Beef Stroganoff & Krummelpap

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COMFORT FOOD!

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A stellar, genuine retro classic here presented in it’s original, timeless format for your delight and amazement.

Simple recipes with a few, quality ingredients seem to scare the crap out of some ‘cooks’. Witness Beef Stroganoff: over the years this century old classic has been whored out and abominated into all manner of ‘improvements’ – both imaginary and in serious attempts. Beef stroganoff meatballs and beef stroganoff baked casserole? Seriously? ...

The origins of the dish are uncertain. However, I like the idea of a ravenous Alexander Stroganov – Minister of the Interior in Tsarist Russia – returning late at night from the Opera or Bolshoi and having the Head Butler promptly remove the Cook from the soft, warm embrace of some buxom kitchen wench to “quickly slap something together before bed”. I wonder if that irate, impatient Cook had any idea in the depths of a cold Russian winter’s night of what lasting fame his hurried, one pan creation would achieve? And in the mean time he thought he was “sticking it” to the Master.

Stick to the spirit of the original and this old war horse will continue to delight and charm long after you, reader, and I are returned to dust. Use only the best ingredients you can find and Beef Stroganoff will charm the pants off most diners. And if the setting is just right, the company brilliant and the mood relaxed, the cook might just get lucky...

Beef Stroganoff is a patient and flexible aristocrat. It can be served on nearly any form of starch that won’t compete too seriously with the rich, delicate flavours of this dish. A personal favorite – almost a lifetime ago – was to have it on crispy, piping hot French fries. Those were the days.

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Recipe yields: 2 Portions

Preparation time: ± 20 Minutes

Cooking time: ± 25 Minutes

Difficulty level: Very easy!

Ingredients:

Butter, unsalted	30ml
Cake / All Purpose flour	20ml
Beef stock	250ml
Beef tenderloin or filet mignon strips, 10 – 12mm thick	350g
Salt	2.5ml
Freshly ground black pepper	1.2ml
Sunflower oil	± 15ml
White button mushroom, thick sliced	250g
Sunflower oil	15ml
White onion, medium large & thinly sliced	1
Sunflower oil	10ml
Sour cream	30ml
Dijon mustard	2.5ml
Dried dill tips	1.2ml

Method:

1. Prepare a sauce: Melt the butter in a small sauce pan over moderate heat and whisk in the flour. Cook for 2 minutes whisking constantly. Slowly add the stock, still whisking constantly, and bring to simmering point. Reduce the heat and simmer for 3 minutes, whisking occasionally. Remove from the heat, cover and set aside until needed.
2. Thoroughly mix the beef strips, salt and pepper and set aside, covered, until needed.
3. In a medium sauté pan, sauté the mushrooms and oil over medium high heat with frequent stirring until well browned and shrunken. Transfer to a heat proof bowl, cove and set aside.
4. In the same pan, sauté the onions and oil over medium heat with frequent stirring until glossy, translucent and starting to brown. Be vigilant; do not allow the onions to char. Transfer to the bowl with mushrooms and cover. Wipe the pan out with kitchen towel paper.
5. Using the same sauté pan as before: Sauté the beef strips and oil in two batches until browned but still pink inside. Only stir occasionally. Transfer the first batch of beef with a slotted spoon to the onions and mushrooms.
6. Add the sour cream, mustard and dill to the still warm sauce. Whisk thoroughly.
7. Add the sauce, first batch of meat strips and vegetables to the sauté pan when the second batch of beef strips is ready. Adjust the heat to low and heat through until hot, stirring frequently. Do not allow the sauce to boil.
8. Remove from the heat, taste, adjust the seasoning (if necessary) and serve immediately on Krummelpap, mashed potatoes, buttered noodles, penne pasta or crispy French fries.
9. Bask in the glow of your appreciative dining partner.

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Comments:

• The beef strips should be cut along the grain of the muscle and should not exceed ± 75mm in length. In South Africa this is known as the Stroganoff cut amongst commercial butchers. Specifically ask at the butchery for tenderloin or filet otherwise you will receive sliced sirloin, top side or even – God forbid – bolo or chuck. All these alternative cuts require the meat and onions to be stewed together for an hour or more before the meat softens. By then you will have an abomination on your hands.

Recipe source:

THE GOURMET COOKBOOK; Reichl, Ruth: Editor; Houghton Mifflin Company; Boston & New York; 2004; p.439.

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Dreamy, Spongy Krummelpap / Crumbly Maize Porridge

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And on the Eighth Day, the Lord God beheld the Universe and realized something was amiss. Infinitely wise, He pondered this imperfection for a second lasting an eon. Inspired, He created Krummelpap for one and one sole reason only: to be drowned in gravy or sauce. And He gazed upon His creation, content, and Knew it was Good and Just for Man will now be fed in body, mind and spirit.

Krummelpap, or Crumbly Maize Porridge, is a South African cultural specialty and also a continent wide staple. It is prepared from a coarse maize meal locally available as “Braaipap” (literal translation: Barbeque or Cook-out porridge). The product is manufactured from dried, hulled white maize kernels. The seed germ is removed in the milling process to extend shelf life, but at the cost of slightly reduced nutritional value. Consequently, the final product is almost pure starch.

Left to Right: Normal maize meal & coarse Braaipap meal.

Krummelpap – with it’s loose, spongy texture – differs texture wise significantly from other members of the maize porridge spectrum. This pantheon includes Polenta (generally yellow), Stywe pap (stiff maize porridge), Slap pap (runny maize porridge), Pap balle (spheres of stiff maize porridge), Paptert (literal: maize porridge tart) and similar oddities. Most of the afore mentioned alternatives are prepared from ‘normal’ maize meal which is significantly finer than Krummelpap maize meal.

The charm of Krummelpap lays in it’s soft and fluffy, yet simultaneously chewy and coarse texture. However, this enthrallment is fleeting as it demands to be served hot and without delay when ready. Once Krummelpap cools to room temperature, it becomes granular and lumpy: a victim of starch retrogradation. The soft, fluffy particles dry out, shrink and harden dramatically. Unsurprisingly, it does not reheat well, being recalcitrant and vengeful in never returning to it’s original, delightful state.

Krummelpap’s culinary function is to act as a bland, efficient, fork compatible, absorbant mop for sauce, gravy, stew, concasse, relish, stock, drippings, jus, dressing, Béarnaise and suchlike ilk. Basically, if it’s savoury and it’s fluid and it’s present in volume, Krummelpap becomes a preferred contractor. To dust of an old cliché: it’s a blank canvas upon which a nifty cook can play with flavours and colours – as long as they are all saucy.

Many accomplished South African home cooks regard Krummelpap as an arcane, black Art meant only for the exalted few. This is not true, Krummelpap is easy. However, do not be fooled by the devastating simplicity of the ingredients – it belies the complexity of preparing it well.

Krummelpap requires (besides a practice round or three):

• Patience,
• An understanding of the effect of the initial ratio of water to maize meal, and
• Very slow cooking – basically: ‘pot steaming’.

Initially, the coarse maize meal is introduced rapidly to the boiling water, whisked vigorously to break up any lumps and the surface leveled. The contents are then ‘steamed’ – covered – at LOW HEAT. The requirement for low heat is mandatory, as the maize meal cannot simmer in the restricted quantity of water content. Once the maize meal is introduced to the boiling water it gets absorbed very quickly. As a result, the ‘steaming’ Krummelpap needs frequent attention and stirring to keep the swelling, coarse meal granules well separated and exposed to steam.

Too much heat or inattentiveness will result in the slowly cooking maize meal on the bottom catching, toasting and eventually charring. However, when caught at the fleeting stage between well toasted neglect and the verge of charring, Krummelpap forms a tough, hard layer with a nutty, somewhat bitter taste that has quite a bit of charm for certain people.

"Brandseltjies"

My late Dad was a dedicated, fully paid up member of that select band of heroes. He was very, very fond of his “brandseltjies” (literal translation: ‘charrings’) as that overcooked and leathery layer of desiccated maize meal was known in our house.

Eating brandseltjies required a spot of determined patience. The pot with leftover pap was left overnight with the lid on. This rehydrated the toasted, almost charred layer tenaciously stuck to the very bottom of the pot. Overnight, enough moisture was drawn from the remaining leftovers to sufficiently loosen the brandseltjie layer and allow it to be removed the next morning in leathery, irregular strips and flaps.

He generally ate it with warm milk, a knob of butter and a dash of sugar. When in an expansive mood, he would substitute the sugar with a generous drizzle of golden syrup, but that did not happen often. We children and Mom had standing orders not to ‘meddle’ with his brandseltjies at the bottom of the inadvertently overlooked porridge pot. Meddling with, or carelessly putting soaking water in to loosen the stuck, browned residue overnight, exposed you to the severe threat of his hair trigger, whiplash tongue. Brandseltjies were his prerogative and his alone.

I still refuse to eat brandseltjies.

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Recipe yields: 2 Portions

Preparation time: ± 5 Minutes

Cooking time: ± 45 Minutes

Difficulty level: Easy

Ingredients:

Braaipap or coarse, white maize meal	250g
Boiling water	250ml
Salt	2.5ml
Optional:
Spice for Rice	2.5ml

Method:

• Boil the water briskly. Add the salt and, if used: Spice for Rice and mix well.
• Adjust the heat to low and rapidly add the maize meal whilst whisking briskly to avoid lumps forming.
• Level the surface, put on the lid and ‘steam’ at low heat for approximately 45 minutes. Stir frequently with a metal spoon and break up any clumps that may have formed. Add maybe two tablespoons of boiling water if absolutely necessary.
• The krummelpap is ready when the particles are soft, fluffy and loose.
• Serve immediately and do not allow to cool below hot or the particles will harden and shrink.

© RS Young, 2018

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