Beef Stroganoff: Spilled Milk #275

This cozy recipe is an essential for cold fall evenings.

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It’s fall. Fully and totally. The clocks are set back, and the leaves in Minnesota have turned color and fled the trees.

Gone are the lithe and frolic-y days of caprese salads and chicken paillarde. Storming into the room, perhaps busting through the walls like the pitcher in the old Kool-Aid commercials, are the autumnal classics. I am so here for all of it.

This is one of my all time favorites. My grandmother used to make a nearly inedible version of this, save for the fact that she made egg noodles from scratch, so I would gladly have eaten motor oil on top of them for all I cared.

Beef stroganoff is one of those globally classic dishes that originated in Russia in the middle of the 19th century. The Stroganoffs were a wealthy merchant family in Saint Petersburg and, as such, they had a cook (or two or seven) and obviously access to the Tsarist court. The dish itself first appeared in Russian cookbooks around the 1860s as a recipe of sautéed beef, onions and a sauce made with sour cream. Much of this has been debated over the years, but many believe it was created by a French chef working for the Stroganoff family, which explains some of its culinary influences.

Having been to Russia and to Saint Petersburg and taken a few spins around the block on the food bus, I will call time out and remind everyone that in the years leading up to the Russian revolution and immediately after, for those lucky few, many wealthy families ventured west. A large majority settled in France, spurring the popularity of coulibiac of salmon, veal Prince Orlav, the caviar craze, borscht and most importantly, beef stroganoff.

By the 1950s, American cooks were discovering global flavors, and the simplicity of cooking this dish made it a staple in many households. Some recipes used mushrooms, mustard and Worcestershire sauce. Some didn’t. Some went a little Hungarian and included paprika, and some went for a German twist with different types of mushrooms, caraway and noodles.

My family was made up of German and Russian Jews, and my grandmother had a Hungarian woman come to the house every Friday, cook several meals, stay over, clean on Saturday morning and depart at sundown. Guess it’s no coincidence that I make my beef stroganoff the way that I do. I am a product of history, just like you. Give this recipe a go and let me know what you think.

Recipe: Beef Stroganoff