My never-fail beef stroganoff recipe.

Just a recipe this week.

This week, I will share with you my excellent beef stroganoff recipe. It never fails. Whatever the beef, whatever the mushrooms, whatever the pots and pans you use, it’s perfection, miraculous, even. 

But first, to pull on your heart strings and boost the algorithm so more people get to enjoy this incredible recipe, it’s important that I talk a bit about the background of this recipe that I want to share with you. 

I might go on tangents. I might type away from the recipe so stick with it, because more people need to see this recipe. It means a lot to me. Cook it a few times and it will mean a lot to you too. It never fails.

You want to know how to cook THIS beef stroganoff? You’ve come to the right place. It could change your life.

It started with a joke. 

Around 40 years ago, give or take a month or two, I was watching a movie on VHS called Night Patrol (1984). It was one of those cheap arse joke every thirty seconds movies you's find deep inside your local video shop. You’d add it to a five for $5 deal but it’s nowhere near good enough to hire overnight.

I can't remember much about the movie, in fact, it's only today I worked out which movie it was, but I do remember that one of the cops in the movie also worked as a standup comedian.

It came to me today when I was trying to work out what the movie is (I researched hard because you really need to try this stroganoff recipe. It never fails.) In one scene he tells a joke. It could've been one of the first dirty jokes I've ever heard and retold.

Here it is. 

I was 11 years old and I thought it was one of the funniest things I've ever heard, and for some reason, I thought it was much funnier than any of the jokes I saw on Flying High. And besides, beef stroganoff was already one of my favourite foods, thanks to a version of the recipe my mum would make. Mind you, the recipe I share with you this week is better than my mum’s version. It never fails. 

I told everyone who was anyone this joke, my friends, family, the nice lady at the milkbar… everyone was subjected to this joke. Their shock or boredom I mistook for genuine laughter. But at the time, I thought it never failed (just like this beef stroganoff).

Fast forward to the next Christmas lunch, I don't know what led me to do this but I came up with an even better way to tell my favourite joke... Christmas cracker time. 

So when the christmas crackers were cracking all over the table, hats worn, garbage trinkets ignored and jokes getting told, I would take out the little joke paper and pretend to read to the whole table...

Then I say... "I don't get it" Shock and laughs ensued. 

I have done this exact thing with the SAME JOKE for every single one of the 39 Christmases lunches since, and my parents for some reason, never see it coming. My sister does. Her groan is as Christmas as an aunty’s secret pudding recipe.

My tradition even inspired one of the first TV ads I ever wrote. Have a look 👇.

One year at a friend's christmas lunch I took the ruse further. While everyone was outside looking at some muscle car one of the guests had driven in with, I replaced all the jokes in the Christmas crackers on the table with the most disgraceful Neil Hamburger jokes I could find, typed out and printed. 

Everyone comes back to the table, lunch starts and crackers cracked. Things went horribly wrong.

The first to read their joke was the only child in the room, my dear friend's Nick’s then 11 year old, daughter. The joke she read was...

What do you get when you cross Elton John with a sabre tooth tiger? 

I don't know but keep it the hell away from my arse.

The table was horrified. Look. I thought it was funny and her delivery was scintillating but no, I was in trouble big time. 

She was the same age I was when I first told the joke.

Oh, alright, I’ll sit on you. An inviting park bench, yesterday.

But now the joke’s on me.

I did a lot of digging today to find the original source of the beef stroganoff joke. I did this because you’re here reading all this and everything you read here will help you make this amazing version beef stroganoff. It never fails.

Now, for the past 20 or so years, I thought the meter in the question “What do you call four cows in a row, masturb@ting?” didn’t quite dance right. Why four? And why in a row? Every time I saw a few cows standing in a row in these past years, I thought the comedian who wrote that joke must have also seen a few cows in a row one time and then was inspired to write the joke.

But the phrasing never flowed from my mouth, instead, each syllable would amber out like brown’s cows. Look deep into the origin of the phrase “like brown’s cows” (google it), and sometimes that describes cows walking “in a row” so maybe that’s where I got it from?

So this afternoon, not only I find out which movie it’s from, but I found the bit in the movie where the comedian (the Unknown Comic, Murray Langston), tells the joke.

Here it is.

You need to hear it.

Do you believe that?

I’ve been telling the joke wrong for almost 40 years, FFS.

We’ve all had days like this. But it’s okay. Your day will be better than Ray’s when you try my stroganoff recipe.

What is it with people?

No way.

Mushroom selection.

A beef strogonoff can be made or broken with mushroom selelction. You can get normal button mushrooms from the supermarket, go a little darker with the browner swiss browns or pull out all the stops with field mushrooms at $90 a kilo from your local fruiterer/racketeer.

Field mushrooms, ah field mushrooms. Reminds me of the time when I lived as a student in Geelong (it's okay, the recipe is coming soon), me and a mate, Risto, went on an adventure to Buckley’s Falls to find some… ahem… mushrooms to cook up.

Risto didn't go to uni with us. I think he got to know us. through some local band people we used to go to gigs with. I think he sometimes worked in the Ford Factory. He would move and talk incredibly ‘cut the right wire or this thing blows up’ slowly because he was off his face most of the time.

Risto was the sort of fella who knew exactly how to extract a buzz from whatever was left in the house. He was a bong water alchemist — he could do wonders with the dregs, all except for the time he dripped a few drops of amyl into it.

Back to the mushrooms, we got a bunch but they might have been the wrong ones, I don't know but I do know that me and Risto were Big Brother and the Holding Company for the rest of the night. Janis, the screaming guitars, the echo inside the room inside the Filmore… we were the whole bloody lot, singing…. 

And each time I tell myself that I, well I think I've had enough,
But I'm gonna show you, baby, that a woman can be tough!

So, anyway, if you see saffron milk caps, those orange ones, at your fancy milkbar, you gotta pick them up. Theyre' the best. The golden hue they bleed is worth the $40 a kilo you’ll pay for them.

This is why the government needs to ban children from social media.

The recipe is just down 👇 there.  

Remember in 1988 when they invented sour cream? Nachos. Yum. Mixed with sweet chili sauce (which was invented in 1990) and slathered all over jo jos, a deep fried potato which was invented by a food god who lived somewhere in Moorabbin. 

God, I loved jo jos. I reckon I ate my weight in them in my first term at uni. It’s okay, I was playing footy back then so they burnt off pretty quick.

One of the best bits of a recipe website page is how they manage to whack in ads that have absolutely nothing to do with the recipe.

But where would we be without sour cream? Well, we wouldn't be cooking this never fail beef stroganoff recipe tonight, would we?

Sour light cream doesn't make sense. It goes to water so don't use it. If anything, add another tub of heavy sour cream just before serving. 

I’m waiting for my stroganoff recipe, man, I’ve got $26 in my hand.

Here it is.

Thanks for reading every word leading up to my never-fail beef stroganoff recipe. It serves four and should take 30 minutes to make.

Ingredients

1 large chopped onion
1 kg of beef strips (skirt steak is best)
1 paper bag full of mushrooms
1 tub of sour cream (normal size or big size, depending on your self esteem)
2 tablespoons of Dijon or German mustard (not seeded mustard, numpty!)
Lots of butter
1 sh1tload of mashed potatoes

How to do it

Heat some butter in a big frypan or dutch oven (pwoar), do the onion until a bit soft, turn it up a bit, brown the meat, add the mushrooms, cook until it looks like something the dog hath done, stir in the sour cream and mustard, once it’s all hot, serve on the mashed potatoes. That’s all.

Bottoms up, d1ckheads!

“And to hold his job he must watch himself.” Makes you think, huh.