Recipe ideas, Food Blog, Cooking

One of my favorite meals are beef stroganoff, I have now cooked stroganoff for a while, but when I was first going to cook it I realized that there were many different stroganoff recipes out there and a lot of them are not very good. After many different tries I have created my own twist of the recipe and this is the one I stick too when I am cooking this meal. I assure you that this is a very tasty recipe!

Beef stroganoff

Cook Time: 45 minutes

Total Time: 60 minutes

Ingredients:

Beef:

• 600 gr top sirloin steak, trimmed
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 2 medium onion, quartered and sliced
• 2 garlic cloves
• 6 medium mushrooms

Stroganoff Sauce

• 3 tbs tomato paste
• ½ ts sugar
• 1 ts ground paprika powder or 2 tbs roasted capsicum (chopped in small pieces)
• 4 tablespoons sour cream, room temperature
• ½ medium carrot
• 1 celery stick
• 1 inch long of a medium size leek
• 3 tablespoons butter or margarine
• 1 ½  dl white wine

Mashed potatoes with celery root and thyme:

• 5 medium sized potatoes
• 100 gr of celery root
• 1 ts butter
• 1 tbs milk
• 1 tbs chopped fresh thyme
• Salt and pepper to taste

Preparation:

Prepare a fry-pan with a table spoon of butter. Also prepare a medium size saucepan that you leave ready on the stove.

Cut beef into narrow 1-inch long strips about 1/2-inch thick. Sprinkle meat with salt and pepper. Turn the hotplate with the saucepan on low to medium heat. Melt 1 tablespoon butter in the fry-pan on medium to high heat and add half of the beef strips. It’s important to not add too much beef in the fry-pan, the beef strips are only meant to sear and not cook in the fry-pan. Let the beef strips cook for about 30 seconds on each side. Remove the beef strips from the fry-pan and add them to the saucepan. Now you’ll need to add about 1 ½  dl of water in the fry-pan and cook on high heat until reduced to about half. When reduced add the water in the saucepan on top of the beef. You will now need to repeat the same step for the rest of the beef.

When you have seared all the beef, you should cut the celery stick and carrot in small pieces and the leek in thin slices and add to the saucepan. The reason why I add carrot, celery and leek is because the carrot will give the sauce a natural sweet flavor, the celery will add some bitterness to it, and the leek will naturally add some roundness to the flavor. All these harmonize perfectly together and will bring out great flavors to the dish. Cover and let the beef mix cook on low to medium heat.

The next step is to cut up the mushrooms and the onion quartered and sliced, melt 1 ½ tablespoon butter in the fry-pan on medium heat and add the garlic cloves (they should be minced) then add the onions and mushrooms. Let cook until soft and golden. This will take about 10 minutes. Make sure the hotplate is not too hot as you don’t want the onion and mushrooms to burn.

When the mushrooms and onions are cooked add them to the saucepan and mix it with the beef.

We will now start making the sauce:

Add the tomato paste in the saucepan – also add the sugar (when using tomato paste you should use sugar or other sweeteners such as apple juice etc. The tomato paste has a bitter flavor and by adding some sweeteners to it you’ll be able to even it out and giving it a round flavor instead.) Mix it well in with the beef and vegetables. Then add the paprika/roasted capsicum and some salt and pepper. Cover and let cook on low heat for about 20 – 30 minutes. About 10 minutes before serving add the white wine, let cook on low heat with no lid. About 5 minutes before serving add the sour cream and stir well.

When the beef stroganoff is cooking prepare the mashed potatoes. Rinse and peel potatoes and the celery root. Cut the potatoes in half and the celery root in mid size cubes. Let cook in 1 ½ dl water. Make sure you don’t add the salt as it will make the potatoes a bit sticky when mashing them. After about 20 min they should be soft. Mash the potatoes and celery root with a hand masher, do not use electric mixer. Add the milk and butter while mashing. When the potatoes and celery root are mashed soft and creamy add salt and pepper to taste and the thyme.

You can also prepare vegetables or salad to have with the stroganoff too.

If I ever feel like a burger I usually like to make the burger my own, that way I get to eat a burger that is a lot tastier and healthier than the ones you buy. I also serve the burgers with homemade potato wedges. A burger does not need to be unhealthy as long as you are in control of how the burger is being made. Under you can see how I usually make my burgers:

Ingredients for 2 people:

Burger:

250 gr Low fat/heart smart mince meat

2 tbs flour

1 egg

1 tbs milk

1 carrot (minced)

1 onion (minced)

2 celery sticks (chopped in very small pieces)

5 sundried tomatoes (chopped in very small pieces)

1 tbs of fresh basil

½ tbs of fresh thyme

1 dash of nutmeg

Taste with salt and pepper

The method is very easy, it is just to put all ingredients in a bowl and mix it well together. Turn your fry pan on middle to high heat. Use a table spoon that you first dip in cold water and pick up some of the meat mix with the tablespoon and shape the mix into a ball, then add the ball to the fryingpan and squeeze it down with a spatula. Let fry 3 -4 minutes on each side. It is always a good idea to have a taste test first, we all have different tasting buds so I always make a tiny burger that I cook and taste before I decide if the burger mix is to my liking. When I make homemade burgers I usually make a bit more so that I can freeze them down for later use.

Potato Wedges:

4 – 5 mid to large potatoes

6 tbs Homemade Oil mix with spices and herbs (paprika, basil, rosemary, cumin, garlic)

Butter

Turn your oven on at 250 degrees.

Cut the potatoes in wedges, I prefer to leave the potatoes with the peel on. Add the oil mix in a 5 – 6 liter bag and add the potatoes. Seal the bag and shake it well so that the potatoes are well covered.

Bake in oven for about 45 – 50 minutes.

Serve the burger with fresh lettuce, cheese, tomato, cucumber and potato wedges. You can also make some aioli that you can have with the potato wedges. You can find recipe of aioli here.

If you would like to try a burger that is a bit different you can test out Jamie Oliver´s recipe of the Cracking Burger.

Start by taking the beef out of the fridge well before cooking, at least 30 minutes before. Beef should be room temperature because then it is easier to make it look cooked without it being extremely dry. You will also find that beef get’s a very raw / cold core if it is cold when you start cooking it.

Cutting thick slices are important. Do not cut them too thin; rather cut them very thick and beat them down to about 2 – 4 cm thick slices. Use a paper towel or a kitchen towel and wipe the beef dry,  the beef should be completely dry before you have it in the fry pan, it is very important that the beef is dry and at room temperate when cooking .  Now you can add spice to your beef, I always prefer a mix of white and black freshly ground pepper, little garlic and just a small sprinkle of soy sauce on each side.

The fry pan should be reasonable hot before you add margarine or oil to it. When margarine has reached the color nut brown you can add the meat. The oil is hot enough when you touch it with a wooden utensil and the oil starts roaring. However as a tip; do not use regular butter. The white and milky parts of the butter will burn when used in high heat. You rather choose between these three options: Oil that can handle high heat such as sun flower oil, oil and butter or cleared butter (cleared butter is when:  you melt the butter and only use the top layer of the butter do not use the white parts of the butter that is lying at the bottom of your cup or saucepan.

How long it takes to cook the beef depends on its thickness. However, the beef slices that are between 3 – 4 cm thick is sufficient to cook for about 2 – 3 minutes on each side and also remember to not put too many steaks in the fry pan at the same time as it may give the fry pan unbalanced heat.

As I have described how to cook a perfect medium cooked beef others may prefer either raw beef and well cooked beef, I have therefore described cooking times for all the three types below.

Cooking times for beef that is about 2 cm thick will be:
Raw beef: Pan fry the beef for about 30 sec – 1 minute on each side.

Medium cooked beef: Pan fry the beef on high heat for about 1 ½ – 2 ½ minutes or until the beef juices seeps out on top, turn the steak beef and cook until it seeps out on the other side. Do not stab the beef with a fork, but use a spatula.

Well cooked beef: Pan fry the beef for about 1 minute on each side on high heat, turn the heat down to low and cook for about 4 minutes on each side over low heat. It is important to turn the steak often.

When beef is cooked to your liking let the steak beef rest before serving. You should leave it on a dinner plate and cover it with aluminum foil and let it rest for about  4-6 minutes.

My favorite beef is served with red wine gravy and scalloped potatoes, seasonal vegetables and roasted cherry tomatoes.