Beef Stroganoff

This is one of my absolute favorite meals, which is surprising because I used to hate mushrooms. You can eat it over pasta, but eating it all by itself is an incredible taste treat. To make beef stroganoff pretty food, I had to stretch it a bit and add slivers of colored peppers, ribbons of flat parsley, and a few squeezes of sour cream, mixed with cream. It is not a natural beauty. Consider those frills to be its “makeup.”

Ingredients:

• 4 pounds stew meat with any big fat globules removed
• 2 Tbsp. oil (canola or olive)
• 2 (more) Tbsp. oil
• 1 Tbsp. butter
• 2 little cartons (or 1 big one) of button mushrooms
• 4 or 5 onions (Yes, I know they have natural sugars, but they are essential in this recipe and it comes out so rich you don’t eat much)
• 4 tablespoons Carbquik (or flour)
• 4 cups beef broth
• seasoned salt
• kosher salt
• black pepper
• 1 Tbsp. dry sherry
• 3 oz. cream cheese

After you have washed and dried your mushrooms, slice them thinly, either by hand or with the help of a mushroom slicer gadget.

Heat up two very large pans to medium high. In one, add 2 Tbsp. oil and 1 Tbsp. butter. When the butter is melted, add your onions and caramelize them, stirring when necessary until they are a beautiful golden brown color. Add a pinch of Splenda or sugar if you taste them and they aren’t quite sweet. Add the mushrooms to the onions and cook over medium heat until the mushrooms are starting to get tender.

Set your cream cheese out to soften.

Get out a second large pan while you’re waiting for the onions to caramelize. Put just 2 Tbsp. oil in it. When the oil is hot, put your meat in and brown it. At that point, I actually put mine into a pressure cooker with one of the onions and a cup of beef broth and pressure it on high for 24 minutes. If you don’t have a pressure cooker, you could instead throw the browned meat into a crockpot with one onion and about 1/4 cup of beef broth (don’t put more liquid — you do not want to boil your meat) and cook it slowly. The point is to get the meat tender.

Once you have your meat cooked and tender, add it to a large pot with the onions and mushrooms. Stir slowly as you add in the remaining beef broth. Allow it to simmer for 10-15 minutes. Take some of the hot mixture out and mix it in a small bowl with the softened cream cheese, mixing well to get all the lumps out. Add that back to the skillet. Go get a tasting spoon and taste the mixture after it has cooked together a few minutes. Add more salt and/or pepper as necessary to taste.