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Birthday Beef Stroganoff

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Prep: 10 mins Cook: 45 mins Yields: 4-6 servings

This has become a frequent birthday dinner in our house and for friends coming to dinner, because it is fancy. This is a big recipe and you can scale it to your needs.

Ingredients

  • 1 to 3 pounds sliced mushrooms, white or crimini
  • 2 to 4 cups thin sliced onions
  • 4 tablespoons butter
  • 3 tablespoons olive oil
  • salt and pepper
  • 2 ½ to 3 pounds beef (filet or sirloin steak)
  • ¼ to ½ cup Madeira or dry white vermouth
  • 1 ½ cups stock (beef or chicken)
  • 1 cup cream (heavy or half and half)
  • 1 cup sour cream
  • 4 tablespoons corn starch
  • paprika
  • 2 to 4 tablespoons soft butter

Instructions

  • Cut the steak into 2 ounce (2 x 2 x ½ inch) pieces. Optionally cut the night before and dry on a rack in the refrigerator, lightly salted.
  • Mix the corn starch with 1 tablespoon of the cream and set aside.
  • Sauté the onions and mushrooms in a large skillet in the butter and oil. Set aside.
  • Season the steak with salt and pepper. Do not resalt if you dried the beef overnight. Sauté until just rare. Set aside.
  • Discard the sauté fat.
  • Reduce the wine and stock in the pan to ⅓ of the original volume.
  • Reduce heat to simmer and beat in the cream, then the corn starch/cream mixture, then the sour cream.
  • Stir in a small amount of paprika for the sauce color you want and simmer for 1 minute.
  • Add the mushrooms and onions.
  • Return the beef to the pan and pour in the meat juices. Stir the sauce and baste the beef.
  • Cover and simmer up to 4 minutes: do not overcook the beef. Remove from heat.
  • Off heat, just before serving, add the softened butter a bit at a time, while basting, until the butter is absorbed.
  • Serve at once with noodles.

Chef's Notes

Source

Julia Childs Sauté de Bœuf à la Parisienne inspired this recipe. That was tweaked for household tastes.

My Take

Stroganoff is supposed to be fancy, it was invented for that purpose.

The main deviation from a classic stroganoff in this treatment is the way the beef is sliced: following Julia's lead, we leave the beef in larger pieces so it will be tender from only cooking to medium-rare to medium at most. Many recipes call for slicing the meat thin across the grain and then basically braise it, which is too much for sirloin.

Since this is a fancy meal, I usually make this with sirloin. You could use tenderloin like Julia or experiment with other cuts. If you try it with chuck or tri-tip then you might want to go with the thin cross-cut slices.

This comes together really fast at the end, so have your sides ready before you start building the sauce. You may cook your onions, mushrooms, and rare steak earlier. After basting your steak will be medium rare to medium.