beef stroganoff

Using up: ribeye steak, mushrooms

Along with the three sausages, we also returned from Summer Camp with a heap of ribeye steak, which simply didn’t get eaten.  I flung it in the freezer in the general melée of dealing with wet tents, missing cats, etc., but a carton of organic mushrooms in the fridge gave me pause for thought …

So: cut a big onion in half, and slice it as thinly as you can.  Sauté that with lots of butter (this is not a good recipe for cholesterol haters) and oh, about a tablespoon of paprika until the onion is soft.  Then add mushrooms, sliced, and continue to cook until the mushrooms are soft.

Decant this paprika-y mess on to a heatproof plate and keep it warm.  Wipe out the pan.

Take steak (it really does need to be good quality for this, trust me), slice it into 1/4″-1/2″ strips across the grain. Fry this in batches in sunflower oil until it’s done as you like - we keep it fairly rare.  Drain out the oil from the pan, put everything back in, add soured or double cream, lemon juice, seasoning and chopped flat-leaf parsley.

It may be thought of as heresy, but we always eat this with chips.  I know, I know, but if you’re going to do it, you might as well do it properly.

By the way, chips, peas and ice cream are the only frozen goods I buy - everything else I freeze myself.

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boeuf stroganoff

I hate waste, and we had a bunch of flat leaf parsley which looked a bit tired. So what to do?

We also had some mushrooms, and so I nipped, or popped, to the Local Shop and bought some cream. And then I remembered there was a fillet of Dexter beef in the indoors freezer.

This is one of our favourites - it’s Rick Stein’s version, and he recommends that you serve it with thin chips. Who are we to argue? - it works remarkably well. We do tend to increase the mushrooms and decrease the meat, but that’s because we don’t like too much meat in a dish.

Recipe:

675g of beef fillet, preferably cut from the tail end
65g unsalted butter
1.5 tbsp of paprika
1 large onion, very thinly sliced
350g button mushrooms, very thinly sliced
3 tbsp sunflower oil
300ml soured cream
2tsp lemon juice
a small handful of finely chopped parsley
salt and black pepper

Cut the steak into slices 1cm thick, then cut each slice across the grain into strips.

Melt the butter in a large frying pan, add the paprika and onion, and cook slowly until the onion is soft and sweet, but not browned. Add the mushrooms, and fry gently until they are softish. The recipe says 3 minutes, but that’s not nearly enough in my experience. Transfer to a plate and keep warm.

Wipe out the pan with some kitchen paper, then heat half the oil in there till it’s very hot, add half the sliced fillet steak, season it and fry it quickly for a minute or so. Put aside to keep warm (I use the dish with the onion and mushrooms in it), and repeat with the rest of the meat.

Put everything back in the pan, add the soured cream; bring to the boil, and cook for a minute or so. Then fling in the parsley and lemon juice.

Delicious!

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home made burgers

Finely chop a shallot, some fresh coriander and a red chili. Combine this with 1lb of Dexter mince, together with some sel gris. Shape into vaguely hamburger-shaped shapes

In a bowl, combine a can of chick peas, some chopped fresh mint, diced cucumber, finely chopped spring onions, some cold cooked potatoes from the fridge, and grated carrot. Make a dressing with walnut oil, white wine vinegar and a splash of shoyu and toss it about a bit

Get Pete to stand in front of a very hot ribbed cast iron pan and cook the burgers

Sprinkle the salad with sesame, pumpkin and sunflower seeds, which have been dry fried, then tossed in a little tamari.

Perfect summer food.

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