Beef Stroganoff

I never ate Beef Stroganoff growing up. I don’t remember ever eating it even one time at home, but a few years ago I got a craving for it, made it, and it turns out I really like it. I don’t use any particular recipe; the first time I cooked it I used the recipe in ‘The Joy of Cooking‘ (which by the way is an excellent all purpose cookbook and at the same time full of really arcane recipes like how to prepare opossum “if possible, trap ‘possum and feed it on milk and cereals for 10 days before killing”!!).

Now I just wing it. The basic preparation is to saute some chopped onion in oil and/or butter, add ground or sliced beef to the skillet and brown it, then remove the beef and saute sliced mushrooms in the pan, seasoned with a bit of nutmeg. To finish the dish, add the beef and onions back to the pan and add heavy cream. Tonight I tried a new variation with the hope that it would cut down some on the fat – I used nonfat greek yogurt instead of the cream. Aesthetically it was a letdown; the yogurt separated so there was no creamy sauce, and I don’t think it tasted as good as usual, but Alvaro loved it, so there you go! I usually like to serve it over squash puree or spaghetti squash, but we had egg noodles in the pantry so I used those. I’d say it was a partial success tonight.