Beef Stroganoff

One night last week my boyfriend stayed on a little later at work so I decided to treat him with a surprise dinner, ready for when he got through the door (earning major girlfriend points). I spent my lunch break at work deciding on a recipe, and popping out to Tesco to get a couple of ingredients. I decided on beef stroganoff, as it's a dish that I've always enjoyed but have never attempted to make myself. Most stroganoff recipes are rich in flavour and can be a little overwhelming, especially for a mid week/late night dinner. However I found a recipe on Jamie Oliver's website that made the dish sound a little lighter and fresher than others. His take on it sounded a little odd - beef stroganoff with a red onion and parsley pickle, and thyme basmati rice. The comments on his post weren't the most positive but I knew how much Stew loved pickles and he always likes to challenge himself when cooking, mixing ingredients you wouldn't normally think went together.

So I went for it! I bought a pack of two steak sirloins, a lemon, a bunch of parsley and some milk. The rest of the ingredients we already had at home. Now Jamie claims that this dish is one of his '15 minute meals' but I would beg to differ. Perhaps if you had all of the ingredients prepared and you were as quick in the kitchen as him, it might take just 15 minutes. But I'm a little slower than that!

I also added in an element of greenery to make the dish even healthier, and I decided on opting out of the 'swig of brandy'. This for me is the part that tends to make this dish heavier than I like.

Ingredients (serves 2):

• 1 medium sized red onion
• 4-5 pickles and some pickle juice (from the jar)
• 1 bunch of flat leaf parsley
• 1 cup basmati rice
• 1 generous sprinkling of dried thyme
• Kale (this was my personal addition but you could also use spinach, broccoli or not at all)
• 2 sirloin steaks
• 150g mushrooms
• 2 cloves garlic
• 1 lemon
• 1 heaped teaspoon of paprika
• Salt and pepper
• 4 heaped tablespoons of natural yogurt
• 1 splash of milk (full fat or semi skimmed)

Method:

1. I began by making the pickle relish. To do this I finely sliced the red onion and sliced the pickles length ways. I think roughly chopped the parsley into little bits, mixed everything together in a bowl and added a swig of pickle juice. Put this to one side to marinade.
2. Cut your steak sirloins into 1cm slices and place in a bowl.  Toss together with the paprika, some salt and pepper and finely grated lemon zest from half of the lemon. Set aside.
3. Boil the kettle and add the rice and thyme to a pan. Bring to the boil on a medium heat, before turning down and simmering for 10-11 minutes.
4. Chop the mushrooms into quarters and crush the garlic cloves. Put a large frying pan on a medium heat and a tablespoon of olive oil. When the pan gets hot, throw in the mushrooms. After a minute add the garlic and two thirds of the pickle relish. Stir regularly and and then transfer to another bowl.
5. Add the kale to a colander and sit on top of the rice pan and put the lid inside the colander, on top of the kale. This acts as a steamer from the water that the rice is simmering in. Cook for 5 minutes.
6. At the same time add another tablespoon of oil to the frying pan and then throw in the steak slices. Brown on one side before flipping over and browning on the other.
7. Then add back in the mushroom and pickle mixture. Stir thoroughly before adding the yogurt and milk. The yogurt may curdle a little. I added a squeeze of the lemon to help it but it still did it a bit.
8. Remove the kale and drain the basmati rice. The rice will have soaked up the flavours from the thyme and taste delicious! Serve by placing in a large bowl (rice to one side and kale to the other).
9. Spoon over the beef stroganoff mixture and garnish with the remaining fresh pickle that you left to one side at the beginning.

This recipe tasted absolutely phenomenal! It may sound like an odd combination but the sweetness of the pickle works great with the creaminess of the beef stroganoff. Plus the fresh steamed kale rounds the whole dish  off.