Vegetarian Stroganoff

Original Recipe

Ingredients:

3 TBS butter
1 large onion
1 1/2 cup vegetable broth
1 1/2 cup sour cream
3 TBS all purpose flour
2 tsp soy sauce
1-2 Portabella mushrooms
Parsley for garnish
Egg Noodles

Directions:

1) Saute the onions and mushrooms in butter
2) Bring the veggie broth to a boil in same pan after onions/mushrooms are sauteed
3) Add flour to thicken the mixture
4) Remove pan from flame
5) Add sour cream and mix thoroughly
6) Boil noodles
7) Drain noodles and combine with the sauce

The realities of the situation was that I thought of cooking this later in the evening after all the stores had closed. So I was stuck with what I had.

Revised Recipe

Ingredients:

3 TBS butter (no point in adding more fat since there was no onion)
1 large onion (none at the time)
1 1/2 cup vegetable broth (thank god I brought some veggie base from the U.S. with which to make broth)
1 1/2 cup sour cream (I've never seen it anywhere here so I subsituted it for plain yoghurt, but only put in 3-4 large spoonfuls)
3 TBS all purpose flour (yes- had this- and it was sand free! I used more than 3 TBS though- until it was the consistency I wanted)
2 tsp soy sauce (check!)
1-2 Portobella mushrooms (ha ha- fat chance at finding this. Instead I used a large can of whole button mushrooms)
Parsley for garnish (no where to be found in the house- hence it had to be sacrificed)
Egg Noodles (I don't know if I used egg noodles, but they were chinese noodles that reminded me of ramen noodles, except flat)

Most of this process went surprisingly smoothly! All except opening the can of mushrooms. We have two can openers in the house and they are both crap. They cut into the can for a few centimeters and then somehow veer off the normal path of cutting. What you get is a series of small cuts in the can top that don't amount to anything significant enough to open the can or get the contents of it out. Needless to say.. a bit frustrating. How did I actually get them open you ask? Our former cook used to cut open cans with a sharp knife, but as we have zero sharp knives in the house (I still can't figure out why) I was left with a butter knife. You'd actually be surprised how effective the butter knife was. This is not to say it was that effective- it really wasn't- but it was more so than I had thought. After much travail I did manage to open up a large enough hole in the can to get the mushrooms out. (Picture below- coming soon.)

The rest went ok, although i was nervous about the lumpy flour (I added the flour when it was boiling but it still was a bit lumpy for a while) and the towels I used as hot pads to hold the pot got singed by the stove flame on numerous occasions. Add 2 to the disabled list.

In the end, the sauce was much more yellow than I had anticipated (because the veggie base was yellow), but tasted surprisingly good. I would have loved to add some onion and garlic to it, but it wasn't half bad without them. Overall, I'd say it was a success!

What will the next adventure be? Possibly pear chipotle martinis (brought the chipotle peppers and pear brandy with me from the U.S) or eggplant parmesan. Another idea I came up with today is eggs benedict, complete with hollandaise sauce. I know that one will be interesting...