Beef Stroganov with Poppy Seed Noodles

My mother taught me how to make this dish because I was so enthusiastic about it when she first served it. That was sometime when I was maybe 12-13 years old. I'm not sure if at that point she had ever made it before and was following a recipe, or if I just hadn't noticed the dish up to that point. But once I was hooked, I was hooked. There is something about tender chunks of beef served over noodles in a rich, savory, sour cream sauce that is irresistible.

I've made many modifications to this recipe over the years, including the use of cornichons. French for "gherkin," cornichons are crisp, tart pickles made from tiny gherkin cucumbers.  A popular imported brand is called Les Tois Petits Cochons, or The Three Little Pigs, you can probably find in your grocer's pickle section, or you can order them online.

Cornichons are a traditional accompaniment to pâtés as well as smoked meats and fish, and I'm not at all sure where I came up with the idea to use them in this recipe. I also came up with the addition of poppy seeds to the egg noodles. As with the cornichons, they add some additional texture and flavor to the dish, but neither are part of the "original" recipe, although Beef Stroganov - or Stroganoff - has substantial variations in preparation, ingredients and taste having evolved into different versions throughout the world, basically held together by four ingredients that were in the original recipe: beef, onions, mushrooms and sour cream. Anything else is in the recipe is interpretive, and pretty much up for grabs.

Stroganov recipes can be found almost all over the globe including Europe, Australia, North America, South Africa and Brazil. It is popular in Portugal and Brazil under the name "estrogonofe." Stroganov is also popular in Sweden and Norway, where a common variant is sausage stroganoff, which uses the domestic product Falukorv (a traditional Sweden sausage) as a substitute for the beef. 

The recipe allegedly has its origin from Russia associated with Count Paul Stroganov, a 19th century Russian diplomat, however, the true origins of the dish has never been confirmed, and in its present form is largely held to be a creation of post-war America in the 1950s.

I have made this recipe with leftover tenderloin, leftover rib eye steak or using fresh, sauteed sirloin, and they're all good. Probably my favorite, however, is using leftover tenderloin from my recipe Marinaded Tenderloin of Beef with Sauce Béarnaise. The wine infused roasted beef flavor adds a depth to this dish that you cannot get any other way.

Ingredients
2 lbs beef - either fresh or leftover sirloin, tenderloin or rib eye steak, cut into cubes
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 lb fresh mushrooms, sliced (2 4-oz cans will do in a pinch, like, Jolly Green Giant Stems & Pieces)
3 tsp minced garlic
1 medium yellow onion, finely diced
3 cups beef stock plus 1/2 cup more (like, Swanson's or Kitchen Basics)
1 large carrot, peeled and cut into 7-8 pieces
4-6 sprigs fresh thyme, or 1 tbsp dried
1 bay leaf
1/2 cup dry white wine
3-4 tbsp brandy
2-4 tbsp dry sherry wine
2 tbsp Dijon mustard
2 tbsp tomato paste (like, Hunts or Contadina)
1 cup heavy cream
1-1/2 cups sour cream
1/4 cup dried parsley
1 lb egg noodles
1 stick butter
1 tbsp poppy seeds
about 10 cornichons, thinly sliced
3-6 tbsp olive oil
salt & pepper to taste

The Recipe
Add sliced carrots and sprigs of fresh thyme, or dried thyme, and bay leaf to the beef stock. Cover and bring to a low simmer for 1-1/2 to 2 hours. Use the additional 1/2 cup of stock to add back to the pan so that you're not reducing the volume of stock. Strain, remove, and discard the carrots, bay leaf and thyme. Set this aside until ready to add back to the dish.

Coat the meat in the flour seasoned with salt and pepper. Don't throw away the flour after you coat the meat; you will still need it.

Heat the olive oil in a large sauce pan or Dutch oven until shimmering, and then saute the beef cubes just until the red is gone and they've turned gray. Don't overcook them. You just want the outside of each beef cube seared to hold in the juices. If you're using leftover beef like tenderloin or even a rib eye steak, you will still go through this step, including the flour coating, but you only need to do a quick saute for a couple of minutes until the flour is coated well with the oil. Remove the beef cubes to a warm platter and allow any juices to accumulate.

Add some additional olive oil to the Dutch oven if needed, then saute the onions and garlic until everything starts to caramelize, about fifteen minutes. Add the tomato paste to the onions and saute a bit until the tomato paste begins to brown, about another five minutes. Remove the onion mixture to the platter with the meat.

Add some additional olive oil to the Dutch oven if needed, and then add the mushrooms and saute until they collapse and start to caramelize, about fifteen minutes. Add the brandy, and allow it to burn off the alcohol, sauteing a couple of minutes. Be sure to take off the Dutch oven off the the heat when you add the brandy.

At this point, add the 1/2 cup of white wine to the Dutch oven, and scrape any of the crusty brown bits from the bottom of the pan into the mixture, although the brandy may have done this for you.

Add back the beef and onions, plus all of their accumulated juices, into the Dutch oven. Pour in the stock. Whisk in the sherry, Dijon mustard and the heavy cream. Bring to a simmer and reduce the sauce a bit, about twenty minutes.

Using some of the flour that remained from coating the beef, about two tablespoons, mix it with twice the amount of water, and whisk together well. This is known in cooking terms as a "slurry."

While whisking the beef, mushrooms, onions and stock, pour a little of the slurry into the mixture, allowing it to return to the boil. Watch as the sauce thickens, and repeat with more slurry if needed, allowing the sauce to return to the simmer after each addition of more slurry. Bring the whole concoction to a desired thickness, at least until it coats the back of a spoon. I like mine even a little thicker than that because I have found adding the sour cream at the end of the recipe will always loosen the sauce a little.

When the desired thickness of the sauce is reached, add the parsley, and adjust for any seasoning. Reduce the heat and allow it to slowly bubble away, amalgamating all of the flavors, at least another ten minutes,

In the mean time, prepare the noodles. In a separate pot, bring 4-6 quarts of salted water to a boil, and cook the egg noodles until done, about ten minutes. Drain well and then return to the pot. Melt the stick of butter into the noodles and add the poppy seeds, then toss well to coat.

Remove the beef sauce from the stove and allow it to rest for at least one minute. Then, fold in the sour cream, which means to gently stir it into the sauce with a spoon or spatula, but not a whisk. Too much agitation will cause the sour cream to curdle.

Do not return the Dutch oven to the stove after adding the sour cream. If you bring the sauce back to a simmer, the sour cream will curdle, and at that point, as the culinarians say, you will have "broken" the sauce.

Serve the egg noodles in a large pasta bowl with the Beef Stroganov ladled over the noodles. Garnish with lots of the sliced cornichons.