I asked some well-travelled family members for their advice on where to plan a visit for a weekend, without hesitation my father’s response was ‘St Petersburg and especially the wonderful Hermitage Museum and art gallery’. I have added it to my bucket list of places to visit, but for now I’ll dream of visiting by eating a classic Russian dish, beef stroganoff. Serve with carrots and jacket potatoes and maybe Russian vodka? I opted for red wine.
Russian beef & mushroom stroganoff
Ingredients
4 Jacket Potatoes
1 onion finely chopped
400g thinly sliced mushrooms
400g thinly sliced British lean sirloin steak
230g thinly sliced British rump steak
2 teaspoons smoked paprika
Salt & pepper
2 tablespoons cider vinegar
1 tablespoon wholegrain mustard
2 teaspoons lazy pre-chopped garlic or 2 garlic cloves, chopped
300 ml hot water with 1 beef stock cube
200ml (Elmlea) double cream alternative or cream, or 200ml of Greek yogurt
Method
- Place everything into a slow cooker (apart from 2/3 of the mushrooms) on high setting for 3 hours, or for 5 hours on a low setting if you would like it to take longer. Place jacket potatoes in an oven at 170C for 1.5 hrs before meal is required.
- Just before serving, microwave rest of the mushrooms for a few minutes, pour off the excess water and add to pot.
- Stir in the Greek yogurt or Elmlea to the stroganoff just before serving.
