Like most things in life at the moment, a banker is to blame. Bloody bankers, eh? And my mother. Well, someone’s gotta take the rap for this shit – the weird way my mind seems to work – and I’d sooner it was them than me. See, the below recipe is the first my mother ever taught me. It was her dinner party dish, her ‘wow’ dish, my dad’s favourite. “If you ever want to impress a man,” she told my impressionable 12-year-old self, “this is the recipe you should cook.”
She’s always referred to said recipe as steak stroganoff. However, whenever we see a similarly titled recipe in a magazine or on a TV cookery show, she without fail pipes up, “That’s not how I make my stroganoff,” shaking her head in disapproval. This is because most recipes bar my mother’s seem to be made with tomato and paprika. And, having thoroughly researched the subject of stroganoff through the powers of Google, I have concluded that this is in fact the more common, accepted way of making stroganoff.
So maybe hers is more steak in a cream sauce or something. Sorry mum. Anyways, here it is:
INGREDIENTS
1/2 onion, finely diced
150g mushrooms (ie, chestnut and button), sliced
2 portions fillet steak (ie, 200g to 250g), cut into cubes
Butter
150g-ish sour cream (ie, one small tub)
2 to 3 tsp French mustard
Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
2 portions long grain white rice (ie, 200g to 250g)
METHOD
1) Preheat the oven to 100 degrees celsius or equivalent. Prepare your onions, mushrooms and steak. Stir the mustard through the cream and season with black pepper, adjusting to taste.
2) Boil up a pan of water. Rinse the rice in a sieve and cook for the required time in the boiled water. Apparently, there are some geniuses out there who have nailed the precise rice-to-water ratio thing, resulting in perfect rice sans water at the end of the cooking time. Smart-asses. The Banker lectured me on the very same thing. But as I have never made a success of this without burning the rice to the bottom of the pan, I am quite happy to drain it. Suit yourself.
3) Right, you’re ready to cook. Sauté the onions in butter and salt until soft – a good 10 minutes should do it. Transfer to a heat-proof dish and leave in the oven to just keep warm. Next, sauté the mushrooms. When they’re done pop them in the dish with the onions.
4) Check that your rice is nearly there – it should be no more than a few minutes off. Because now it’s time to flash-fry the steak and you don’t want it overdone. Don’t crank the heat up too high either or the butter will burn. The moment the steak is sealed, pour on the creamy-mustard sauce and return the onions and mushroom to the pan. Turn the heat right down.
5) Drain the rice. A good tip is to pour boiling water from a kettle over it while it’s sitting in the sieve to stop it sticking together. Plate-up the rice, perhaps presenting it in a chef’s ring if you’re really keen to impress or just in a heap if not. Spoon the ‘stroganoff’ on top. Serve.
So I cooked this for The Banker at the tender age of 21. He was my first fancy-schmancy London boyfriend – he bought me roses, fed me strawberries in bed and made great pains to leave his hefty paycheques lying around his flat for me to find. On paper (hello, 10-grand bonus!) he was perfect husband material and, at nine years my senior, I suspected he quite liked the idea of appointing a little wifey. So I set out to impress with my stroganoff...
“That,” he concluded upon clearing his plate, “was so good... I might just have to marry you.”
And there you have it, folks. Proof that there is such a dish capable of inspiring a marriage proposal. The first time the thought of cooking my way into a man’s heart popped into my head. The reason for all these ridiculous flights of fantasy the moment I don my apron.
Only problem was, I didn’t want to marry The Banker. See, the reason I set out to impress is because he’d cooked for me the weekend before and, boy, did he make a fuss about it – reckoned he was the best thing since sliced bread. And I'm competitive like that, me. He’d only made pasta in a tomato and vodka sauce. Yeah, so you’ve set alcohol alight? And..? What do you want, a bloody medal?!
Probably. Because he did have a bit of a Napoleon complex, see, the jumped-up little sod. Lecturing me (and I really mean lecturing me – on and on he went!) on how to correctly cook rice! I was a good inch or so taller than him in heels... Hence, I also had a lecture or two on my inconsiderate choice of footwear. And I am quite the Contrary Mary when provoked – hardly a good combination.
Hmm... To love, honour and obey a bossy but filthy rich banker? Or go with the high-heels?
I chose shoes. I’d still choose shoes.
Next post: time for the science bit – The Bacon Sandwich Test...
Illustration by the wonderful Bex Barrow.
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