There are as many recipes for Beef Stroganov as there are bulbs above the Orthodox churches of Moscow. And let's not talk about the spelling where all three are accepted: Stroganov, Stroganoff, Stroganov. One thing is certain: this dish, which has been part of Russian culinary heritage since the 19th century, is one of the rare dishes to have been part of French gastronomic culture since the beginning of the 20th century, just after the 1917 revolution. , at the time of the exile of the White Russians in France.

"The Bells of Moscow"

Beef Stroganov or Stroganoff had its heyday between the wars in the numerous Russian cabarets which were then in vogue in the French capital such as “les cloches de Moscow” which was established at 27 rue du Colisée. In La Semaine à Paris , the journalist Lucas reported on this famous establishment run by “ Mr. Galkine, (…) a friendly man if ever there was one” , serving “beef stroganoff, fillet of beef sautéed in paprika cream , bound in a paprika cream . This recipe which became a star in this select address in Paris in the 1930s was undoubtedly born in the form of a fricassee in the kitchens of French chef André Dupont in the service of Count Pavel Alexandrovitch Stroganov (1774-1817).

A creamy sauce

If today meat is cut into strips a lot, for this red meat stew we prefer to cut it into cubes in order to maintain a nice chew . Beef bourguignon , less expensive than fillet , will also make perfect meat. This dish, with a creamy sauce , is originally cooked with sour cream. As we don't really have this sour cream in France, we use a traditional thick cream from Lehmann . The initial marinade is not essential in itself but it adds more tenderness and flavor to the meat. To accompany this dish, we recommend fried potatoes or white rice.

Ingredients

For 6 persons

• 1kg of beef bourguignon already cut or 1kg of beef fillet (ask for it untied)
• 3 tablespoons soy or Worcestershire sauce
• 500g button mushrooms or 300g organic shiitake mushrooms from Marco Demacon
• 1 jar of Lehmann thick raw crème fraîche
• 1 chopped onion
• 2 glasses of white wine
• 2 glasses of beef broth
• 4 tablespoons of tomato paste
• 2 tablespoons grapeseed or olive oil
• 50g Lehmann churned butter
• 6 teaspoons of paprika
• 2 cloves of garlic, chopped
• 1 tablespoon brown sugar or sugar
• 1 tablespoon of fine mustard
• 1 tablespoon of flour
• 1 bunch of flat-leaf parsley, finely chopped
• Salt pepper

Preparation

1. Prepare a marinade with two glasses of white wine , a spoonful of soy sauce or Worcestershire sauce with half a teaspoon of red pepper or Espelette pepper. Cut the fillet into 2.5 cm thick cubes or remove the bourguignon meat from the vacuum cleaner. Grind pepper. Mix to distribute the marinade evenly and leave to cool for at least two hours and up to 12 hours.
2. Peel and slice the onion. Peel and chop the garlic. Wash the flat-leaf parsley leaves and cut it finely. Wash the button mushrooms in clean water. Trim the bottom of the button mushroom stems. Cut the button mushrooms into thick slices. Reserve.
3. Prepare a beef broth equivalent to two glasses of water with a beef broth cube. Reserve.
4. In a hot pan or casserole dish, brown the diced meat in the butter and oil until they are browned on all sides . Once this coloring is obtained, reserve the meat. Add a drizzle of oil and brown the onions in the pan or casserole dish until browned. Then add the mushrooms and chopped garlic. Brown for one to two minutes. Add the beef again.
5. Deglaze with the beef broth . Let everything cook for 5 minutes. In a container, add a glass of cold water and dilute by stirring 1 spoonful of flour. Stir in the paprika, brown sugar or sugar, tomato paste and mustard. Pour everything into the pan or casserole dish. Leave to simmer over low heat for 15 minutes. Once the sauce is reduced, denser thanks to the flour, add the cream and continue to simmer over low heat for 15 minutes . Adjust the seasoning at the end of cooking.
6. Serve the beef in a dish on which you spread the finely chopped flat-leaf parsley . Accompany the dish with fried potatoes or rice.

Variant

If you have chosen Marco Demacon's organic shiitake mushrooms instead of button mushrooms, all you have to do is open them and keep the juice to replace the beef broth with the shiitake juice.

The Stroganovs, story of a Russian dynasty between Europe and Asia

Beef Stroganov is one of the rare dishes, along with steak tartare, from deep and vast Russia to have successfully entered French cuisine . In Russia, the name Stroganov is famous. There is even a saying “Richer than a Stroganov, you die” . Forget the Condés, the Medicis. This family of Russian patricians never had an equivalent in Western Europe.

From the Hanseatic city of Novgorod

Originally from the ancient and powerful Hanseatic city of Novgorod , traders, industrialists, officers and statesmen, they were the fierce defenders of their city and their homeland, supporters of the tsars, patrons, conquerors of Siberia at the head of Cossacks, landowners of unimaginable lands which they gave in part to the Imperial Crown or to their peasants. They married the glories and tragedies of the history of the Russian Empire , between Western Europe and Asia.

In revolutionary Paris

One of the members of the dynasty, Count Pavel Alexandrovich Stroganov , acquired the ideas of the Enlightenment by his French tutor, was even at the time of the French revolution a member of the Jacobins club. A benefactor of conventionalists thanks to his fortune, “Popo” for his revolutionary friends, was recalled in 1790 by Catherine the Great and placed under house arrest. It was undoubtedly in the service of this reformist count that the French chef Antoine Dupont invented this creamy Russian-style fricassee that is beef Stroganov.

The count, after the death of Catherine II, returned to favor and was advisor to the Tsar, his godfather, then diplomat plotting against Napoleon in London. Recalled to Saint-Petersburg , he then participated in battles reducing the French Empire to defeat and distinguished himself at the Battle of Craonne in 1813 where he tragically lost his son. He died three years later on his way home.

The exile of 1917

Linked to the imperial crown, the Stroganov family was inevitably to disappear with it. Exiled after 1917 , the last direct representative of the line, Count Sergei Alexandrovich Stroganov , long resident in France, died in 1923 in Nice where he was buried in the Orthodox cemetery.

The last witness

Was this the last chapter of the story begun in Novgorod? No, in 1945, in Crimea, through one of those pranks that history has kept secret, the Yalta conference was held in one of the many palaces of the Stroganov family, nationalized like the rest of their property by Stalin .

In the audience, alongside a dying Roosevelt, was an officer, a member of the United States Navy: Georgy Shcherbatov-Stroganov , who emigrated across the Atlantic after 1917. He was the last eyewitness of the centuries-old saga of his family and his disappearance behind the scenes of 20th century history.

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