Beef Stroganoff – A Classic

 
 

Ingredients:

 

Beef strips (pre-cut)

Mushrooms (sliced)

Onion (sliced)

Garlic oil

¼ cup butter

1 ½ cup beef stock

Salt (be careful)

Worcestershire sauce

¼ cup flour

1 ½ cups sour cream

3 cups hot cooked egg noodles

 

Method:

 

Sauté the onion in the butter and oil for a minute.  Add the mushrooms and sauté for another minute or two.

 

Transfer to your casserole dish.

Season your beef and mix the flour into it.

 

Cook the beef in the same pan in batches.  Add the beef batch by batch to the casserole dish.

 

Stir in the beef stock and Worcestershire sauce.  Simmer for 15 minutes.

 

Finish the dish off in a moderate oven adding the sour cream right at the end – don't let it boil.

 

Cook your noodles and serve your stroganoff over them.

Portabello Mushrooms on Toast

Ingredients:

Portabello mushrooms

Crispy shallots

Oil/butter

Parmesan and Colby cheese (grated)

Breadcrumbs

Chilli flakes

Chicken stock (preferably lower salt)

Crème fraiche

Pepper

Toast

Method

I put some oil and butter in a pan – I then popped in the mushrooms with the gill side up.

I seasoned each mushroom with pepper and popped grated cheese into each one.  I topped each one off with breadcrumbs.

I fried the mushrooms with the lid on so that the cheese would melt.  I didn't turn the mushrooms over at all.

I created a sauce by adding the chicken stock and crème fraiche.  Added some chilli flakes for zing.

Served on toast with the pan sauce spooned over.

This was tasty but a bit salty because I used concentrated chicken stock.

Mushroom Soup

Am still trying to use up some milk, so I made a milk based soup.

Ingredients:

Baby button mushrooms

Couple of slices of red onion

Lots of butter plus a little olive oil

1 tablespoon of flour

500ml full fat milk

Lightly dried basil

Pepper

Chicken stock concentrate

Squeeze of lemon juice

Garnish – chopped parsley

Method:

Gently melt your butter on low in your soup pot

Chop your onion finely and add to the pot

Thinly slice your mushrooms and add them too.

Now for the difficult bit – patience – you need to let the mushrooms cook away for at least an hour – they need to start browning before you go any further.

Add flour and stir – don't panic if it doesn't start to thicken – it will when you add the milk.

Warm your milk to lukewarm.

Add a couple of spoonful's of milk and stir vigoroulsly.  This is the only bit that can go wrong – if you add too much or don't stir enough you might end up with lumps.

Add your stock concentrate and then the rest of the milk a bit at a time.

Add the basil.  Pepper to your taste.  Check whether you need to add any salt.

A squeeze of lemon juice and a garnish of chopped parsley and you are done.

Orange Zested Sherried Mushrooms

I am constantly looking for new ways to do mushrooms.  This time, inspired by a cooking show (can't remember which) I combined orange zest, orange juice and sherry.  The results were fine but next time I'd put a little less sherry in and more orange zest.  The combination definitely worked though.

So I sliced up some white button mushrooms and sautéed with in a little bit of crushed garlic and butter (with a dot of oil to ensure the butter won't burn).

After a couple of minutes, add the orange zest (of 1 orange), the juice from the orange and 3 tablespoons of sherry (I would suggest 2).  Add a little chopped parsley at the end for colour.

You can cook this ahead of time and apparently the flavours will improve.

Cumin Mushrooms – An Experiment

So I saw a recipe for cumin mushrooms and decided to give it a go – did I follow the recipe exactly?  Well no!  The result was a bit bland.  So I have put down what I think will work but no guarantees.

Ingredients:

Small button mushrooms (not the bigger ones I used)

2 teaspoons of ground cumin

Salt & pepper

Oil

Method:

I had the oven on cooking some cauliflower cheese so I decided to cook the mushrooms in it as well.  The recipe I saw suggested frying in a pan.

I de-stemmed each mushroom.  I put some oil into a baking dish and laid the mushrooms on it cut side down.  I sprinkled them with salt and pepper and with half of the cumin.  A drizzle of oil and then into the oven.

After about an hour I turned them over and put the rest of the cumin on.  In fact I was light on the cumin because it is a very strong spice but next time I'll be braver.

We ate them with dinner and they were only just ok.  What you are supposed to do is let them cool to room temperature and serve them on toothpicks as a cocktail plate.

Crumbed Mushrooms – Revisited

These crumbed mushrooms were a complete experiment.  My better half is not that keen on mushrooms so I wanted to find a different way of doing them.  I thought that a bit of crunch might be a good thing.

I was using ordinary little white button mushrooms.  I de-stalked them.

I made an egg mix with some crème fraiche, salt, pepper, cayenne pepper – whisked until nice and smooth.

Dip each mushroom into the mix and then roll in panko – Japanese breadcrumbs.

Fry the crumbed mushrooms until golden on both sides.  They were crunchy but still very noticeably mushroomy on the inside.  I will be doing them again – maybe with a little more spice.