Beef "Stroganoff"

Whenever I hear "stroganoff" I think about this song from the animated film, Anastasia (which, surprisingly was not put out by Disney). Fun fact - did you know John Cusack voiced the character "Dimitri." Now whenever I see him in real-people films, all I can think about is this guy:

Last week I attempted to make stroganoff, or something like it. The elements were there, but I didn't do a lot of research into finding an authentic recipe. And I was too tired to look into the best cut of meat to use. I settled on beef stew meat - which, FYI, needs to be cooked for a lot longer than 20 minutes. But I was so dang hungry I really didn't care.

What you need:

5 cloves garlic, chopped
1 onion, finely diced
2 pints mushrooms: I used button and baby bella, chopped
1 pound beef stew
olive oil
flour
salt and pepper
1/2 Tbs cornstarch
1 cup white wine
1 can beef stock (or consume)
1 cup sour cream (I always use light sour cream because, honestly, it tastes about the same to me)

Heat the olive oil and fry the onion and garlic until a light brown, set aside.

Next add the mushrooms to the skillet and cook those as well. They will give off a lot of juice which needs to cook out, so keep frying until they aren't moist. Set these aside with the onions.

Add the meat to the same pot and arrange in one layer. Sear well on one side before flipping and searing the other sides. Sprinkle with a little flour to help with this process. Season with salt and pepper.

Take your mushrooms and onions and add these to the beef, along with the wine and beef stock. Cook down about 10 minutes so the juice reduces by about 1/3. Scoop out 1/4 cup of liquid and mix with the cornstarch, then add this back to the pot. This is called a "slurry" and allows you to thicken the sauce without getting clumps of cornstarch speckled throughout.

Now, I let this cook together for maybe 30 minutes. It tasted fine, so I went ahead and added the sour cream, let it cook together some, and served it up. If I were to do things again I would hold off on adding the sour cream, cover the stroganoff and cook about 1 hour, making sure to keep the liquid content up by adding more wine or stock. This would allow the beef to get nice and tender.

**Serve beef stroganoff with egg noodles which are light and ridgy - perfect for soaking up the sauce