Published March 1, 2010. From Cook's Illustrated.
For a beefy stroganoff recipe, we substituted sirloin steak tips for traditional tenderloin. Marinating the meat in soy sauce made it as tender as tenderloin. Pan-roasting the meat in larger pieces developed rich flavor, and letting it rest before cutting it into strips preserved its juiciness. Adding just a touch of sour cream to the sauce completed our ideal beef stroganoff recipe, by providing body and tang without overwhelming the other flavors.
Steak tips, also known as flap meat, are sold as whole steak, cubes, and strips. To ensure uniform pieces that cook evenly, we prefer to purchase whole steak tips and cut them ourselves. One and a half pounds of blade steak can be substituted for the steak tips; if using, cut each steak in half lengthwise and remove the gristle that runs down the center before cooking. Since blade steak yields smaller strips of meat, reduce the cooking time in step 3 by several minutes. Our preferred brands of beef broth are Redi-Base Beef Base and Pacific. If the mushrooms are larger than 1 inch, cut them into 6 even wedges. Serve the stroganoff over egg noodles.
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