INGREDIENTS
3 tablespoons cooking fat (butter, lard, tallow — I used tallow)
1 onion, chopped
4-6 garlic gloves, minced
1 lb St. John’s organic ground beef
1 lb mushrooms, chopped
3-4 tablespoons flour
1.5 cups beef bone broth (can substitute chicken bone broth or water)
3/4 cup sour cream
salt and pepper to taste
DIRECTIONS
1. Preheat pan on medium heat. Add fat to pan.
2. Once fat is melted, add chopped onion to pan.
3. When onions are translucent (about 5-7 minutes), add garlic to pan and cook for 1 minute, stirring frequently to keep garlic from burning.
4. Add ground beef to pan, stirring every so often and breaking into medium sized pieces with mixing spoon.
5. Once beef is almost cooked through, add mushrooms and cook for 2-3 minutes and mushrooms are tender.
6. When beef is completely cooked, add flour, 1 tablespoon at a time to prevent clumping. I used 4 tablespoons but you may only need 3, depending on how much fat there is for the flour to soak up. Once the fat is soaked up into the flour, stop adding flour and cook for 1 minute. Cooking the flour is essential to prevent a “flour-y” taste in the end result.
7. Add broth to pan, scraping the bottom frequently. Once broth is simmering, reduce heat to medium-low and simmer for 10 minutes, stirring frequently.
8. Add sour cream to pan, stir well to combine. Simmer 2-3 minutes.
9. Add salt and pepper to taste. I season along the way because I use homemade broth that doesn’t have salt added. If you used boxed broth or made it from bouillon paste, you likely won’t need much salt.
10. Serve promptly! Our family’s favorite pairing is rice and sauerkraut with lots of extra black pepper.
Serving Suggestions:
egg noodles (this is the traditional pairing)
rice
mashed potatoes
toasted sourdough bread or French bread
sauerkraut or sour pickles