The ultimate Stroganoff

I was saying the other day, following the trip to Moscow, that I can cook a tastier Beef Stroganoff than the rather bland version I found in Russia itself.

Inexcusably boastful, I'm sure, so I wanted to back that up with something concrete. Something on a plate. Something you can actually fucking well eat!

Stroganoff

Now, it's not a dish I've cooked all that often, and my recipe has probably been slightly different each time. But now I've sampled it in Moscow, it's clearly was high time I came up with my definitive 'Strog'.

The influences are myriad, drawing upon research into very old and traditional Russian recipes for the dish, but I've added a wider Eastern European angle through the inclusion of chicken livers.

There's even a hint of the good old curry house about it, as I looked for ways to include tomatoes, which are apparently one of the traditional components, along with the wine and cream.

And so, this is what I've come up with. Enjoy.

Live and let Liver!

There are plenty of outraged chefs and gourmands in California right now.

If you happen to be in Hollywood or San Francisco and feel like a spot of foie gras tonight, you’re in for bitter disappointment: As of couple of days ago, it’s been banned throughout the state.

(Although this is America, the land of prohibition and prohibition-evasion, so you’ll probably be able to find some somewhere. If you look around hard enough. But you’d be breaking the law.)

I'm so strong I can stop you eating Foie Gras! Nyaah!

California is a big place – if it were a country in its own right, it would be one of the most populous and prosperous in the world – and that’s what makes this newsworthy, I guess.

The ban was actually made law way back in 2004 (well done, Arnie. You really showed your Libertarian credentials there…) and reportedly came about following sustained lobbying by controversial Animal Welfare group PETA – who, as radical vegans are highly unlikely to have ever tasted foie gras.

Ah, I think we’ve found the elephant in the dining room.

Surely there’s something not quite right when people who have never eaten the stuff get to be instrumental in banning it?