Beef Stroganoff

• 1. Introduction

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  Beef Stroganoff is a Russian dish of sautéed beef in a sauce of mustard and smetana, a heavy sour cream. It carries the name of the Stroganovs, a Russian noble family, but the family name does not settle the matter. Historians have debated whether the dish honors the diplomat Pavel Stroganov or the politician Alexander Stroganov. The dish appeared in the 19th century and has since become popular around the world, with considerable variation from the original recipe. Mushrooms are common in many variants. This documentary asks why the legends about its birth disagree and what the oldest written recipe actually called for. It also asks how a Russian noble's dish ended up in China, Brazil, Japan and the Nordic countries, and what each of those places changed.

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• 2. Legends of the Kitchen

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  Siberia sits at the center of the best-known legend about the dish. In that story, Pavel Stroganov's chef was stationed there and found the beef frozen so solid that it could only be cut into small strips.

  A second legend gives the credit to French cooks working for the family. Several researchers disagree with that account. They point out that the recipe is a refined version of older Russian dishes.

  The Russian name carries a French trace of its own. Russians call the dish Бефстро́ганов, a form borrowed from the French bœuf Stroganoff. The legends offer color, yet the earliest printed recipe tells a plainer story.

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• 3. The Paper Trail

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  The 1871 edition of a classic Russian cookbook, A Gift to Young Housewives, gives the first known recipe. It is titled Govjadina po-strogonovski, s gorchitseju, which means "Beef à la Stroganov, with mustard". The beef is cut into cubes, not strips, and prepared in a dry marinade of salt and allspice. It is then sautéed in butter. The sauce is a simple roux mixed with prepared mustard and broth, finished with a small amount of sour cream. The recipe has no onions, no mushrooms and no alcohol.

  In 1891, the French chef Charles Brière was working in Saint Petersburg. He submitted a recipe for beef Stroganoff to a competition sponsored by the French magazine L'Art culinaire. That entry led Larousse Gastronomique to assume he had invented the dish. Both the recipe and the name, however, existed before then.

  A recipe from 1909 adds onions and tomato sauce. It serves the beef with crisp potato straws, which are considered the traditional side dish for beef Stroganoff in Russia. The 1938 Larousse Gastronomique version includes beef strips and onions, with either mustard or tomato paste as an option. That kind of flexibility would shape how the dish traveled.

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• 4. Leaving Russia

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  After the fall of the Russian monarchy in 1917, the recipe was popularly served in the hotels and restaurants of China. That continued until the start of World War II.

  The first English cookbook to include beef Stroganoff is Ambrose Heath's Good Food, published in 1932. The dish reached Hong Kong in the late 1950s.

  In the United States of the 1960s, several manufacturers introduced dehydrated beef Stroganoff mixes. Cooks combined the mix with cooked beef and sour cream. Even campers got a version, sold freeze-dried.

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• 5. Rice and Fries

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  In Brazil, the dish goes by the names estrogonofe and strogonoff. Estrogonofe is generally prepared with tomato paste or ketchup and mushrooms, and chicken is sometimes used instead of beef. It is generally eaten with cooked white rice and shoestring fries, known as batata palha.

  Japan serves Stroganoff most commonly with white rice, or with white rice seasoned with parsley and butter. Japanese home recipes frequently call for ingredients outside Russian tradition, such as small amounts of soy sauce. Its popularity increased dramatically with the introduction of instant sauce cubes from S&B Foods. These cubes hold dried seasoning and thickening agents. A cook adds them to water, onion, beef and mushrooms to make a Stroganoff-style sauce.

  The Nordic countries made different substitutions again.

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• 6. Europe's Versions

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  Sweden has a common variant called Korv stroganoff. Traditionally it uses falukorv, a local sausage, in place of the beef.

  In Finland, the sausage version is called makkarastroganoff. Beef Stroganoff is also a common dish there. Diced brined pickles are a normal ingredient in Finnish Stroganoff.

  France appears in Larousse Gastronomique, which lists Stroganoff as a recipe of cream, paprika, veal stock and white wine. That French version stands apart from the Russian original, which relied on mustard and a small amount of sour cream.

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• 7. Dinner Party to Ready Meal

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  Beef Stroganoff began appearing in British cookery books in the early 1930s. By the 1970s it was widely popular, particularly in restaurants and at dinner parties. The dish later declined and became associated with mass-produced ready meals and buffet-style catering.

  Modern British adaptations often use a creamy sauce made with white wine or brandy and sour cream or crème fraîche. Smoked paprika and English mustard are common additions. Beef fillet was traditionally used, while contemporary recipes frequently use pork, chicken or sausages. The dish is commonly served with rice, tagliatelle or potatoes. In recent years it has seen a limited revival in British food media, pub cuisine and home cooking.

  The version often prepared in American restaurants and hotels today uses strips of beef filet in a mushroom, onion and sour cream sauce. In the United States, the wide or twisted egg noodle has become the usual bed for that sauce.

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