When Count Pavel Alexandrovich Stroganov wasn’t busy commanding the Russian infantry in Napoleonic Wars, he feasted: Historians suggest that an early version of the stroganoff the world came to love was served in Stroganov’s family kitchens for a good number of years before it was published in a Russian cookbook in 1871. Early stroganoffs specified beef cooked in sour cream, with a little mustard, flour & butter and not much else. But by 1927, when the dish was first published in America (in The Congressional Club Cook Book: Favorite National and International Recipes), it had evolved to include onions, mushrooms, stock, Worchestershire sauce and even a little pureed tomato. Our version builds on a recipe that Gourmet magazine published in 1963. Like the early versions of the dish, it’s made with tiny cubes of meat (we chose veal) simmered in butter.
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