Recipe | Beef Stroganoff Pasta

It's been a while since I last shared a recipe here on my blog... thankful for the event I attended last Tuesday, I was able to learn three new recipes, one of which I cooked the day after the event.


Beef Stroganoff Pasta

{Recipe by: McCormick}

Ingredients:

• 1/2 kg Beef Sirloin, sukiyaki cut
• 1 can button mushrooms, sliced
• 2 tablespoon oil for sauteeing
• 2 packs McCormick Mushroom Gravy Mix, diluted in 2 1/2 cups of water
• 1 pack All-Purpose Cream
• 1/2 cup cold butter or margarine
• 500 grams cooked linguine pasta (or any pasta of your choice)
• chopped parsley (for garnish - optional)

How to Cook:

• Pre-heat a pan with some oil; season the beef with some McCormick Iodized Salt and McCormick Black Pepper Ground. Saute a little of the beef at a time until slightly cooked then set aside. On the same pan, saute mushrooms until brown.
• Mix in the diluted McCormick Mushroom Gravy Mix onto the pan and simmer until the sauce thickens. Fold in all-purpose cream and the cooked beef. Once the sauce thickens, turn off heat.
• Swirl in the cold butter (or margarine) to make the sauce richer. Season with some salt and pepper, then toss with the cooked pasta. Garnish with some chopped parsley and serve.

This was the very first time that I cooked a pasta using a gravy mix as its sauce and I was blown away with it. It tasted really good to the point that I didn't need to add more seasoning to it... and yes, I didn't have to chop up some garlic and onion, like I always do whenever I cook pasta. However, I made some changes with my pasta: instead of using cream, I used low fat milk and water to dilute and thin the gravy mix, and I didn't add butter to the sauce after I turned off the heat because I already sauteed my beef and mushroom with olive oil added with some butter. Cream based pasta (or simply white sauce) is one of the "rewards" I could give myself, but because I am really trying hard to lose weight, I reckon I'd just tweak the recipe just to make it a "little" healthier.

Speaking of the healthier alternative, during the cooking demo, Chef Deejay also gave some tips to make this dish healthy. You can either use sliced chicken breast or canned tuna and you may also opt to add vegetables like broccoli or cauliflower. You may also opt to put cayenne pepper to add more anti-oxidant to the dish and to give it a little kick. You can also use whole wheat pasta or red/brown rice if you want to.

Also, I learned something new at the cooking demo... we (that includes me) often times refer to cream based pasta as "carbonara," but according to Chef Deejay, carbonara has eggs. If the white sauce didn't have eggs, it's called "alfredo." Now I know. :)