Beef Stoganoff- was Re: [Sca-cooks] Recipe request- ot?

[Phil Troy/ G. Tacitus Adamantius]

Also sprach Phlip:
>Ene bichizh ogsen baina shuu...
>
>>  And there's always beef stroganoff (I'm still looking for a really good
>>  recipe, but...) or sour cream/chocolate cake... (again, had it before,
>don't
>>  have a recipe off hand...)
>>
>>  Generys
>
>Originally, Beef Stroganoff was a luxury dish, rather than this hamburger
>mess we see today.
>
>Start with good steak- beef tenderloin comes to mind- and brown it, with
>onions and a bit of garlic, Add a bit of red wine and water, and simmer
>until it reduces to a thick sauce. Mix in the sour cream, heat through, and
>serve over noodles. With this sort of thing, the only spices added should be
>a bit of pepper, mabe a dash of salt- the idea is to let the flavors of the
>ingredients come through. A bright crispy salad goes really well with it, or
>qicly steamed green veggies with a dash of balsamic vinegar. Can't give you
>proportions- I do it by eye, when I'm in the mood.

I believe the original also called for mushrooms, and it comes down 
to French cookery (via Russian, presumably by some impoverished 
Russian expatriate: you know, all those dukes who drove taxis in 
Paris?) as a chafing-dish, tableside presentation.

Quickly sear and brown your thinly-sliced/shredded steak (yes, fillet 
is the standard; I also like flank steak for it).

Push to side of pan, add onion cut in fans (halved lengthwise, then 
each half sliced vertically down parallel to the core). Saute, again, 
until just lightly browned. Push to side and add mushrooms, and saute 
those. Garlic is a good addition but I don't recall its presence in 
the proto-dish. Deglaze pan with a dry red wine and simmer quickly 
until it thickens just slightly, and remove pan from heat while you 
add sour cream. Return to flame to reheat through. Noodles or rice 
are good accompaniments but I believe buckwheat kasha is the classic.

And once again, I have to wonder about the people in Pennsylvania and 
elsewhere, who serve an approximation of this dish as a stew. Not 
that it's a terrible idea or anything, just kind of odd, to me. It's 
not quite as radical a shift as some of the dishes that get called 
"goulash" in the US, but there seems to be not only a shift in 
concept, but also in ethnicity, if indeed the epicenter of this 
phenomenon is Pennsylvania.

Adamantius