longer chew large cuts — may be apocryphal, but the dish was certainly established in Russian aristocratic cooking by the mid-19th century.

The sour cream technique

The defining ingredient is sour cream (smetana in Russian — a thicker, richer version than most Western sour cream). It is always added off the heat or at very low heat — sour cream separates (curdles) if it boils. The technique: reduce the sauce with stock and mustard; remove from heat; stir in the sour cream; return briefly to very low heat to warm through.

Fast and hot

The meat must be cooked in a very hot, uncrowded pan so it sears rather than steams. Thin strips cook in under a minute; overcooked beef becomes tough. The mushrooms and onions are cooked separately before being combined with the meat in the sauce.

International versions

The American version (introduced during WWII, popularised in the 1950s) uses cream of mushroom soup and substitutes cream for sour cream, producing a milder dish. Swedish stroganoff adds more paprika. Brazilian estrogonofe adds ketchup and heavy cream and is served with rice and shoestring potato chips.