I have tried so many recipes but this one keeps me coming back time and time again!
It comes from the old South African All Colour Meat Cookbook by Sannie Smit. For a Chicken Stroganoff just use strips of tender chicken fillets or chicken tenders and if you need a sauce rescuer I have included a recipe for a French beurre manié.
Note: I always use a mixture of half oil to butter for frying and toss my meat in a creamy mushroom soup powder before frying.
Optional to taste: 1 – 2 cloves of freshly crushed garlic, sugar, tomato paste, paprika, and Maggi Seasoning sauce may be added for browning or to taste. If you don’t have Maggi seasoning sauce, you may substitute with a bit of soya sauce.
Servings: 6 Prep time: 40 – 50 minutes
Ingredients:
1 kg beef fillet or good quality steak (ie; …sirloin, rump, scotch, or porterhouse)
15 ml cooking oil
250 g onions, sliced
500 g mushrooms, sliced
7 ml salt
1 ml freshly ground black pepper or lemon pepper
7 ml mustard powder / freshly ground seeds
15 ml lemon juice, freshly squeezed
250 ml meat stock or (leftover steak sauce or creamy mushroom soup powder will do)
250 ml sour cream (Substitute with fresh cream & lemon juice to taste if unavailable)
15 ml fresh parsley, chopped
Method:
On high heat, brown meat or sear quickly in oil. Just until pink in the center or medium – rare. Remove.
To the same pan add your onions, mushrooms, salt, black pepper, mustard, lemon juice, and meat stock if used together with parsley – All are according to your taste. Add a little more oil-butter scraping up all the lovely crusty bits of sediment or browning. Return pieces of beef to pan, heat through, and stir in sour cream just before serving. You may add a blend of thick Greek yogurt together with cream and a light squeeze of lemon juice which is also lovely. Adjust seasoning and serve over buttered noodles or mashed potato together with a green salad – Enjoy!
Freezing: Freeze for 2 months and add sour cream before serving. Sour cream may be added before freezing but then do NOT freeze for too long.
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Portuguese Beef Stroganoff Trinchado
Total Weight of Whole Recipe: 3.416 kg
Total Calories in Whole Recipe: 5,598
Servings 8. Per 427 g Serving: 700 Calories
This is my second choice and is a lovely dish from Jan Braai | Delish served with new potatoes if you have a wheat allergy. Click here for the original link.
It’s believed to be popular in South Africa because of the Portuguese immigration from nearby Angola and Mozambique. The dish is traditionally served with a heap of chips (French fries) or Portuguese rolls.
Theoretically, the quantity of ingredients in this recipe means that you can serve 8 people, but in my experience, it’s one of those meals that are just too good, which means everyone wants second helpings.
My Note: Stick with the recipe – Don’t change a thing!
Ingredients:
2 kg rump steak, cut into 4 cm cubes
50 ml soy sauce
50 ml olive oil
50 ml butter
2 onions (finely chopped)
10 garlic cloves (crushed or chopped)
12.5 ml cayenne pepper (or chili powder)
3 (1 g) bay leaves (tsp,+crumbled)
2 (20 g) Beef Boullion, beef (dissolved in the water below)
500 ml water
125 g (125 ml) brandy
125 ml dry red wine (I use Tassenberg)
12.5 ml salt
5 ml black pepper
250 ml cream
1 (58 g) lemon, zest only (fruit+(2-1/8″+dia))1.128 kg new potatoes, with skin
56 g (112 ml) Cake flour
42 g Butter
Method:
Pour the soy sauce over the steak cubes. Now you need to fry the meat to seal in the juices and you’ll have to do this in batches. Generate some proper heat in your potjie by placing flames directly under it. Then add 15 ml of oil and 15 ml of butter and fry about one-third of the meat or as much as fits in the bottom of the potjie. You could of course fry all of the meat at once if your potjie is big enough. Take the cubes out and keep them to one side. Add another 15 ml of oil and 15 ml of butter and fry the next third. By the time you get to the last batch of steak cubes, there will be enough oil and fat left in the potjie.
When the last batch of meat is browned, put back all the other meat into the potjie unless you fried it all at once. Add the onions, garlic, cayenne pepper, and bay leaves; then fry for about 10 minutes until the onions are soft.
Pour in the beef stock, brandy, wine, salt, and pepper. Heat until the sauce starts to simmer, then cover with a lid and continue to gently simmer for 1 hour until the meat is very tender.
Remove the lid and stir in the olives, cream, and lemon rind. Bring to a boil and then cook for a further 10 minutes, uncovered, until the sauce starts to get thicker. Knead 42 g of butter well into the 56 g flour and form into little balls and stir them into the sauce to thicken. See note: beurre manié below.
Remove from the fire and let it stand for a few minutes before serving. The generous amount of sauce is part of this meal and should be enjoyed with the meat, so serve trinchado in bowls and eat the sauce with spoons when necessary.
AND …
I know it sounds like a bit of a mission to grate lemon rind, but in some instances, you really have to do it, this being one of those cases. Grating the rind of a lemon is really not a challenging job; it smells nice and it’ll make you look like the type of expert who reads this book. It adds a unique flavor to this dish that would just not be the same without it. Enjoy over pasta, with rice, over mash, or simply with chips and Portuguese rolls.
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How to make French kneaded butter or beurre manié
This is a lovely instant sauce rescuer or sauce thickener.
If your sauce is too thin: Knead together equal parts butter and cake or all-purpose flour. Just don’t use bread or self-raising flour.
Use equal weights in grams or a ratio of 3 parts butter to 4 parts flour – ie; 75 g butter to 100 g flour may also be used – In other words, knead in as much flour as you can get smoothly into butter. It must be very well kneaded in. When the sauce is nearly ready, stir or whisk in pea-sized blobs and as soon as reaches desired thickness remove it from the heat. Don’t let the sauce cook for more than a minute or two – as it will begin to thin out and then you will need to add more.
Use equal weights in grams or a ratio of 3 parts butter to 4 parts flour – ie; 75 g butter to 100 g flour may also be used – In other words, knead in as much flour as you can get smoothly into butter. It must be very well kneaded in. When the sauce is nearly ready, stir or whisk in pea-sized blobs and as soon as reaches desired thickness remove it from the heat. Don’t let the sauce cook for more than a minute or two – as it will begin to thin out and then you will need to add more.