Russian · Dinner · Sauce or gravy

Stroganoff Sauce

Mushrooms, mustard and soured cream reduced into a sauce for beef or anything else. Forty minutes and no beef required.

40 min total Serves 4 servings Easy
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Stroganoff Sauce

Photograph credit: Beef Stroganoff, sorta by jeffreyw · CC BY 2.0 · Flickr

Making Stroganoff Sauce Ahead

Keeps 2 days refrigerated. Reheat gently and never boil.

Stroganoff Sauce: The Method

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  1. Heat a wide dry pan over a high heat and add the mushrooms with no fat.

  2. Cook 6 minutes without stirring much, until they have given up their water and it has boiled away.

  3. Add the butter and oil and fry the mushrooms 3 minutes more, until browned. Lift out.

  4. Add the onions and cook 8 minutes, until soft and golden.

  5. Stir in the garlic, paprika and mustard and cook 1 minute.

  6. Pour in the wine and reduce by half.

  7. Add the stock and simmer 8 minutes, until reduced by a third.

  8. Return the mushrooms with the salt and pepper.

  9. Take the pan off the heat. Stir 2 ladlefuls of the hot sauce into the soured cream, then pour that back into the pan.

  10. Stir in the dill and lemon juice and serve without reheating.

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Tips for Success

  • Dry pan first so the mushrooms brown rather than stew.
  • Temper the soured cream and never boil it after.
  • Lemon at the end lifts the whole thing.

Why the Method Is What It Is

Soured cream splits at a simmer, so it goes in off the heat and is never allowed to boil after that. Temper it first — stir a couple of ladlefuls of the hot sauce into the cream in a separate bowl and then return the lot — and it stays smooth. Brown the mushrooms in a dry pan before any fat goes in and they concentrate instead of stewing in their own water.

Good Alongside

Buttered noodles · Rice · Boiled new potatoes

Swaps and Variations

  • An eighth of a teaspoon of garlic powder per clove is the stand-in usually given when you are out of fresh garlic; it will not brown the same way, and it burns easily, so add it with the liquid.
  • A dry vermouth keeps for longer than an open bottle of white wine and is the closer swap than a random white left in the fridge; for an alcohol-free version, use the same amount of stock with a squeeze of lemon.

The Numbers per Serving

Per serving, an approximate calculation from the ingredient list. Treat it as a rough guide: all the alcohol is counted, though some is lost in cooking. The calories include 4 g of alcohol a serving, which is not part of the protein, carbohydrate or fat. How the figures are worked out.

353Calories
8gProtein
17gCarbs
25gFat
3gFibre
8gSugar
790mgSodium

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Compiled by Turab

Checked by script for timings, diet labels and nutrition arithmetic. How the recipes are checked. Found a mistake? Tell us.

First published ; last changed .