Red Deer Fillet Strogonov

Red Deer Stroganov

On one of the cookery boards, of which I am a member, there had been a discussion about the ins and outs of making a Beef Strogonov, I decided that making it with red deer fillet would be another step up in opulence, I thought that as the one served in a lot of top class restaurants bears no resemblance to the original Russian dish, then I was quite at liberty to adjust mine. I tried to keep as near as possible to my dear friend Ian's recipe, but did tweak it a little. 

The original recipe published in Elena Molokhovets Russian cook book back in 1871 contained only cubes of beef sautéed and served in a sauce made from mustard and bullion  finished with a small amount of soured cream, it contained neither mushrooms nor onions.

So here is my version.

Ingredients.
  

First get yourself a deer preferably red as it will have a decent sized fillet, well 2 actually. This one was a good 750g after preparation. I removed the silver skin and cut off the fillet head (the thick part that sits at the top side of the long fillet).

As I said above I used my friend’s recipe and he had borrowed it from an original recipe. I did make a few changes, as the original used beef fillet (well what else would you expect in a beef stroganov?).

The making of the stroganov is actually very quick, the longest part is preparing the fillet and sautéing the onions and mushrooms.

750g of trimmed red deer fillet (from the thin end) sliced into rounds approx. 6-10mm thick then cut into lengths. 

1½ tsp. of mustard powder

1½ tsp. caster sugar

1 pinch of Marigold stock powder

200g of brown cap mushrooms

150g of ceps

150 g of chanterelles

4 medium onions (peeled)

450ml of crème fraiche

Salt and pepper to taste

200ml of vegetable oil

Make the mustard powder, sugar and Marigold powder to a paste with a little warm water and allow it to stand for about 15 minutes prior to use.

Slice the onions very thinly, clean the mushrooms, these were fresh so still had some soil, leaves and grass, so use a stiff small brush, then cut out any soft and wormy parts. Slice them to thinnish pieces. Pour half of the oil into a hot heavy bottomed frying pan add the onions and the mushrooms, reduce the heat and sauté (cover and reduce the heat to very low) for 20 minutes about ½ way through add the crème fraiche to the onions and mushrooms, add the mustard paste and stir in, cover for a further 10 minutes.

In a second frying pan heat the remainder of the of the oil, smoking hot, add half the fillets strips, quickly  brown all around, remove and place in the onion, mushroom melange, repeat with the rest of the fillet strips again adding to the sauce. Stir in and adjust seasoning, this needed just a couple of turns of cracked black pepper. 

Serve at once in a pre-heated terrine; we ate it with savoy cabbage and gnocchi.

Very, very tasty and well worth the small amount of effort, a perfect dinner party dish.