My authentic Russian beef Stroganoff recipe is the best beef Stroganoff you’ll taste. It makes my take on the deliciously rich and creamy braised beef and mushroom dish cooked centuries ago in the grand kitchens of Saint Petersburg’s glorious pink Stroganov Palace and Stroganov dynasty kitchens during the Russian Empire. Perhaps better known as a retro classic of the 1970s, beef Stroganoff is rich in history, remains perennially popular, and is incredibly comforting. Based on a family recipe, this beef Stroganoff is the dish you need to make now.
If you’re a beef Stroganoff fan, you’ll love my deliciously-rich authentic Russian beef Stroganoff recipe, based on the beef Stroganoff my mum made in the 1970s. Since I’ve been back in Australia taking care of my elderly mother I’ve made this Strog for her almost weekly and it goes on Easter and Christmas holiday menus when I cook our Russian-Ukrainian family recipes. Because there are few things more comforting than eating and cooking, especially the dishes of our childhoods, and especially for the people we love.
If you are a beef Strog lover, my Russian beef Stroganoff recipe makes a gently-spiced, creamy Stroganoff, and it’s one of our best mushroom recipes and one of my best Stroganoff recipes. We also have recipes for chicken Stroganoff, meatball Stroganoff, mushroom Stroganoff, spaghetti Stroganoff, and pork Stroganoff, which uses the Chinese velveting technique, as well as recipes for classic Stroganoff accompaniments: crispy shoestring fries, creamy mashed potatoes and buckwheat kasha (but you’ll want to skip the toppings if serving this as a side).
Stroganoff is a dish I’ve adored since I developed an insatiable curiosity about cooking as a child clutching at my baboushka’s apron strings. I’d happily spend hours watch my grandmother cooking in the light-filled kitchen in the red-brick home that papa built in Sydney‘s Blacktown. One morning baba would make piroshki, another day she’d be stuffing papa’s homegrown cucumbers into jars to preserve for dill pickles. In the afternoon, she’d roll up goluptsi or make breaded kotleti, all the while stirring big pots of steaming borscht, rassolnik, ukha, or shchi.
Ever since my Russian-Ukrainian grandparents died back in the ’90s, I’ve used traditional holidays such as Orthodox Easter and Christmas as an excuse to wrap cabbage rolls, fold dough casings around fillings for dumplings such as Russian pelmeni and Ukrainian vareniki, and simmer beef and chicken stews. As I cook I channel my long-departed loved-ones and the food rituals I fondly recall as a child raised in a Russian-Ukrainian-Australian household in Sydney’s western suburbs in the ’70s. As we eat, the dishes transport us to those days, which were happier times for our family.
For the second time in many years, I spent Orthodox Christmas and Easter with mum, cooking her the food of her mother and her grandmother, my ‘baba’ and mum’s ‘baboushka’, which is how the family distinguished the two women when sharing stories around the dining table at the regular weekend lunches that were so leisurely they often evolved into dinner. Since mum’s cancer diagnosis, and, more recently, memory issues, it feels like a race against time to document our family recipes and stories for a Russian-Ukrainian-Australian cookbook and family memoir I’ve been writing.
And I have to confess, it’s been a bittersweet period back here in Australia. While I’ve treasured the precious time I’ve spent here with mum, despite the challenging circumstances, it’s been heartbreaking to be apart from my beloved husband for so long, with Terence still in our adopted home of Siem Reap, Cambodia. With mum currently undergoing memory testing, I’m not yet sure when I’ll get back to Terence and our crazy Cambodian black cat, Pepper.
I remember after my photographer husband shot the beef Stroganoff pic above, when we updated this post years ago, we mopped up the mushroomy sauce with Terence’s crusty sourdough and washed it down with a big Aussie red. The next day I used the rest of the mushrooms to make this Russian mushroom soup with handmade noodles, then Terence and I spent the afternoon making mashed potato and caramelised onion stuffed vareniki (my favourite) and minced beef and pork filled pelmeni (T’s favourite). We were cooking our way through Covid with cooking projects at the time.
On the side, I served a Russian garden salad with sweet juicy tomatoes, crunchy red radishes, crisp lettuce, and zingy onions from our local market, with loads of fresh fragrant dill, which we grow on our Siem Reap balcony. My stomach is rumbling just thinking about that meal. Leftovers got eaten the next morning, when we made fried dumplings that we dolloped with sour cream for brunch on the balcony. I’m looking forward to making my beloved husband that meal when I can get back to him. Until then, I’ll be cooking our way through cancer here in Australia.
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Now let me tell you all about my Russian beef Stroganoff recipe, which will make you a rich rendition of the braised beef and mushroom dish created in the grand kitchen of the Stroganov dynasty’s palace, and a much more delicious Strog than any pre-prepared beef Stroganoff from a supermarket.
Russian Beef Stroganoff Recipe for a Retro Classic from a Palace of Russian Nobles
Weekends and holidays for me are all about cooking and eating the food from my childhood growing up in a Russian-Ukrainian-Australian family in the western Sydney suburbs in the Seventies. The traditional Slavic food my family cooked and ate included this Russian classic. But beef Stroganoff also became very fashionable in Australia in the 1970s, and mum used to make it regularly.
Stroganoff remains perennially popular. These days, supermarket shelves in Australia are stocked with a mind-boggling array of brands of Stroganoff ‘recipe base’ or ‘meal base’ – Maggi, Masterfoods, McCormick, Continental, and more – as well as jars of Stroganoff sauce (including a fancy gourmet-looking Stroganoff by Beerenberg Farm, famous for their jams and chutneys), and loads of DIY Stroganoff meal kits.
Then there are the pre-prepared, ready-made Stroganoff meals that fill shelf upon shelf of supermarket cold sections – alongside another Russian classic, chicken Kiev. Putin’s war on Ukraine obviously hasn’t impacted Australia’s fondness for Russian food, thank goodness. Supermarket bakery sections sell packets of blini (Russian pancakes) alongside pita, naan, tortillas, and Turkish bread, and devilled eggs are trending again. Oh, and there’s also home-delivered chef-made Stroganoff!
Fortunately, Australians separate politics from culture and haven’t cancelled Russian food, they know that a ruthless dictator and his regime are to blame for the war on Ukraine, and not the Russian people and their long, rich culture – a culture that has given us some of the world’s most beloved authors, poets, composers, and ballerinas, not to mention cossack dancers, pop stars, and Eurovision winners.
Over the years I’ve tweaked my mum’s beef Stroganoff recipe, bumping up the spices, and subbing an ingredient I’ve been splashing into almost everything since we settled in Southeast Asia back in 2011. But before I tell you more about my recipe, I want to share a potted history of Russian beef Stroganoff for those of you who, like us, are interested in the stories behind the dishes. And if you’re not, just scroll down to my beef Stroganoff tips and recipe.
History of Beef Stroganoff
The original beef Stroganoff is an aristocratic Russian dish with peasant roots. But there were mushroom and beef stews and dishes centuries before beef Stroganoff was said to have been ‘invented’ by a French chef in the Stroganov dynasty’s St Petersburg palace kitchen in the late 1700s. It’s more likely that beef Stroganoff started out in life as a rustic stew that was refined by that French chef in the Stroganov kitchen.
If you’ve been to the enchanting city of St Petersburg, one of my favourite cities in the world, and you did a canal cruise, your boat probably glided right by the splendid pale pink Stroganov Palace on the corner of Nevsky Prospect and the Moika River Embankment. It’s so glorious, it’s impossible to miss.
And, yes, the Stroganov family spelt their name with a ‘v’. It’s thought the ‘ff’ came about when the dish was written on menus in French, as in ‘boeuf Stroganoff’, which was a fashionable thing to do in Imperial Russia. Affluent noble families imported French chefs to helm their kitchens or sent their Russian chefs to France to train.
Like many European dishes, beef Stroganoff would go on to travel the world with refugees, including Russian émigrés fleeing the Bolshevik revolution to China and Hong Kong. Then with World War II refugees, called ‘DPs’ or ‘displaced peoples’, like my grandparents and great-grandmother, who’d been put to work as slave labour in Nazi camps. That’s how iconic Russian dishes like beef Stroganoff, and chicken Kiev, blini and caviar, and devilled eggs became popular everywhere from Australia to the Americas.
Earliest Beef Stroganoff Recipes
My Russian beef Stroganoff recipe is based on a combination of recipes and memories: firstly and primarily, my memories of eating the beef Stroganoff that mum and baboushka made. Because, unfortunately when I began to refine the recipe we were in Cambodia, and my grandmother’s hand-written recipes were with mum in Australia. And mum isn’t so good with her phone camera these days.
I grew up on mum’s classic beef Stroganoff of melt-in-the-mouth slices of beef in a creamy mushroom, sour cream and mustard gravy, served with mashed potatoes. Aside from the mushrooms and onions, mum’s beef Strog wasn’t too far removed in flavour from the earliest documented Russian beef Stroganoff recipe in Elena Molokhovets’ A Gift to Young Housewives, which culinary historians believe to be closest to the original beef Stroganoff, and a beef Stroganoff we all fell in love with at a restaurant in Moscow.
My recipe is influenced by the earliest documented Russian beef Stroganoff recipes, which I tested. For many Russian home cooks, the most authentic beef Stroganoff recipes are those of Elena Molokhovets in A Gift to Young Housewives dating to 1861, and Pelageya Aleksandrova-Ignatieva’s beef Stroganoff recipe in Practical Basics of Culinary Arts, dating to 1899. My grandmother had copies of both cookbooks. While trying to replicate and refine my family recipes, I still endeavoured to remain loyal to those early recipes.
I also drew inspiration from the beef Stroganoff that travelled to China and East Asia with Russian émigrés (which explains my inclusion of a quintessentially Asian ingredient) and that delicious beef Stroganoff we became smitten with in Moscow when we took mum on a European holiday after dad died. That beef Stroganoff was at Café Pushkin and it resembled mum’s Strog more than others we tried. But while it’s considered by many restaurant critics to be the best beef Stroganoff in Russia, I still think my mum’s beef Stroganoff was better.
Elena Molokhovets’ Beef Stroganoff from A Gift to Young Housewives
Molokhovets’ recipe for ‘Govjadina po-strogonovski s gorchitseju’ or ‘beef in the Stroganoff style with mustard’, as it’s called in the cookbook, includes tender beef, allspice, butter, salt, flour (to coat the beef), sour cream, bouillon, pepper, and Sareptskaja mustard.
Her recipe didn’t list ground paprika, which, for me, and many of you, is an essential ingredient in beef Stroganoff. Nor the other condiment that I love to include and that’s my (not-so) secret ingredient: fish sauce.
While mushrooms and onions may well have featured in the original beef Stroganoff served in the sumptuous dining room of the pink Stroganoff Palace in the late 1700s, mushrooms didn’t appear in the early beef Stroganoff recipes for another century or so.
That doesn’t mean Russians weren’t already eating beef stews or beef and mushroom stews – there are detailed instructions for preparing beef stews using every bit of the cow in Domostroi: Rules for Russian Households in the Time of Ivan the Terrible, first published in 1533 – and mushrooms feature heavily in that book: fresh, dried, pickled, boiled, baked, and fried in butter; in pies, pastries, patties, fritters, tarts, dumplings, soups, and stews.
Pelageya Aleksandrova-Ignatieva’s Beef Stroganoff in Practical Basics of Culinary Arts
In 1899, Pelageya Aleksandrova-Ignatieva’s beef Stroganoff recipe in her Practical Guide to the Basics of Culinary Arts called for beef tenderloin, butter, tomato paste, sour cream, beef broth, fume (an aspic-like bone broth), sausage, onion, salt, pepper, and Kabul sauce. But still no mushrooms in her Stroganoff recipe.
That Kabul sauce – or Soy Kabul sauce or Mogul sauce, as it was also called – was listed as a dressing in an Olivier salad recipe published in the March 1894 issue of the Russian culinary magazine Наша пища or Our Food, edited by M Ignatiev, according to culinary historians Pavel and Olga Syutkin.
The Syutkins write that the “now forgotten Kabul sauce” was “made of boiled and then pureed soybeans mixed with cayenne pepper, broth, and vinegar.” I’ve tried to contact the Syutkins unsuccessfully. But I’m going to tell you more about what I’ve learnt about Kabul sauce in my meatball Stroganoff recipe.
As for when mushrooms appeared in the gently spiced mushroom gravy that distinguishes beef Stroganoff? I’m going to tell you all about that in my mushroom Stroganoff post.
The Book of Tasty and Healthy Food by Anastas Mikoyan
Considered the most iconic cookbook of the Soviet era, The Book of Tasty and Healthy Food was a comprehensive collection of Russian recipes curated by Anastas Mikoyan and first published in 1939 by the USSR Ministry of Food. I have my grandmother’s tattered, torn, coverless copy of an edition published in the 1950s right by my side, along with an English translation.
This beef Stroganoff ingredients list includes 500g meat, 1kg potatoes – yes, potatoes! – 3/4 cup of sour cream, 1 tbsp ‘Yuzhni’ sauce, 2 onions, 1 tbsp flour, 3 tbsp butter, and, in the recipe instructions, salt and pepper. Potatoes, but, again, no mushrooms. Yuzhni or Yuzhny sauce (translated as ‘southern sauce’) was made from apples, tomatoes, onions, garlic, raisins, Madeira and vinegar, and was all at once sweet, sour and tart and loaded with umami. Sound familiar?
The recipe calls for washing the meat (sirloin, ribeye or top round roast were suggested), removing the tendons, slicing it into small pieces, pounding it with a meat mallet, then julienning it – which is no doubt a response to the poor quality meat that Russians would have had access to during the Soviet period. That’s if they could even source meat.
The sliced onions were fried, the meat and seasoning added and fried for another 5-6 minutes, flour was sprinkled on and stirred in, the meat and onions fried for another few minutes, sour cream added, more frying, then the Yuzhni sauce was added. That’s a speedy Stroganoff that comes together in around 15 minutes. The recipe calls for a side of fried potatoes and fresh dill and parsley showered over the lot.
And what about the use of Madeira in the ‘southern sauce’? The presence of the Portuguese fortified wine in Russia dates to Peter The Great (1672-1725) and was long used in one of my mother’s favourites dishes, mushrooms sautéed in Madeira, cream and sour cream. I’m going to share that recipe with you all soon.
While baboushka’s Book of Tasty and Healthy Food was well-used, she didn’t wash her meat, although she did tenderise it with a mallet; she used mushrooms (essential), although she certainly didn’t put potatoes in her beef Stroganoff. Both baba and mum served potatoes, mashed or fried, on the side not in beef Stroganoff. Both spiced their Stroganoff.
Tips to Making this Authentic Beef Stroganoff Recipe
Here are some tips to making my beef Stroganoff recipe, as it’s actually very easy. If you’re not of Russian-Ukrainian heritage and haven’t eaten your way through Russia or Ukraine, my traditional beef Stroganoff is probably different to the modern beef Stroganoff recipes you’ve cooked, especially in the USA.
Of course that goes without saying if your experience of beef Stroganoff was the paler, blander American-style beef Stroganoff made from canned mushroom soup, served with noodles. I’m sure that must bring back nostalgic childhood memories for some readers. My family always used fresh mushrooms in a traditional beef Stroganoff.
Beef Stroganoff Ingredients
Let’s start with the beef Stroganoff ingredients.
The Beef
The earliest pre-Revolution recipes dating to the 1800s called for ‘tender beef’ and ‘beef tenderloin’, while the Soviet era recipe dating to the 1930s listed sirloin, ribeye or top round roast. My grandmother used the cheaper cuts of meat, which she pounded with a mallet to tenderise.
Back in the day, my parents used better cuts of beef, such as eye fillet or fillet mignon, which is essentially tenderloin. These days, however, my mother prefers the juicy full flavours of Scotch fillet, which I recently used in a beef Stroganoff for her and it was wonderful.
Make sure to remove the beef from the fridge around 30 minutes before you cook it to bring it to room temperature first. When it comes to cooking the beef, it’s very unorthodox, but I recommend using a wok and stir-frying the beef for just a minute or two, as you would an Asian stir-fry.
Of course, you can use the same skillet or pan you cook the mushrooms in, wipe it out with a paper kitchen towel, turn the heat up to high, and sauté the beef pieces over high heat for a few minutes only, then rest the beef for five minutes.
The Mushrooms
Back in my great-grandmother’s day, when my baboushka was a child, they foraged for wild mushrooms in the forest around their village not far from Odesa, in the land we now know as Ukraine. My great-grandmother was born when it was still ‘Odessa’, during the Russian Empire, and my baba was actually born on the eve of the Bolshevik Revolution.
If you can, use wild foraged mushrooms, otherwise whatever mushrooms you can source: brown mushrooms, button mushrooms or mushroom caps or cups. I also love shiitake mushrooms, which are abundant and affordable here in Southeast Asia. I adore their earthy taste and meaty texture.
Sour Cream or Cream
My beef Stroganoff is creamy from both sour cream (smetana) and thickened cream. I use half as much cream as sour cream.
Spices
My beef Stroganoff is more richly spiced than most. The only spices in the earliest beef Stroganoff recipes were pepper and allspice. Both are essential and, oddly, allspice is often left off the ingredients list of modern recipes. I use more allspice that most recipes.
Paprika wasn’t in the earliest recipes, but ground paprika is a must as far as I’m concerned – try to get hold of a sweet Hungarian paprika.
Mustard
Mustard is a must. Molokhovets’ recipe is called ‘Beef in the Stroganoff style with mustard’ or Govjadina po-strogonovski s gorchitseju and in addition to tender beef, allspice, butter, salt, flour (to coat the beef), sour cream, bouillon, and pepper, calls for Sareptskaja mustard.
While I adore Sareptskaja mustard, and you can buy it online, sadly, we can’t get Amazon deliveries here in Siem Reap, so I use wholegrain mustard.
Worcestershire Sauce or Fish Sauce
From Pelageya Aleksandrova-Ignatieva’s 1899 recipe onwards (and maybe earlier), beef Stroganoff recipe lists included some kind of sauce for a boost of umami, whether that was Kabul sauce, also called Soy Kabul sauce or Mogul sauce, or Yuzhni or Yuzhny sauce, commonly known as a ‘brown sauce’.
Worcestershire Sauce became a standard in beef Stroganoff recipes. But after experimenting with fish sauce, which we use daily here in Cambodia, I love it in my beef Strog: fish sauce adds loads of umami, not a fishy taste, which some think. I’ve said fish sauce is optional in the recipe, as I know not everyone loves fish sauce, but do try my beef Stroganoff with fish sauce.
We recommend Thailand’s Megachef for a top quality fish sauce, as its sodium levels are always consistent. Megachef is easy to find throughout Asia and in Australia, UK and Europe, however, not in the USA apparently, where our American friends mostly recommend Red Boat Fish Sauce.
And before you say that fish sauce has no place in beef Stroganoff, as one reader recently told me, note the key ingredients of Worcestershire sauce: vinegar, salt, sugar or molasses, garlic, shallots, onions, soy sauce, and anchovies. What’s fish sauce made from? Small fish such as anchovies that are fermented.
Beef Stroganoff Side Dishes
I always serve my beef Stroganoff with either shoestring fries (beef Stroganoff’s traditional side), creamy mashed potatoes (Terence’s recipe is the best) or buckwheat kasha. Some enjoy rice or pasta with their Stroganoff.
A fresh Russian garden salad on the side is absolutely essential, as are dishes of dill pickles, fresh fragrant dill, and sour cream.
If you enjoy my authentic Russian beef Stroganoff recipe, browse this collection of our best stew recipes which includes my favourite Russian stews. Enjoy!
Russian Beef Stroganoff Recipe
Equipment
Ingredients
- 800 g beef steak - tenderloin, also called eye fillet or fillet mignon; Scotch fillet is also wonderful
- 1 tbsp allspice - ground
- ¼ tsp salt
- 2 tbsp butter - divided
- 3 tbsp olive oil - divided, or a neutral cooking oil
- 2 white onions - roughly sliced
- 250 g brown mushrooms or shiitake mushrooms - sliced in halves or thirds depending on size
- ½ tsp black pepper
- 1 tsp ground paprika
- 100 ml cream
- 150 ml beef stock
- 1 tbsp wholegrain mustard
- 1 tbsp fish sauce - optional
- 200 ml sour cream
- ½ tsp salt or to taste - optional
Instructions
- Two hours before you plan to start cooking, trim the beef of fat and, cutting against the grain, slice the beef into pieces of around 2cm x 5cm.
- Transfer the beef to a sealed container and sprinkle 1/4 teaspoon of salt, a tablespoon of allspice onto the beef, rubbing it into the meat to ensure it is evenly distributed, then refrigerate for two hours.
- Remove the beef from the fridge half an hour before you plan to cook to bring it to room temperature.
- In a cast iron skillet or large pan, over medium heat, gently fry the onion slices in a tablespoon each of butter and olive oil until translucent and soft, then transfer the onion to a large bowl.
- To the same skillet or pan, add another tablespoon each of butter and olive oil, turn the heat to medium-high, add the mushrooms, sauté until they begin to brown and their juices are released, add half the black pepper and paprika, and continue to sauté until soft, then transfer the mushrooms to the same plate as the onions.
- In a wok* over high heat, add a tablespoon of olive oil and heat until shimmering, add the beef pieces and stir-fry on high heat for a minute or two until brown, remove from the heat and transfer to a plate to rest for at least 5 minutes. (*If you don't have a wok, use the same skillet or pan you cooked the onions and mushrooms in, wiping the pan first with a paper kitchen towel).
- To the skillet or pan you cooked the onions and mushrooms in, over low heat, add the cream, remaining black pepper and paprika, stir until warm, slowly add the beef stock, stirring to combine. Return the onions and mushrooms to the pan, add the mustard, stir to combine, and simmer until the sauce reduces and thickens.
- Add the beef pieces and juices to the pan, then the fish sauce and sour cream, stir to combine and taste, adding a little more salt if needed (sometimes I add more spice at this point), and simmer for five minutes or so.
- Serve on individual plates, garnished with fresh dill, with sides of crispy shoestring fries, mashed potato or potato gratin, gherkins, and additional dollops of sour cream.
Nutrition
First Published 2 April 2018; Last Updated 2 February 2026
Please do let us know if you make this Russian beef Stroganoff recipe as we’d love to know how it turned out for you. Share your feedback, tweaks and tips or ask questions in the comments below.
Made this last night for the family with mash potatoes and carrots on the side. The meat was tender and I only added a little fish sauce as the stock (from stock cubes) was already pretty salty. Everyone loved it and there was no leftovers! When it gets colder here it will be a weekend favourite. Thanks!
Hi Janice, so pleased you enjoyed it. Re the fish sauce – if you use a good quality fish sauce, one that you’d use for a dipping sauce rather than for cooking, it should add umami rather than saltiness. We’ve got a whole collection here, LOL, but for this I use my best quality Vietnamese fish sauce, which is quite old and from a small producer. It’s big and rounded and almost caramel-like. It’s a fantastic winter dish, especially with a potato gratin. Thanks for dropping by!
This really is the best beef stroganov recipe I’ve ever tried! I made your mash to go with it. Oh my. We were hoping to have leftovers, but no such luck it was that good. Would love your shoestring fries recipe.
Hi Helen, thank you for the kind words. So pleased you enjoyed it – and Terence’s mash. Terence is the fries expert and I have been trying to persuade him to do a recipe as matchstick fries are the traditional palace pairing. I will him nicely again and let you know when the recipe is up ;) Thanks for taking the time to stop by and leave a comment :)
This is the best! Grew up on mum’s strog made with tinned mushroom soup so was never a fan. Thought I’d try this and now hooked. Sorry winter is over.
Hi Sue, so pleased you enjoyed it that much! You could always turn the aircon up… ;)
The best stroganoff I ever had was at a school cafeteria in the Ural mts of Russia. This was fabulous! I added more mustard and pepper. Loved it!
Hi Christine, how wonderful! I never got to the Urals, but my Papa spoke of the region with tremendous adoration for the lofty mountains, towering forests and tranquil lakes. Still dream of travelling there, and more widely in Russian and the Stans one day. I also add more mustard, pepper and spices, but I appreciate that not everyone has the palate for spices we do. There’s more spice in the chicken stroganoff, which has more Eastern/Asian influence. Please do let us know if you make that. Spasiba for taking the time to drop by and leave a comment!
I like the fact that this recipe does not inlude flout, but that also makes me wonder.. does that mean the stroganoff will be less thick and more watery?
Nikola, did you mean ‘flour’? If so, no, the sauce will reduce when simmering. If it’s not thick enough, just turn the heat up high a little for a while until it is, then reduce to simmer again. You can see from the pic that it’s not watery :) I would love to know how it turns out for you and what you think of it. This is a Russian-Australian recipe after all, not 100% Russian, but I tried hard to achieve something between my memory of baboushka’s dish, the Stroganoff we enjoyed in Russia, and the historic recipe. I like to think I have the best of all three, but always welcome feedback. Spasiba for taking the time to leave a comment.
Larissa, your babouchka would be proud this is really the most delicious beef stroganoff I have ever eaten. I cook this regularly and my kids and grandkids love it so much. It is even better than my own family recipe! Spasiba, Larouchka!
Natalia, spasiba! Thank you so much for dropping by to share that! You’ve brought tears to my eyes. So appreciate it! Thank you so much! Please drop by and visit us again. Lara x
This recipe turned out great. There’s so many recipes out there that use ingredients like red wine and a roux to thicken the sauce when it just needs reducing. I’ll drink my red wine with the dish, thanks! Made shoestring fries, but they were a little greasy, I don’t think I had the oil temperature right. Yes, that’s a hint for you to do a recipe! Did your family serve it with mash instead? I think it might go better to soak up the sauce. Thanks!
Ha! Ha! And a glass of red goes very nicely with it! Terence is actually experimenting with shoestring fries so we should get a recipe up soon. My grandmother made deliciously greasy fries too :) But, yes, we mostly ate it with mashed potatoes. Thanks for the kind words and taking the time to drop by and leave a comment :)
Agree with the others, by far the most delicious beef strog I’ve made and I’ve made a lot, it’s a family favourite. Will try some of your other strog recipes. I see you have a chicken strog, which looks great. Thank you.
Thank you so much for taking the time to drop by and let us know. I’m actually posting a meatball Stroganoff recipe later today :)
Your version is very authentic and I am looking forward to trying it. A very long time ago I saw the original recipe in larousse Gastronomique which included marinating the beef in white wine for 24 hours first. I no longer have that book and was wondering if you are aware of any aromatics I should add to the wine. Thanks.
Hi Ron, why don’t you try my recipe and see what you think? :)
We’ve never marinated our beef in wine for Stroganoff, however, I did search for a Larousse recipe, as I was curious, as I haven’t seen the book in years. You can access them on both the Open Library and Internet Archive.
While this Bœuf Stroganov recipe says it takes only 30 minutes (“15 min. de préparation, 15 min. de cuisson”), it includes white wine and it calls for 12 hours of marinating in the wine, with a bay leaf and sprig of thyme. So you’ve got some very subtle aroma there.
I used Google Translate, which makes for an amusing translation. I like the use of ‘blaze’ here: “Heat the cognac, pour it into the frying pan and blaze.”
The ingredients are: 800 g beef tenderloin 4 onions 3 shallots 1 large carrot 1 bay leaf 1 sprig of thyme 75 cl of white wine 200 g of mushrooms from Paris 80 g butter 1 glass of cognac liqueur 15 cl thick fresh cream salt, pepper
Instructions:
1. Cut the beef tenderloin into 2.5 cm long strips; salt and pepper.
2. Peel and chop the onions and shallots, peel the carrot and cut it into small dice. Put these vegetables in a terrine. Add the crumbled strips of fillet, bay leaf and thyme. Pour the white wine. Let marinate for at least 12 hours in the cool, covered, stirring the meat from time to time.
3. Clean the mushrooms and cut them into strips.
4. Drip and blot the meat. Cut the marinade in half and pass it.
5. In a frying pan, brown the mushrooms with 30 g of butter, then drain them and keep them warm.
6. Jet the fat, wipe the frying pan. Put in it to heat the remaining 50 g of butter, add the meat and sauté it for 5 minutes on high heat, turning it over non-stop so that it does not burn.
7.Heat the cognac, pour it into the frying pan and blaze. Mix and then, using a skimmer, take out the meat and arrange it in the serving dish. Keep warm.
8.Supply the mushrooms in the frying pan, add the marinade and fresh cream. Stir over high heat to thicken the sauce, adjust the seasoning and top the meat. Serve very hot.
Please let me know if you make it. Unfortunately we can’t get “mushrooms from Paris” here :)
Thanks for dropping by!
Could be a great recipe…don’t cook in metric measurements. ☹️🇺🇸
Hi Stewart, it is a great recipe :) We went with metric when we launched Grantourismo in 2010 because we’re Australians raised with metric, the rest of the world uses metric and we’ve got readers from right around the world, and we just assumed the USA would eventually convert to metric. Bakers in the USA use metric, as it’s easier to do conversions and scale recipes, and many restaurant kitchens in the USA use it, too. Hopefully the US will make the shift to metric at some point.
Having said that, we do have a large readership from the USA, so we have been looking at adding your system as well. It’s just a lot of work as we have thousands of posts and it will have to be done manually. Google also has a fantastic conversion tool — if you just search for a conversion it pops up at the top of the search results.
I’ve done the conversions for you, below, and as we’re not baking, I’ve rounded them up.
800 g / 1.75 pound beef steak tenderloin or fillet
250 g / .55 pound brown mushrooms or button mushrooms sliced in halves or thirds depending on size
200 ml / 6.75 oz sour cream
100 ml / 1.41 oz cream
150 ml / 2.12 oz beef stock
I hope you enjoy it!
Lara this is the best beef Stroganov recipe and one of the only truly authentic Stroganov recipes on the Internet. My baba also add more spices as you have. I tried to find a recipe like this for many years. I really don’t like those creamy American Stroganov recipes with no flavour. We enjoy this so much with Terrence’s shoestring fries. Spasiba.
Hi Vera, awwww thank you so much. I’m so pleased to hear that your baboushka also used lots of spice. I’m not a fan of the ultra creamy Stroganovs either. Terence is also happy to know you make the fries. Thanks so much for taking the time to drop by and let us know :)
I have been making beef strog for years and thought it was from my hungarian roots. My daughter wanted to study Russia and I am fascinated to learn the history of one of our favorite dishes. She will be thrilled to know that we will be making her favorite as part of her Russia studies. Thank you for the history lesson and recipe!
Hi Adrienne, how wonderful! I am so pleased to hear this! I have recently made some more historical connections that may have influenced the dish’s development in the Stroganoff family palaces that I’ll be adding to this post soon. A lot of my Russian family recipes on Grantourismo have a little history in them, as I love the stories behind dishes, so do browse those, too, when you both have time. Food is a wonderful way through which to explore history and culture.
I’m also launching a separate Russian-Ukrainian recipe site that will be loaded with history and stories that you and your daughter may be interested in. I’m currently at my mum’s in Australia and she’s translating a lot of recipes for me from my grandmother’s old Russian cookbook and at the same time we’re reminiscing as we go through family photos and she’s recollecting stories her parents and grandmother told her that I’m then cross-checking with historical events. I’ll be sharing that sort of stuff on the site.
Having said all that, I do remember Hungarian Stroganoff from our time in Budapest. It was more red in colour due to the use of Hungary’s wonderful smoky and sweet ground paprika, as well as fresh red capsicum (bell peppers). Does the recipe you use make a redder Strog?
While Hungary was never part of the Soviet Union, as you probably know, there was a long period of about 45-50 years of Soviet influence in Hungary. Soviet occupation that began during World War 2 and didn’t end until the 1989 revolution in Hungary – Hungary was also a member of the Warsaw Pact – so during that period there would have been cultural influence, as well as cultural resistance, of course.
But there would have been even earlier cultural influence and exchange. For instance, prior to that period, the Russians were publishers of cookbooks and recipe magazines that were translated and widely circulated throughout Europe.
However, there were even earlier historical connections and relationships between the nobles of the Russian Empire and the Habsburg’s Austro-Hungarian Empire, and even a marriage between a Romanov princess and Archduke Joseph of Austria/Palatine of Hungary. Royals and nobles always influenced culture, especially fashion and food, so the dish may well have travelled to Hungary then.
Best of luck to your daughter with her Russian Studies and thanks for taking the time to drop by and leave a comment :)
I have made an “Americanized version” of Beef Stroganoff for many years but this was the first time I used Allspice and fish sauce and boy did it make a difference. This is the best version of Stroganoff I have ever had, if not one of the best dishes of any kind I have had. Thanks so much for sharing it with the world!
Hi Philip, thank you so much for the kind words – appreciate it. You should try some of my other Stroganoff recipes – perhaps start with the chicken or the meatball Stroganoff? Or, if you like Cantonese food, try my pork Strog using the velveting technique: https://grantourismotravels.com/best-stroganoff-recipes/ Thanks for taking the time to drop by :)
Lara, agree with the others. this is the best beef stroganoff and I’ve made a lot of the top recipes on google. made it for the first time in a few months and was reminded how yummy it is, I wanted to let you know. we also love your chicken strognoff. ill leave a comment there for you. looking forward to your cookbook.
Hi Eva, so love hearing this! I have a soft spot for the chicken Strog too. Please try the pork Strog if you haven’t yet. Thank you so much for taking the time to drop by and let us know :)
I just cooked this recipe it was absolutely delicious. 10/10 I’ll will definitely be a making this dish again.
Hi Dee, love to read this! Thank you so much for dropping by to let us know :)
I love this recipe. Growing up as 1st generation Australian in a Ukrainian – Russian household I loved our food. My grandparents / parents had not used wine to marinate the meat as they could not afford such ingredients. I lost most of their recipes and wanted to thank you for sharing.
Hi Vicki, thank you so much for sharing that insight :) It’s always so lovely to connect with another Aussie of Ukrainian-Russian heritage. I love the food too (obviously!) and have really loved cooking it for mum while I’ve been in Australia, especially as she’s not well. It’s just such comforting food, isn’t it? I just wrote a post on my Patreon page about how important it is to document those recipes and wrote about finding Baba’s recipes – even though that page is about my Cambodian cookbook – I hope you don’t mind if I email you a link to that post. I’m pitching a cookbook cum history cum memoir on my family’s recipes. If I manage to get a publisher I’ll share that news on our site so please subscribe if you haven’t already :)
Okay, this is not normal for me. I’m just a home cook for myself and I like stroganoff. This was absolutely so yummy! It’s hard not to just eat al at one sitting. Just super. I did grab the smoked paprika by mistake but it didn’t hurt it at all! Undetectable I think. I’m just quietly raving about it.
Hi Jerry, thank you so much for the kind words. Smoked paprika is just fine. I will add that to the notes: smoked, sweet or plain ground paprika all work, they just give slightly different tones. Thank you for taking the time to drop by to let us know. More new recipes coming very soon, so do drop back and see us again :)