Sunday, November 11, 2007

Something from my Father in Law

I started dating my husband almost 14 years ago. Before we officially started dating he took me home to meet his family and told his nephew "she's NOT my girlfriend." Of course that's a rookie mistake made by many men and served as a means to seal his fate. Before we left headed back to school I made sure I was his girlfriend.

I always found my husband's dad to be interesting. He has methods of doing things that are sort of complicated. He makes a wonderful chowder. It's very rich and I can't eat much of it, which of course always hurts his feelings. He always fusses about how long it takes and how complicated the process is. Same with his beef stroganoff. Now understand me, when he cooks, it's awesome. But you always hear about how complicated it is and how long it takes.

On one trip to the beach my husband decided to make his dad's chowder. We accidentally found out it isn't quite as complicated as was rumored. I tried to come up with a stroganoff recipe for the restaurant and had to go to the source of the best I've ever had. I took part of my father in law's recipe and uncomplicated it. I'm cooking it tomorrow for lunch and serving it with a side salad. Here's my less complicated version:

Take 1 lb of BEEF. Use whatever you can find. Stew meat, sirloin, whatever is cheap. Cut it into strips. Mix 1 cup of FLOUR and 1 tbsp of UBON'S SEASON'T UP (or your lesser seasoning). Dust your beef in this mixture. Chop one small ONION. Dust in your flour mixture. You can pan fry this in batches or do what I do and deep fry. Melt 3 tbsp of BUTTER OR OLIVE OIL and add 3 tbsp of your leftover flour mixture. Allow to cook until slightly brown. (this is a roux) Add about 3-5 cups of BEEF STOCK. Dump all your flash cooked beef and onions into your stock/roux mixture. Add 1/2 cup of SOUR CREAM. Add salt, pepper and seasoning to taste. Allow to simmer until thick. Serve over rice or pasta.
Variations to this could include using ground beef instead of stripped beef or using leftover potroast. Sometimes I add mushrooms to the panfry/deepfry. Some people add cream of mushroom soup. I don't see the merrit in this. (GASP! I'll be lynched by southern women everywhere so don't tell on me.) If you want mushroom flavor add mushrooms. If you want the cream of flavor add some extra cream. I just don't get that cream of whatever recipe must!

IF you want you can talk about how difficult this is to fix and I won't tell a soul.

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