Beef Stroganoff

It’s really not the time of year for stroganoff yet, in my opinion, but I saw a (very different) recipe for it as 안주 (anju — food to eat while drinking) in a Korean food magazine, or actually I think it was described as “food to eat with beer on a summer night.” That’s not my image of stroganoff, obviously. It’s beef, it’s creamy, heavy and thick — it’s cold weather food.

But we don’t eat beef very often at our house. We don’t eat meat very often, in fact. I had just come back from a trip down to Jangheung to write about 표고 (pyogo — oak mushrooms, which are better known as shiitake mushrooms) and I was in a bit of a mushroom frenzy (still am, to be honest — watch how often they pop up in these recipes the next few weeks). B and I were lounging on a blanket in Hangang River Park, eating Korean-Chinese dumplings and cheesecake from Dean & DeLuca (where I allowed myself to buy one thing and one thing only — wild porcini sea salt), while I flipped through the magazine. The thought of a ladle of rich, creamy beef and mushroom stroganoff over brown rice (I’ve never liked it with noodles — it’s too much) made my heart pitter-patter a bit. It was the first evening we’d gone out for a bike ride and not been drenched in sweat by the end — the weather had just turned cool enough that I thought I might be able to get away with it.

At the market the next week, I came across an unusual mushroom called 이슬송이 (iseul-songi,  dewdrop pine mushroom). I was confused because, as I said, I was working on an article about oak mushrooms, and these looked like a rounded version. A little Navering set me straight — they were developed by a farmer in Gyeongsangnam-do Province, over the course of six years, from oak mushrooms and they grow in oak, just like oak mushrooms, but they are called pine mushrooms because allegedly they are “oak mushrooms with the scent of pine mushrooms.” They also yield twice as much in sellable product, which may be the real push behind them. I decided to give them a try and snatched them up.

I’m sure the ones I bought were greenhouse-grown, because it was still too early in the season for wood-grown mushrooms, but I was in the co-op yesterday and saw that the wood-grown oak mushrooms (원목표고) have arrived. The son of the owner of one of the oak mushroom farms I visited on my trip to Jangheung described the difference between greenhouse and wood-grown mushrooms pretty well: He said the ones grown in greenhouses are generally over-watered, so they are spongy and moist, while the ones grown in wood are drier and more textured, with a stronger flavor and scent.

Oak mushrooms grown in a greenhouse, in artificial logs made of sawdust.

Oak logs inoculated with oak mushroom spores on a wood-grown mushroom farm.

In the recipe, I used plain yogurt in place of the traditional sour cream, just because you generally have to go out of your way to get or make sour cream here, and I don’t notice a strong enough difference between the two to be convinced that my cheap, homemade yogurt isn’t a fine substitute (I sub it in for sour cream pretty much anytime a recipe calls for it).

Stroganoff doesn’t take as long to make as some other stewy-type dishes do (mostly because you use a decent cut of meat from the start, so there’s no need to cook it to death), but there are a lot of steps involved. Now that the weather is finally cooling off a bit and wood-grown mushroom season is here, a bubbling skillet of stroganoff might be the perfect thing.

Beef Stroganoff

• 4 tablespoons butter
• 450g chuck eye steak (소알목심), seasoned with salt and pepper, trimmed and cubed
• 1 c shallots (or onions), chopped
• 1 tablespoon garlic, minced
• 1 c mushrooms, sliced
• 1/2 teaspoon cumin
• 3/4 c plain yogurt or sour cream
• 1 c mushrooms, sliced
• 1 c beef stock
• 1/2 teaspoon mushroom salt
• 1/2 c green onions, chopped

1. Heat 2 tablespoons of butter in a skillet over high heat. When the butter is melted and the skillet is hot, brown off the beef cubes (you want to make this very quick, because your beef will go back in later and you don’t want it to overcook). Remove beef from skillet and place in bowl, set to the side.
2. Add the rest of the butter and loosen any beef scrapings from the pan. Add shallots and cook until transparent. Reduce heat to medium and add mushrooms, garlic and cumin. Heat until mushrooms are cooked through and liquid in the skillet is evaporated.
3. Reduce heat to low and add yogurt or sour cream and browned beef, including any juices that have collected in the bowl. Be careful not to boil, because the sour cream or yogurt will curdle.
4. Add beef stock and mushroom salt. Simmer on low until sauce is thickened to desired consistency.
5. Add green onions just before removing from heat.
6. Serve over noodles or rice.