Anti-Hamburger Helper Beef Stroganoff

Beef Stroganoff is one of the few things I remember my mom actually cooking when I was a kid. Little to no effort, Hamburger Helper Beef Stroganoff was all it was. I remember I used to like picking out and eating all the mushrooms. What I didn't realize then, was that I just wasn't a huge fan of ground beef. Now, I always use something different when a recipe calls for ground beef. I don't really know what it is about it, but I definitely have a weird thing about textures. So, with no further ado, I present to you, my beef strongaoff. 

This is my assistant, but not food taster, LUCY! She has been on a diet since July, and we just found out she lost five pounds, bringing her back down to her original weight in July. Go Luce-Goose!

For this recipe, you will need:
1 tablespoon soy sauce
4 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 cup sour cream
3 tablespoons dry white wine (I had some flat prosecco)
2 tablespoons Lea & Perrins Worcestershire sauce
2 tablespoons Maple Grove Wasabi Dijon dressing (not pictured)
2 tablespoons chicken base
2 cups of boiling water
2 packets gelatin
12 ounces egg noodles
12 ounces pearl onions
2 shallots
16 ounces mushrooms
1 tablespoonthyme
salt and pepper
1 tablespoon paprika
and 3.5 pounds of london broil

Before you do anything, boil two cups of water, then add the chicken base and dissolve. Add two packets of gelatin, and let it sit.

You'll need about 16 ounces of mushrooms. I got a big box at Sam's, and used half for this recipe.

Chop the mushrooms into medium slices, where they are a nice chunky "bite sized".

To ensure that the steaks were tender-not tough and chewy, I left them to soak in an apple cider vinaigrette, overnight. Acid helps to break down the fibers in the steaks.

Once out of the marinade, I dried them off with a paper towel. Then, I massaged a salt and pepper blend into them.

Using a cast iron skillet I heated in the oven, I quickly fried the steaks on the stove top on medium-high for about two minutes on each side. I was looking for a nice Millard reaction, which is when you see that nice brown on the steak.

 Take the steaks out, and set them aside to rest.

Add some olive oil. Throw the mushrooms in the same cast iron skillet.

Cook the mushrooms for about five minutes.

Cutting pearl onions is hard, y'all. I tried to do it like a regular onion, but I was losing too much of it to satisfy my taste.

The recipe I used said you could soak the onions in a bath of boiling water for thirty seconds, and that the skins should peel off in a snap.

It scarcely made a difference. Maybe try two minutes?

My awesome photographer kept getting distracted.

So, once you peel the damn skins off the onions, toss them in with the mushrooms.

As a person who is only okay with VERY cooked onions, I would definitely cut those suckers in half next time, which would probably save me a quarter of the headache of peeling them.

Now, chop the shallots and add them in.

After the shallots, add one tablespoon of dried thyme and one tablespoon of paprika.

Separately, combine the two tablespoons of Worcestershire, one tablespoon of soy sauce, and two tablespoons of wasabi dijon dressing

Add that to the pot, and let it reduce on medium for five minutes.

Now is when you add the good stuff. Take the juices from the meat plate, three tablespoons of wine, and the chicken broth gelatin mix to the pot.

Boil it four about eight minutes.

Drain the sauce off. 

In a bowl, add the sauce to one cup of sour cream.

 slowly.

 until it is all incorporated.

Add your new, deliciously creamy sauce back to your mushrooms and onions.

Chop the steak into bite-sized pieces. You don't want anyone to need a knife for this.

Can you tell the size of this awesomely blurry picture?

Add the steak to your exceedingly full sauce pan and be careful!

It's time to boil those egg noodles! I used a full bag that was twelve ounces.

Save two cups of pasta water.

Put those noodles back in the pan.

Carefully spoon the onions and mushrooms in.

 Add one cup of pasta water to your sauce to thicken it. It'll also help the sauce hold onto the noodles.

I maybe put too much steak, but NO SUCH THING in my book.

Slowly pour the sauce on top of the noodles.

Let it sit so it can thicken up!

my handsome photog, my boyfriend, Zach

 blurry bitty.

Look how gorgeous the island Zach made me is!

Two fine pieces of work, if I do say so myself.

This is the recipe I put my own spin on:

http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2015/01/ultimate-beef-stroganof-recipe.html

Check out all of Kenji's recipes. They are some of the best I've ever seen.

This post is dedicated to you, boo.

Quicky Fried Shrimp

Frying things is easy. I don't know why people are so scared of it. Fried shrimp are particularly easy because you have such a small amount of oil. I had some shrimp I had gotten on sale that I needed to make. This took about ten minutes from beginning to end.

This is my set up. A paper towel lined plate, the bowl of shrimp, an empty bowl to keep the shrimp shells, and a bowl with a half cup each of: masa, cornmeal, and all purpose flour with a dash of salt and pepper. This is the way Chris Hastings of Hot and Hot fries things, so I followed his delicious lead.

In a flat skillet, I put about an inch of oil, and turned it up to burner six, which is medium-high heat. I wanted to oil to be around 350 degrees.

This is the bowl of shrimp and the breading.

 You can't have fried shrimp without a good cocktail sauce! For mine, I used a tablespoon of horseradish, three tablespoons of ketchup, a half teaspoon of Lea and Perrins, the juice of one lemon, and a couple of dashes of the ultra salty fish sauce. You can add more horseradish if you like. I would recommend it, though because the flavor of horseradish is glorious.

I tossed the cleaned shrimp into my flour mixture, and mixed until each one was coated. I actually ended up tossing these through a colander because my bowl wasn't quite big enough not to make a huge mess. That worked very well in ensuring that each shrimp was generously coated with the breading.

Freeze your shells and use them to make a shrimp bisque. I'm saving mine for the next time I make gumbo!

Here, you see the top part of the shrimp is barely covered. Toss them in the oil where they are not touching, and fry each side two to three minutes depending on how large your shrimp are. I think mine would be considered small.

This is what my pound of fried shrimp looked like when done. Toss about a teaspoon of salt over the top of them when the come out of the oil.

These fried shrimp are delicious, quick, and easy. I hope you enjoy using my recipe. Let me know your results!