from
Behind the French Menu
by
Bryan G. Newman
behindthefrenchmenu@gmail.com
Bœuf Stroganoff Servi sur un Lit de
Nouilles aux Œufs
Beef Stroganov served on a bed of egg noodles.
Bœuf Stroganoff, Bœuf à la Stroganoff, Bœuf Stroganov, Emincé de Bœuf Stroganoff, or Filet de Bœuf Façon Stroganov
Your menu may read
Bœuf Stroganoff - Fines Tranches de Bœuf Sauté, Sauce Crémeuse à la Crème Fraîche, Relevée de Vin Blanc, Worcestershire et Moutarde, Servi sur un Lit de Nouilles aux Œufs - Thin slices of seared beef in a creamy sauce of crème fraîche, white wine, Worcestershire sauce, and mustard, served on a bed of egg noodles. (Depending on the chef, the egg noodles may be replaced by lightly seasoned rice, pasta, or mashed, roasted, or pan-fried potatoes).
Alain
Ducasse’s recipe from Aux
Delices du Palais
will be fairly close to the one on your menu: it is a creamy dish with a
slightly spicy touch. This isn’t a cookbook, but you can follow the link and
translate the recipe with the Google or Microsoft Bing Translate apps.
Beef Stroganov
Bœuf Stroganoff
Beef Stroganoff and the history behind its creators
Modern French cuisine has great recipes, with new dishes being created all the time, though some of the eternal favorites have links back to the 15th and 16th centuries, and the story of Beef Stroganoff links back to the 19th century. The first French recipe for Bœuf Stroganoff was first published in Paris in 1891 by the French chef Charles Brière, who had worked in St Petersburg. However, it wasn't Brière who named the dish after the Russian aristocratic Stroganoff family. The first published Russian recipe was published two decades earlier in 1871 when Brière was six years old. Brière entered his Franco-Russian flavoured recipe for Bœuf Stroganoff in a competition organised in 1891 by the highly rated L'Art de Cuisine chef's magazine and won an award. This recognition sparked a sudden and widespread demand for Bœuf Stroganoff throughout France.
The
first Russian recipe for Beef Stroganoff was published by Elena Molokhovets in
1871 in her book: "A Gift to Young Housewives," (Пода́рок
молоды́м хозя́йкам). Elena's recipe was for "Beef Stroganoff with
mustard" (Говядина по-строгановски, с горчицей). While there is no documentation showing a French chef working for any of the Romanoff
families, though it was the fashion of the time. Elena published her
recipe in 1871, and the usual suspect Count Pavel Stroganoff, whom everyone
seems to identify as the dish's owner, is, I think, an unlikely candidate, as
he died in 1817 and Elena was born in 1831.
The cover of L’Arte
Culinaire from 1891
The differences between the original Russian Beef
Stroganoff
with mustard
and
today’s French Bœuf Stroganoff.
The original Russian dish offers the meat cut into small cubes, a lot of allspice for flavor and a sauce made with sour cream, but no mushrooms or alcohol, while the French uses strips of beef, crème fraiche, Worcestershire sauce, a lot of mushrooms and white wine.
Elena Molokhovets' original book and its many follow-up editions were very popular books with many published editions. The final Russian edition, published in 1917, had over 4,000 recipes. Joyce Toomre's edited and translated book: Classic Russian Cooking: Elena Molokhovets' "A Gift to Young Housewives" (First published in 1992 and available on Amazon) is nevertheless a great work with much more than just Beef Stroganoff even if it only contains a little more than 1,000 recipes!
The classic Russian accompaniment for Beef Stroganoff was ((картофель соломкой )(kartofel solomkoy)), meaning "potatoes cut into straws." These were thin, fried strips, quite similar to today's shoestring fries. The idea was that their crunchy texture offered a tasty contrast to the creamy sour cream and mustard-flavored sauce. Only in France did noodles, pasta, rice, or potatoes become the norm.
The country estate of the Grand Dukes of the House of
Romanoff.
St Petersburg, Russia.
Photograph courtesy of Ninara.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/ninara/36231566076/
Why were there tens, if not hundreds, of Franch chefs in Russia in the 1800s?
The most famous French chef in the early 1800s was Antonin Carême, who worked for Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand, a famous diplomat and gourmet. After Napoleon I’s second defeat at Waterloo in 1815, Carême left France the same year to work in 1815 for the Prince Regent of Great Britain (later King George IV). That was followed by employment in 1919 by Czar Alexander I of Russia. Whatever the Czar did was followed by the Russian aristocracy and other wealthy Russians, and very quickly, great (as well as less significant) French chefs were working for famous and aristocratic Russian families, and every grand hotel and restaurant in Russia followed on.
The time frame and the appearance of the bistro.
(From the time the coalition forces occupied Paris on March 31, 1814, the restaurants that would become the Bistros of France earned that name from the junior ranks among the Russian officers. These junior officers didn’t have hours to waste and, as they knew no French, when they entered a restaurant, they shouted in Russian: быстро (bistro) quickly and demanded a complete meal in less than one and a half hours. (Their commanders dined every night in Paris’s best restaurants or attending banquets with meals lasting four or five hours, but these junior officers had only enough money for inexpensive restaurants and demanded quick service and value for money). As soon as the junior officers from the other nations in the coalition, Prussia, Austria, Great Britain, Sweden, Portugal and Spain learned about these early fast-food restaurants, they became known as bistros, the only word in Russian that they knew).
The original French Recipe for and its links to Afghanistan
If
you read Charles Brière’s recipe for Bœuf à la Stroganoff from 1891 (page 19 in L’Art de Cuisine),
you will have noticed a flavoring for half a spoonful of Sauce Cabul Anglaise (English Kabul Sauce). The British had had a
long and painful relationship with Afghanistan that included three wars, but,
for everyone else, Kabul was associated with its spicy food. In the same way
that Worcestershire sauce was inspired by someone returning from India, so
Kabul English Sauce was probably inspired by someone returning from Afghanistan.
Kabul 1839
The Emir of Afghanistan in the Bala Hissar (fort) of Kabul
Interior of the palace of Shauh Shujah Ool Moolk.
(The
original palace of Shah Shuja-ul-Mulk no longer stands).
Photograph courtesy of Wikipedia
Kabul and Russian Cuisine
In my search for the context linking Kabul to Russian Cuisine in the 1890s, I learned that "Sauce Cabul" (Kabul) was a particular condiment also used in early recipes for the iconic Russian holiday dish, "Olivier Salad" (created by Lucien Olivier, a Belgian-born French chef who was the head chef of the Hermitage Restaurant in Moscow in the late 1800s). Kabul Sauce (also called Mogul Sauce) was a savory, spiced, and tart sauce. Other Russian sources noted that Cabul/Kabul sauce was a factory-made sauce used as a flavoring in meat and salad dishes that competed for the honor with Worcestershire sauce. According to the “Olivier Salad” researchers, Kabul sauce was produced by English manufacturers such as John Burgess & Son or Crosse & Blackwell. So, it would not have been strange that Kabul Sauce was a Sauce Anglaise (English sauce) in French culinary terminology. In 19th-century France, Worcestershire sauce was often used in French recipes of the era and referred to as Sauce Anglaise; and having another sauce called Cabul Sauce Anglaise fits the time frame. (Sauce Anglaise has nothing to do with today's French Crème Anglaise, which is used to describe a recipe created as a French interpretation of an English Custard).
How Beef Stroganoff reached the UK and USA.
Travelling
to France for a vacation became an important ritual for the English
aristocracy, followed by Americans and wealthy Europeans, after Queen Victoria
and Prince Albert’s friendship with Napoleon III and Empress Eugénie bloomed
after their state visit to France in 1855. The Promenade
des Anglais (English Promenade) in Nice, France, was officially
given that name after Nice was annexed by France in 1860. Prince Edward (Later
Edward VII) made many visits to France and French dishes, including Beef
Stroganoff, made many British menus. When Auguste
Escoffier was the Chef de
Cuisine of the Savoy hotel in London between the years 1890 and 1899, Bœuf Stroganoff would have appeared on its
menu.
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Connected Posts:
Antonin Carême: The Most Influential Chef in the History of French Cuisine.
Beurre - Butter. Butter in French Cuisine.
Bistros - French Bistro Menus. The History of the French Bistro.
Crème Fraîche - Creme Fraiche. What is Crème Fraîche? Crème Fraîche on French Menus.
Herbes et Épices – Herbes and Spices. The Most Popular Herbs and Spices in French Cuisine.
Moutarde – Mustard and Dijon Mustard in French cuisine.
