Friday, December 29, 2006

Beef Stogan-tough

As much as I love to cook and experiment with different recipes, foods and methods of preparation, I still find myself a bit dense, or perhaps creatively limited, when it comes to creating an everyday meal. I have my standard dinners that seem to play like a song on repeat, but aside from my trusty chicken dishes and pasta dishes, I tend to draw culinary blanks when thinking about what to make for dinner.

The other day, in the midst of one of these culinarily-challenged moments, I had a mild revelation and decided to make beef stroganoff. My mom makes a really good beef stroganoff, and thinking that my culinary talents (or sometimes lack thereof) came to me through osmosis watching my mom cook, I thought I could easily put together a comparable beef stroganoff.

In preparation for the dinner, I downloaded a few beef stroganoff recipes from my favorite cooking websites and came up with a grocery list for my trip to the market. All of the recipes I found called for beef tenderloin. When I went to my local butcher to buy beef tenderloin, I was disappointed that he only had bottom and top round cuts of meats. Beef stroganoff is best when the meat is very tender – almost a bit flaky in the sense that your fork can cut right through the beef. With beef stroganoff, the meat becomes the piece de resistance to the meal if you will, complimented only to the blush tomatoey sauce and soft egg noodles. Caught in between a rock and a cheap piece of beef, I asked the butcher which cut of meat he would recommend for beef stroganoff and was told that bottom round works “perfectly” with beef stroganoff. The butcher’s eagerness to sell me bottom round should have alerted my inner culinary sleuth, but stubborn and determined to make beef stroganoff, I bought the bottom round cut of beef.

Back in the apartment, I began preparing my meal - cutting the bottom round into small cubes, chopping my onions, smashing some garlic, opening a dry white, preparing my beef bouillon cubes and getting my tomato paste ready for what was becoming a highly anticipated meal. The sauce, or perhaps better described as the base of this dish, is relatively simple. Most recipes call for onions, garlic, beef broth, a tad of tomato paste, white wine, a dash of paprika and salt and pepper. The minute before the beef stroganoff is plated, a few dollops of sour cream is added.

I proudly served my beef stroganoff over a bed of egg noodles, and upon the first bite, suffered an enormous bout of disappointment. Although the sauce was excellent, the beef was really tough – way too tough. It was hard to cut the beef even with a knife, and when I chewed the beef I thought I was eating an English riding saddle. I learned that cheaper cuts of meat should be marinated overnight to tenderize them if a better cut of meat isn’t available. But, the bottom line is, bottom round beef turns beef stroganoff into beef strogan-tough.

Until next time…

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