The recipe for my mom’s Beef Stroganoff is the perfect introduction to my blog “Bittersweet Cooking”. The recipe card itself is tattered, the face is splotched with beef stock stains, and when I put the papery cardboard leaf to my nose, I swear it gives an odor of dusty onions. The most beautiful thing about this recipe card though, even above the recipe that it holds, is my mother’s handwriting. It’s hurried turns and curves, have faded, but are still legible enough to read, and although I have copied it onto another card for preservation’s sake, I still like to bring her card out when I cook this dish. It makes me feel like she is by my side.
My mother passed away years ago, when I was 27 and quite honestly at that time, I had not yet discovered the absolute joy that creating the perfect dish can bring. Thankfully even in my naïveté, I did keep mom’s beautiful Dutch oven, a few of her cookbooks, 2 of her mixing bowls, a hand mixer, her Cuisinart, and of course, her recipe box.
The recipe box referred to above strangely is not the one that I remember from my childhood. The one that she used in my younger years was a copper colored tin box. On it were pictures of little chefs in their chef hats, racing around pots of steaming such and such. I am not sure what happened to that box, but I have a few pictures of my mother in which that old thing is in the background, and I will never forget it (see below).
The box that she later adopted is unfortunately made of cardboard. I say “unfortunately” because it is beginning to come apart at the edges. It is a white box covered with pictures of green ivy and it is stuffed full of my mom’s recipes, intermingled with my own recipes, and a few of my grandmother’s recipes as well. I know that in the next couple of years this dilapidated boîte will completely deteriorate, and that I will be forced to dispose of it, but for now, it’s still in one piece.
Ingredients & Instructions
1 lb. Beef Sirloin (cut into bite-sized strips)
3 tblsp. Butter
3 Cloves Garlic (Minced)
3/4 c. Onion (Minced)
1 c. Button Mushrooms (Sliced)
1 1/4 c. Beef Stock
3 tblsp. Flour
3 tblsp. Ketchup
1 tsp. Salt
2 tsp. Pepper
1 c. Sour Cream
2 tblsp. Cooking Sherry
3 tblsp. Worcestershire Sauce
1 tsp. Cayenne Pepper (to taste)
Egg Noodles (cooked el dente)
Melt butter in medium skillet on medium-high heat. Add onions, garlic, and mushrooms to skillet and sweat until just tender. Remove from skillet, set aside, and turn up heat to medium-high. Add meat to sear. Once meat is seared, turn heat back down to medium and add 1/2 of the beef broth along with the ketchup, salt, pepper, and sour cream to skillet. Shake other half of broth and 3 tblsp flour in a jar to mix and then add to skillet. Heat until thickened. Add mushrooms, onions and garlic back into the skillet. Before removing from heat, add sherry, worcestershire, and cayenne pepper to taste. Serve over egg noodles.
