Digging through my grandmothers’ cookbooks and recipe boxes, I find dishes they prepared when weathering life’s rough patches. As much as I want to ask them how they managed to endure world wars, the Great Depression, and so much more, I can’t. But we can take a page from their book on feeding family.
Turning to their foods, we get a glimpse of their togetherness at supper time and, I hope, learn to gather the fortitude they did. The meals that sustained them can do the same for us now as we plow through quarantine, and we have the ability to ramp up those recipes with ingredients and influences not available to them back in the day. It’s how we can find kitchen comfort while sheltering in place.
Here’s an update of my grandmother June Granger’s Beef à la Stroganoff recipe. She must have used it frequently, based on the well-worn edges of the yellowed paper with her handwriting on a prescription pad. (She worked for a doctor just off of Oak Lawn Avenue in Dallas.) I added fresh mushrooms — I like the sturdiness of shiitakes in this, but others will do — and subbed vermouth for the sherry because that’s what I had on hand, and it works well.
Finally, I blended Dijon in with sour cream at the finish. It’s an especially easy dish, because cooking in the Dutch oven means you don’t have to tend to it a lot as you would on the stovetop. Some people like this over rice, but I find it’s best over wide egg noodles.
Beef à la Stroganoff
2 pounds beef chuck or sirloin or round steak, trimmed of excess fat and cut into thin slices (about 1/2 inch thick and 3 inches long)
1 large onion, chopped (about 2 cups)
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
1 pound shiitake (or white or cremini) mushrooms, trimmed and sliced thick
Coarse salt and ground pepper
1 3/4 cups beef or chicken broth
1/2 cup dry vermouth (or sherry)
2 tablespoons flour
1/2 cup sour cream
2 tablespoons Dijon mustard
Heat oven to 350 F. Toss beef, onion, garlic and mushrooms with 1 1/2 teaspoons coarse salt and teaspoon pepper in 5-quart Dutch oven or heavy pot with a tight-fitting lid. Add broth and vermouth and bring just to a boil, then reduce to simmer, stirring for 2 minutes. Cover, transfer to oven, and cook until beef is tender, about 2 hours.
In a 2-cup glass measuring cup, whisk flour with 2 tablespoons water. Ladle 1 cup cooking liquid from Dutch oven into measuring cup; whisk to combine. Pour into a small saucepan, and bring to a boil, cooking until thickened, about 1 minute. Into the Dutch oven, stir in flour mixture, then sour cream and mustard, stirring well. Serve over egg noodles; sprinkle with chopped fresh parsley, thyme or dill, if desired.
Makes 6-8 servings.