Traditional Russian beef stroganoff: the original bef stroganov with sour cream and mustard

The first printed recipe appeared in 1871, in Elena Molokhovets's cookbook, as beef à la Stroganov with mustard: cubes of meat dredged in flour, fried in butter and served in a sauce of stock, mustard and smetana. The name honors the Stroganov family, nobles of St. Petersburg, and legend says the household's French cook created the dish for the old, toothless count, who could only eat very tender meat.

After the revolution, Russian émigrés took the recipe to China, Europe and the Americas, and each place changed it. Brazil added ketchup, cream and rice; France, wine and cognac; the United States, noodles. The Russian version remains simple, with the tang of the sour cream and the mustard in the spotlight, and the mushrooms as an addition accepted for a century now.

The secret is the meat: tenderloin or sirloin in thin strips, seared over very high heat for less than a minute and returned to the sauce only at the end, so it does not overcook. The Russian side is matchstick potatoes or fried potato cubes, not rice.

Recipe card

• Origin: St. Petersburg, Russia
• Category: Main course, meat in sauce
• Difficulty: Easy
• Preparation time: 25 minutes
• Cooking time: 25 minutes
• Yield: 4 servings

Ingredients

• 600 g beef tenderloin or sirloin in thin 1 cm strips
• 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 60 g butter
• 2 medium onions in thin slices
• 250 g fresh mushrooms (button or cremini) in slices
• 1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
• 1 teaspoon sweet paprika (optional)
• 200 ml beef stock
• 200 g smetana or sour cream (or heavy cream with 1 tablespoon lemon juice)
• Salt and black pepper to taste
• Chopped parsley to serve
• Matchstick potatoes or fried potato cubes to accompany

Method

1. Pat the strips of meat dry, season with salt and pepper and dust with the flour.
2. Heat half the butter in a wide skillet over high heat and sear the meat in small batches for 1 minute, just until browned outside. Set aside; it should stay pink inside.
3. In the same skillet, over medium heat, melt the rest of the butter and sauté the onion for 8 minutes, until lightly golden.
4. Add the mushrooms and cook for 5 minutes, until they release and evaporate their water.
5. Add the mustard, paprika and stock, scrape the bottom of the skillet and let it reduce by half.
6. Lower the heat, add the smetana and stir until the sauce is creamy; do not let it boil hard.
7. Return the meat with its juices, heat for 2 minutes, adjust salt and pepper.
8. Serve immediately, with parsley on top and the matchstick potatoes on the side.

Tips and variations

• Meat cooked in the sauce for a long time gets tough: sear fast and add only at the end.
• Real smetana has 20% fat and does not curdle; commercial sour cream may need very low heat.
• A splash of white wine or cognac to deglaze is the French influence, and welcome.
• Chopped pickled cucumber in the sauce is an old Russian variant.
• Cooked buckwheat (kasha) is the other traditional side.
• The Brazilian version, with ketchup and cream, is another dish, loved for other reasons.
• Do not freeze: the sour cream separates.

Russian bef stroganov is quick, elegant and a surprise to those who only know the Brazilian version: tender meat, tangy mustard sauce and crispy matchstick potatoes, just as it was eaten in St. Petersburg 150 years ago.