Beef Stroganoff with Buttered Rice

Ingredients

• 500g beef strips (striploin or rump), sliced thin
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 200ml hot beef stock
• 1 tbsp plain flour
• 200g chestnut mushrooms, quartered
• salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
• 1 medium onion, sliced
• 150ml sour cream
• 1 tbsp Dijon mustard
• 1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
• 300g long-grain rice, rinsed
• 40g butter
• 10g fresh parsley, chopped (optional)
• Crusty sourdough bread, to serve
• Dressed green salad, to serve

Method

1. Start the rice: tip the rinsed grains into a pan with 450ml water and a generous pinch of salt — rice cooked in unsalted water tastes flat all the way through. Bring to the boil, cover, and simmer on the lowest heat for 12–14 minutes until tender and the water has gone. Off the heat, fork through the butter so each grain turns glossy, then leave covered to steam while you build the sauce.
2. Tip the cannellini beans into a small bowl and crush to a rough paste with the back of a fork — a little texture is fine. They'll thicken the sauce silkily without anyone clocking they're there.
3. Pat the beef strips dry — water means steam, and steam means no browning. Dust lightly with the flour and season generously with salt and pepper before they hit the pan. Get a wide stainless or cast iron frying pan properly hot with the oil — you want it just shimmering.
4. Sear the beef in two batches, 1–2 minutes a side, until deeply browned but still blushing inside. Don't crowd the pan — all at once and the strips steam in their own juices instead of taking colour. Move each batch to a plate to rest.
5. Drop the heat to medium and add a knob of butter to the same pan, leaving the brown stuck bits exactly where they are — that's your flavour base. Soften the onion and mushrooms for 6–8 minutes, stirring now and then, until the mushrooms have taken on real colour and the onion is sweet and sticky at the edges.
6. Add the garlic and cook just until fragrant — 30 seconds, no more. Burnt garlic turns the whole sauce bitter, so watch it.
7. Stir the crushed beans through so they coat the mushrooms, then add the Dijon and Worcestershire. Pour in the hot stock, scraping up the fond from the base of the pan — the stock lifts those caramelised bits into the sauce, which is where the depth comes from. Simmer for 2–3 minutes, stirring, until it coats the back of a spoon.
8. Pull the pan off the heat, return the beef and any resting juices, and fold in the soured cream — off the heat so it stays glossy and doesn't split. Taste, season, taste again. It likes plenty of black pepper, and adjust the salt now, not at the table.
9. Spoon the buttered rice onto warmed plates and heap the stroganoff alongside. Scatter over the extra parsley, set a lemon wedge on each plate, and squeeze a little lemon juice over the sauce just before eating — the acid lifts the cream and the mustard and ties the whole plate together.