Veggie Stroganoff Recipe

My lovely lady friend is a vegetarian, so when I cook for both of us I need to be able to move away from the meat. Here's the result of a recent experiment that turned out pretty well. This recipe is enough for 4-6 people.

6Tb unsalted butter
1/2 onion, diced
2-3 cloves garlic, diced
1/4ts cayenne pepper
1ts anchovy paste (optional)
1-1.5 lbs mushrooms, sliced. Try to use some good ones like oyster, chanterelles, morels, shiitakes to mix in with button or criminis.
1ts dried thyme leaves (you can use fresh)
1/3-3/4 lb soy-based beef substitute of your choice. I used Gimme Lean "ground beef" in the tube. You could also omit this.
3/4 cup veggie or mushroom broth
1Tb Worcestershire sauce
1Tb brandy or sherry
1Tb vermouth or non-oakey white wine
1ts soy sauce
1 cup sour cream
1ts dijon mustard
Fresh ground black pepper
salt (I used a mix of seasoning salt and kosher. The seasoning salt helps add a meatiness.)
Egg noodles

Saute onion and garlic in a large pan with about 2Tb unsalted butter on med to med-high until soft and transparent. Season with salt (I used seasoning salt here) and a pinch of cayenne. Add anchovy paste a few minutes before the onions are done so it can cook a little. I didn't taste the anchovy at all in the final dish (which is what I wanted), but feel free to omit.

Then, remove the garlic and onions, add 2Tb more butter (or oil -- you could probably cut that down to one) and mushrooms. (I used about 1lb of criminis and maybe a dozen shiitakes.)Season with salt and plenty of fresh cracked pepper. Add thyme. Saute, stirring pretty constantly, until they start to soften and give up fluid, which will help to deglaze the pan, about 7-10 minutes.

Remove mushrooms, add a little more butter or other fat. Add meat substitute and saute until brown. You could omit this, use more, or use another type of soy meat (such as seitan). I didn't want to put too much in since I only like soy meat in moderation.

Deglaze pan with veggie or mushroom stock mixed with Worcestershire sauce, brandy or sherry, white vermouth or non-oaky white wine, and soy sauce. Turn heat up to med-high and let reduce for just a couple of minutes. Reduce heat to med-low, add sour cream and mustard (I used light, but I think full fat would work a little better). Whisk or stir well to combine. Add the reserved onion, garlic, and mushrooms, stir to combine. Allow this to heat through and the sauce is done.

Cook egg noodles, toss them with 1Tb butter and season with a little seasoning salt. I think it's best to add the sauce on top of each serving of noodles rather than toss it all together. Garnish with some chopped Italian parsley, and if you're feeling decadent an additional small dollop of sour cream.

What? No finished Wagyu photos?

Yeah, unfortunately I overcooked the steak, something I often struggle with. It was too depressing to photograph. I will say that it still tasted great.

I may do some more notes on the dry-aging project later, but here are my basic impressions:

1) This is not "real" dry-aging. You don't get that ultra-rich flavor that long dry-aging produces because the enzymatic action doesn't have time to really take place. If I were to dry age again at home, I'd buy a sub-primal cut and age the whole thing for two weeks minimum.

2) What you are really doing is reducing the moisture content of the meat, which results in (I think) a faster cooking time. The steak seemed to go from 90F to 145F in about a minute.

3) I need to try the Wagyu as it comes someday. Sadly, I cannot afford to do so for some time!

UPDATE: I just realized that the big problem was that my oven thermostat wasn't working. We just got it replaced after realizing that it wasn't shutting the oven off. Since I finished in the oven, the steaks were probably exposed to drastically higher heat than what they were supposed to be cooked in. I'm (somewhat) off the hook!

The great Wagyu home dry-aging project - Day 4.

On "Good Eats," A.B. stopped the dry-aging process on the fourth day. As you'll see below, I'm following that model in a way.


The steak is now at 13.6oz which is a loss of .5oz from yesterday. From 15.3oz beginning weight to 13.7oz is a loss of roughly 11% in four days. Pretty impressive results, but I am worried about dryness (and ruining a great steak!).


Dark and dense. I hope this experiment doesn't result in a completely dry steak! Hopefully the fat content of the meat will rescue it from such a fate.


I've decided that 13.6oz of concentrated Wagyu beef is probably too much for one portion. Sigh.

I've cut the steak in half (Notice the interesting coloration and all that marbling.) and will wrap one portion in plastic wrap to stop the dry-aging process, but I'll continue the process with the second portion.


Beef two ways.


So this portion, at 6.7oz, will endure at least another day of aging.


The double wrapped portion that's done dry-aging. It's actually about 7oz, but I forgot to take a naked photo.

A note on cooking: You're probably thinking I want to grill this stuff, right? Well I do. But there are two problems with that: 1) Our grills here don't get hot, and 2) the amount of fat in this meat will create an inferno as it drips down on to the gas flames.

As a result of these issues, I'll use the cast iron sear + finish for doneness in the oven method. I'm thinking about 1.5 minutes per side on a hot, hot, hot cast iron for the sear and then into a 400 degree oven for 3-5 minutes. I'm shooting for 120-125 internal temp here, so I'll just keep checking until I get there. I think I'll actually use the perforated pie pan that I'm using for aging as the oven cooking method as well. The pan will catch the fat and suspend the meat on skewers so hot oven air can circulate around it.

A note on side dishes: Irvine Farmer's Market first thing tomorrow for sides! I'm thinking steamed fingerling potatoes and perhaps some kale sauteed with garlic and a little crema mexicana to finish. Since I'm cutting the steak in half, I can add some cream to the kale right?

A note on wine: Northstar Merlot Columbia Valley 2005

A note on a heavy metal icon: I'm dedicating this steak to Ronnie James Dio. Apparently RJD was a veggie avoiding carnivore, which no doubt contributed to his fatal stomach cancer. Let us remember his awesomeness and remind ourselves that red meat is only an occasional treat.

The great Wagyu home dry-aging project - Day 3.

Ok, we're down to 14.1oz from 14.7oz yesterday. That's another .6oz loss, exactly the same as the first day. So we're down almost 8% from our starting weight of 15.3oz.


Darkening in color.


Back in the fridge.

The great Wagyu home dry-aging project - Day 2.

Here we have the steak after roughly 24 hours of dry-aging in the fridge wrapped in a paper towel. It's gone from 15.3oz to 14.7oz, so we've lost .6oz of moisture. This loss equates to nearly four (3.921568) percent of the steak's original weight.

As you can see, some scraps of paper towel have stuck to the meat. If I were to do this again, I might try using tea towels to avoid the paper sticking to the meat.


Notice the deepening of color here. The steak has also become significantly firmer than it was previously, no doubt due in part to the loss of moisture.


Re-wrapped in a fresh paper towel and


ready for another 24 hours in the fridge.

The great Wagyu home dry-aging project - Day 1.

Ok school's almost out, so it's time to celebrate by clogging arteries. After seeing a recent episode of "Good Eats" in which A.B. dry-ages a porterhouse at home, and recently seeing Wagyu (American Kobe) strip steaks at Bristol Farms, I thought I'd give it a go.

I'm normally a ribeye advocate, but Wagyu rib steaks were not available so one does what one can (not that I'm complaining). In fact, this may be a better steak for my purposes as it is my experience that ribeyes need to be cooked at the higher end of medium rare in order to dissolve the fatty sections of the meat, while a strip will take rare very well indeed.

I'm going to give this sucker 4 days in the fridge using the "Good Eats" method, perhaps weighing it every day so we can see the results. I don't expect the deep dry-aged flavor caused by serious enzymatic work in four days, but I should be able to intensify the flavor quite well.


One (ridiculously expensive) Wagyu strip steak

Flash makes this hard to see, but it's just under 1.5 inches thick.

15.3 ounces

Alton Brown method


In the fridge.

Ok fine, it's "sparking wine."

So we just joined the Hi Time Wine Cellars champagne club through which we receive one bottle of French champagne (the only kind that can be called champagne, of course) a month. As a result, I thought I might document the wines here. But before we begin with the French stuff, we drank a bottle of Argyle Brut 2002 with some friends a few weeks back. I forgot to take notes, but if I recall, it was quite nice with a lot of balance, very smooth and fairly creamy although lacking a much minerality or bite. Argyle is reliably good stuff, if usually a tad overpriced.