Hamburger Stroganoff

In the Briand Special recipe that I posted here a few weeks ago, I said it was the first thing I learned to cook, something my father created by happenstance. But no man -- nor woman, nor child -- can live on Briand Specials alone.

So it fell to my mother Marge to refine my cooking skills, a necessary chore back in college when I went off as a first semester junior to work as a full-time newspaper intern in Gloucester, Mass., for the Daily Times. I would be living on my own, cooking on my own, and my mother felt the need to arm me with some of her dinner recipes.

When I think back on Mom's Hamburger Stroganoff, I have more vivid memories of it as a leftover than I do as the dinner main course. This was back in high school in the mid-1960s and I remember during the weekends, after sleeping through most of the morning that I would get out of bed in search of something with a breakfast element but had the greater substance of lunch.

On those lucky occasions when there was leftover stroganoff I would butter two pieces of toast, heat up some the leftovers and top the toast with the stroganoff. My interpretation of chipped beef on toast? I'm not sure, other than hunger, what drove the interest of having reheated stroganoff on buttered toast, but I remember it being a great weekend brunch when it was available.

Ingredients
1 Vadalia onion, sliced
Two garlic cloves, crushed
1 8-ounce package of sliced mushrooms
1 - 1 1/4 lb hamburger
Flour
Ketchup
1 cup beef broth
Sour cream, two tablespoons
Sherry

Instructions
1. Heat olive oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat
2. Add onion and crushed garlic cloves
3. As onion starts getting limp add mushrooms
4. Add and brown hamburger
5. Once the meat is fully cooked drain off excess fat
6. Add a generous dusting of flour and stir
7. Squirt a generous helping of ketchup into the mixture and stir - the mixture should wet but not runny
8. Stir in the cup of beef broth and adjust heat to low, stirring as the mixture thickens
9. Add two generous tablespoons of sour cream and stir through
10. Add 3 teaspoons of the Sherry.

Serves 4 to 6.

It works well without the Sherry, but not as well ... something about the sweetness of the sherry with the hint of sour cream.

I've served it with a variety of starchy sides -- over egg noodles (which you see most often), or over rice, or with baked potato (you can't let the rest of the sour cream go to waste after all). And leftovers over toast? Why not.