Another of those contentious dishes. To avoid controversy I should, perhaps, title this dish ‘tender strips of beef with mushroom, onion and crème fraiche’. However you want to call it it does make a quick and delicious supper over plain rice - and is an excellent way of making a little red meat go a long way. Our butchers will thinly slice tail end of fillet, and cut into narrow strips for you to make this with - alternatively it could be thinly sliced rump or sirloin steak.

Ingredients - serves 4 400g stroganoff steak 1 large onion, peeled, halved & thinly sliced 200g chestnut mushrooms thinly sliced 2 tbsp olive oil 30g butter 2 tbsp of cognac or cooking brandy 150g crème fraiche salt, pepper a few drops of Worcestershire sauce fresh lemon juice to taste a light peppering of paprika

Method

1 Season the strips of beef with salt and pepper. Heat a large heavy bottomed frying pan to hot, add a tablespoon of olive oil and quickly and briefly stir-fry half of your strips of stroganoff steak to browned - remove with a slotted spoon to an awaiting warmed bowl. Repeat with the remaining oil and stroganoff steak, again removing to join the previous batch.

2 Lower the heat immediately and add butter to the pan to melt. Fry the thinly sliced onions until soft and limp before adding sliced mushrooms to the pan with some seasoning and a few drops of Worcestershire sauce. At this point raise the heat to briskly fry the mushrooms or they will become grey and weepy - over a higher heat they will colour nicely and be altogether more appetizing.

3 Maintaining a high heat, return beef strips and meat juices to the pan, stir together and douse with a tablespoon or two of brandy then set alight (causing the alcohol to burn off) and shake fairly vigorously until it burns out. Now lower heat and stir in crème fraiche. As soon as the dish has reheated it is ready to add lemon juice to taste, sprinkle with a pinch of paprika and chopped parsley, and serve immediately over plain rice.