Beef Stroganoff – Spoon-Tender 3-Hour French-Style Braise

Spoon-tender beef cheeks in a creamy mushroom & Dijon sauce. One pot, three-hour braise, minimal prep. Think slow-cooked comfort meets classic Stroganoff tang – perfect over rice, mash or tagliatelle.

In this step-by-step video you’ll learn:
• Browning beef for maximum savoury depth
• Building umami with mushrooms, tomato purée & Worcestershire
• Using a light roux to thicken without clumps
• Balancing the sauce with crème fraîche for that signature tang

*🍽️ Ingredients (Serves 4)*

*For the Braise:*
* 800 g beef cheeks (or other braising cuts like feather blade or shin), trimmed
* 1 tbsp neutral oil (e.g. sunflower or grapeseed)
* 2 medium onions (300 g), sliced
* 10 g dried shiitake mushrooms
* 150 g mushroom offcuts (from chestnut mushrooms used later)
* 1 tbsp tomato purée (15 g)
* 500 ml water (for soaking dried mushrooms)
* Optional: 250 ml beef or chicken stock (to top up braising liquid)
* Salt & pepper, to taste

*For the Sauce:*
* 250 g chestnut mushrooms, thinly sliced
* 1 small onion (100 g), finely minced
* 30 g unsalted butter
* 1 tbsp tomato purée (15 g)
* 2 tbsp plain flour (20 g)
* 400–500 ml strained braising liquid
* 1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
* 1 tsp sweet paprika
* 2 tsp Dijon mustard
* 100 g full-fat crème fraîche or smetana
* Optional: parsley or chives to garnish

**⚖️ Method**

1. *Rehydrate the mushrooms*
Soak the dried shiitake mushrooms in 500 ml hot water for 20–30 minutes. Strain through a fine sieve and reserve the soaking liquid. Slice the rehydrated mushrooms finely.

2. *Sear the beef cheeks*
Season beef cheeks with salt and pepper. Heat oil in a heavy-based Dutch oven or braising pan over high heat. Sear the cheeks on all sides until well browned. Remove and set aside.

3. *Build the braising base*
Discard excess fat, leaving just a thin layer. Lower heat, add sliced onions and cook until soft and translucent (not browned). Add mushroom offcuts and rehydrated shiitake; sauté for 3–5 minutes. Stir in tomato purée and cook until it darkens slightly. Return the beef cheeks, add reserved mushroom soaking liquid and top up with water or stock until just covering the meat. Bring to a simmer, cover, and braise in a 150°C oven (or stovetop) for 2.5 to 3 hours until fork-tender.

4. *Prepare the sauce*
In a separate wide pan, melt butter over medium heat. Add minced onion and cook until translucent. Add sliced chestnut mushrooms and sauté until golden and their moisture has evaporated. Stir in tomato purée and cook for 1 minute. Sprinkle over flour and cook, stirring, for 1–2 minutes to form a roux. Gradually add 400–500 ml of strained braising liquid, stirring constantly, until smooth and thickened to sauce consistency.

5. *Flavour the sauce*
Add Worcestershire sauce, paprika, Dijon mustard, and season to taste. Reduce heat to low and stir in the crème fraîche or smetana until fully emulsified.

6. *Finish and serve*
Return the beef cheeks to the finished sauce to warm through gently for 5–10 minutes. Serve with buttered noodles, mashed potatoes, or rice. Garnish with chopped parsley or chives if desired.

____

*Follow us on Instagram:* https://www.instagram.com/w2kitchn/
*Join us on Patreon for behind-the-scenes & more:* https://www.patreon.com/W2Kitchen

#W2Kitchen #beefstroganoff #braisedbeef

Today, we’re making
melt-in-the-mouth beef stroganoff. Slow-cooked as a braise,
so tender you could eat it with a spoon. Like any good braise,
we start by browning the meat. Very hot pan with a generous amount
of high smoke point neutral oil. Beef goes in. First, we splash a bit. And that’s the surface moisture
rapidly evaporating. Then we start to build flavours via browning. As usual, for your time stampers,
we have the Maillard reaction. What’s going to make the meat
taste savoury and meaty. Later on, caramelisation. What’s going to give us
the nutty complexity. Today, we’re using
my favourite braising joint, beef cheeks, which for me has the perfect balance
between texture, flavour and fat. But you can use
any braising joint you fancy. I like my cheeks very chunky, purely for the satisfaction of being able
to cut them in half with a spoon. But you can cut them into smaller chunks,
not too small, otherwise they overcook
before they can meaningfully brown. And of course, do them in batches
to not overcrowd the pan, otherwise they’ll end up
steaming themselves. Once we’ve developed our meaty flavours, beef comes out to rest. Optional step, skim off some excess fat. This is especially important
if you’re using a fatty joint like short ribs. And we continue to build
other layers of flavours. First, the aromatics. Sliced onions, they go in. This will form our savoury braise and give us some subtle sweetness. As usual, we evaporate the water content to concentrate the flavours
we just talked about. Season with salt. And this will also help us
draw up some moisture. And knowing we’re going
to be using mushrooms in our version of the stroganoff, we add the mushroom offcuts, the stems. They’re slightly chewier,
but still rich in umami. So this way,
we get the most out of our mushrooms while maintaining a uniform texture
in the final sauce. And the recipe is just a guideline, you can apply
the principles to any braise. We’re merely reinforcing the flavours we want in our final sauce
or final product. On that note, optional. I’ve soaked some dried shiitake mushrooms, earthy and extremely umami rich. We squeeze them dry, first to toast. This would give us some subtle
savoury complexity in the braise without overpowering the final product with too much mushroomy goodness. We save our soaking liquid
to use as part of our braising liquid. Once again,
to reinforce those beautiful flavours. Once again, optional, but popular amongst
the French variations of the recipe. Tomato purée, another umami bomb, which will also give us
some acidity and sweetness. And we cook them out slightly
to remove the harshness and further concentrate their flavours. Now, once you’re happy with the colour,
before the beef comes back in, just to have more control and clarity,
we use our soaking liquid to deglaze our pan, mopping up, lifting all those concentrated flavours
we built earlier. One clean bottom, beef comes back in, before we add the rest of the liquid so we don’t have unnecessary dilution. This is especially important
because our braising liquid will form part of our sauce. Resting juices back in, flavours, myoglobin, rest of the soaking liquid. And we cover almost everything with water or stock if you fancy, but the dish is flavoursome enough. Bring this back to a boil,
lid on, gentle simmer, to break down the collagen
into melt-in-the-mouth gelatine. For cheeks,
about two and a half to three hours. Here, we have something fork tender,
we leave them to rest, and this is something you could
batch cook ahead and freeze. Now all we need to do is
to make a very simple sauce. Medium heat,
we melt a very generous amount of butter factoring in we’ll be making a roux later. Once the water content
from the butter has evaporated, we’re practically repeating round one, but this time also solving for texture. Mushrooms again, this time sliced. Season with salt
to help them draw out their moisture. Apologies for crowding the pan,
I just want to use this pan. [laughs] Use a bigger pan when you make it at home. We first evaporate the 90% water content
from the mushrooms, then we start to brown them,
concentrating their flavours, their earthy, savoury goodness. Once there’s not much steam coming out
and the pan is no longer crowded, minced onion, this time mostly for the subtle sweetness
and to give us a bit of body. Once the onion is translucent, tomato purée once again. Brightness, umami and sweetness. This time also for a bit of colour. You’ll give the sauce
a bit of an orange hue. We have the base, now we make the roux. Less than equal part flour
to the weight of the butter factoring in
we’ll be using some cream later. Sprinkle our all-purpose flour, we stir for the fat
to start coating the flour and in turn coating
each starch granule of the flour, preventing them from clumping
when we do introduce our liquid. And we cook out
the raw taste of the flour gently. Now, since we have a hot roux,
hot liquid situation, to give us more control, we first incorporate a bit of ice water because as you introduce the liquid, the starch starts to swell, gelatinising in the process and the lower temperature
of the liquid will buy us more time to prevent them from clumping. And this will also give us
the opportunity to deglaze our pan, mopping up all the flavours we just built. Bit by bit. And because of the residual heat, we can even afford
to switch off the stove briefly to give us more control. Once we have no lump
and no fond left behind, we gradually, carefully
introduce the real deal, bit by bit. No need for heat because we have
the residual heat from both parties. Now, we bring back some heat
and let the gelatinisation continue. And immediately,
you can see the change in thickness. Once you’re happy
with your newfound thickness, stove off again
and we continue to build flavours. Worcestershire sauce,
first to mimic the allspice marination and to give us a savoury tang, and to reinforce the tang
and pay our homage to Elena, Dijon mustard, which will also give us
some brightness and a subtle kick. The liquid’s a bit too hot for that,
that’s why it’s splitting a little bit. So make sure your stove is off. Now, we’ve covered smetana
versus supermarket sour cream extensively in our medium rare stroganoff video. Today, just to make sure the shopping
doesn’t stop you, creme fraiche, very heat resistant. And this would give us
the signature creaminess and reinforce the tang we just introduced. And that’s why we didn’t use
1:1 flour to butter ratio. We taste to adjust the seasoning
and we can plate. And that’s braised beef stroganoff. [bell rings]