Fizzl's Flank Stroganofh
Created | Updated Mar 9, 2003
This is a recipe for very tasty sauce which I derived from my grand mothers stroganofh and my sisters lard-sauce (well, it's not as greasy as it sounds but it used to be the name for the type of sauce.). Without further stalling...
Ingredients
- Half a kilo of thin-sliced porks flank. (Or side, whatever it is called. Flank, from now on.) Not quite so thin as bacon thou. The correct meat resembles bacon but is not salted or sliced so thin.
- Ketchup. Heinz has been proven to be very good for the purpose for it's good viscosity and rich colour.
- Two spoonfulls of tomato puree. You might have thought the Ketchup would do, but no. The puree brings most of the tomato taste, where Ketchup donates more to the colour.
- Three spoonfulls of mustard. Preferrably not sweet, but still strong. Turun Sinappi (red one) is my choice. I aknowledge that this probably isn't available in anywhere but Finland, so you just have to try with some.
- Pickled cucumber. The very salty, vinegary type, not the "Americana"-style sweet stuff.
- Some wheat flour.
- One large onion.
- Spices. The normal Finnish "Slow-food" usually includes atleast ground black pepper and salt. I will describe my variation later.
- 1 Liter of beer. Preferrably tasty lager, packed in three separate bottles.
Notes
- Teflon pan.
- Sharp knife or two.
- Paper towels.
- Something to hold the prepared ingredients in.
- Potatoes for side-dish.
Process
First, open one of the beers. Start consuming it, drinking straight from the bottle. Make a note of your surroundings evaluating that you have everything you need handy. There are few steps where you are bound to get into mayhem if you don't have something handy. Read the whole guide before committing into action.
Chop the onion into quite fine chaff. Chop cucumber into small bits, keeping in mind that this is used as flavouring, not as dominating taste. I didn't give any amount how much use should use, but generally, see that there is less of cucumber chaff than onion chaff. Slice the already sliced meat into finer bits. About 2x2cm bits will be nice. Heat up a pan and throw in a pinch of oil. Burn the meat-bits untill your flat, or atleast kitchen is filled with smoke. This should ensure that most of the lard is separated from the meat. Pick the meats on a paper towel to cool down slightly. Can the lard and wipe the pan.
Add oil to pan again and wait a bit for it to heat up. Now, slightly brown the onions. Be carefull not to burn it. Burnt onioin tastes like crap. Pour the onions somewhere to wait for a bit.
Now. The interesting part. Making the Brown Sauce. Some people, like my mother, find it extremely difficult to make decently coloured, tasty brown sauce without leaving disgusting flour clumbs into the product. Clean the pan carefully. Not with water but with swiping carefully with paper towel. Heat up the pan well. Add hand-full of flour and shake the pan to distribute it evenly across the surface. Stroke the flour back and forth, keeping an eye on the lower layer. Once the lower flours start to turn slightly brown, mix the flour and shake again, repeating the process untill all the flour is dark brown and you are panicking that you are going to burn the damn lot. at this stage, pour in the 2 deciliters of water you heated to the boiling point just before you added the flour to pan. (Haha! Gotcha!) Now whip the sauce fast. With correct water amount it should quickly raise into vigorous boiling, mixing the water and flour completelly, leaving no traces of flour clumbs. Add some more water. It isn't important any more to have it pre-heated. When you have nice, liquidy texture, turn down the heat and let the sauce drop into light simmering.
Now is a good point to add taste. Throw in enough salt to make it taste throught clearly. Sorry about the unhealthy factor, but it is one of the important aspects of this food. Also add some white pepper powder and grind black pepper. Add untill you find enough clear taste of black pepper. Generally, there should be lot less white pepper than black pepper. This would do for the usual Finnish "Slow-food", but I also often add a pinch of green pepper, which I buy as whole and grind in hand while preparing food (It's a "soft" pepper). You can also try variations with dried bell pepper, grill sauces or whatever. Also, now you should add the tomato puree, mustard and cucumber. Squirt in also some ketchup. Mix all this carefully to give the sauce an uniform texture. You might have a little trouble mixing the mustard, but it is perfectly acceptable to heat the sauce again to boiling to let it mix.
By following this recipe, you should now have a sauce that is brown in colour. Onion pieces and meat should be nice and crunchy. the overall taste is hard to describe with other word than 'smarky' -- which I just made up. If you did it like me, there is also slight smokey side-taste because of the overburning of the meat.
Finally. Throw in meat and ground onion. Serve with boiled potatoes. You can try with other side-dishes like rice or pasta, but I would highly advice against it (I tried with both, Yuck!).
If there is any beer left at this point, you should dispose of it with the meal.
