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No. 28BrazilianBeef

Estrogonofe de Carne

a Brazilian version, however upscaled to the MAX!

John Drummond

A wide cream plate of Brazilian estrogonofe: seared beef strips and browned mushrooms in a glossy pink-orange tomato cream sauce beside a mound of white rice, with a heap of fine golden shoestring potato sticks on top and a small bowl of more behind, on a timber table with a fork and linen napkin
Prep15min
Cook30min
All up45min
Serves4
LevelEasy

Mise en place

What you need

Tick each one off as it goes in.

The beef

The sauce

The rice

To serve

Makes 4 serves

The Russians gave the world stroganoff. The Brazilians took it, poured in ketchup and cream, put it on rice and buried it in crispy potato sticks. And honestly? Fair play. The Russian one's already on the site. This is the other one, and it's earned its own card.

It went through the full AI competition: Claude, Grok, Codex and Gemini, four rounds, blind. All four agreed on nearly everything, fast. The beef gets seared in small batches and comes out pink, and it only goes back in at the very end with the heat off. The ketchup stays: drop it and a Brazilian will tell you it isn't estrogonofe. The tomato paste and brandy get cooked down before the cream, so it tastes of something more than sweet pink sauce. Their predictions land between about 8.3 and 9 out of 10. It hasn't been cooked in this exact form yet.

The one fight was the cream. In Brazil it's creme de leite, a thin cream in a carton or a tin, 17 to 20% fat. Here it's thickened cream from Woolies, about 35%. All four judges picked the thickened cream in the final round: it holds without splitting and it coats the beef. The Brazilian stuff from a Latin grocer still works. See the note in the ingredients.

Some stuff about it that's actually true. We checked.

It came to Brazil through a Copacabana nightclub. The Vogue opened in Rio in 1947, and its Russian chef, Gregor Berezanski, served it the proper Russian way, with sour cream. The ketchup came later. So did everything else.

The potato sticks are younger than the dish. In the sixties and seventies Brazilians ate it with rice and sautéed potatoes. The bagged batata palha only took over in the eighties, after an ad campaign by a snack brand called Crac.

The chicken version might be even more popular than the beef. On Tudo Gostoso, Brazil's biggest recipe site, chicken estrogonofe was one of the top five recipes, ahead of feijoada, which is basically the national dish.

And a São Paulo bar called Dona Onça sells around a thousand plates a month. In March 2022 it took estrogonofe off the menu in protest at the invasion of Ukraine. It was back the next day.

AI reviewed by Grok, Codex & Claude

The method

Ten moves.

  1. Rice, On

    Rinse the rice and drain it. Oil, onion and garlic in a pot on medium, 30 seconds, until the garlic smells sweet. Don't let it colour. Rice in, stir 1–2 minutes. Boiling water and salt, lid on, lowest heat, 15 minutes. Off the heat, lid on, 5 more minutes. Don't stir it.

  2. Beef, Cut

    Trim the fat. Cut across the grain into strips about 6 cm long, 1.5 cm wide and 8–10 mm thick. Pat them bone dry.

  3. Beef, Sear

    Heavy pan, 28–32 cm, on the wok burner until it smokes. 1 tsp oil. About 180 g of beef, one layer, space between the strips. Salt and pepper them as they go in. First side, don't touch it, 45–60 seconds. Second side, 25–35 seconds. Pink in the middle. Onto a warm plate. Four batches. Cut a piece from the first batch: if it's grey, go shorter. Pour off any liquid fat, keep the brown crust.

  4. Mushrooms, Brown

    High heat, half the mushrooms, no butter. Leave them until the water's gone and they're brown. Out. Second half the same. Then the butter, let it foam, first half back in for 30 seconds. All out.

  5. Onion, Golden

    Medium heat. Onion, 6–8 minutes, soft and pale gold. Garlic, 30 seconds. Tomato paste, 60–90 seconds, until it goes brick-red.

  6. Brandy, Reduce

    Measure it into a cup first, never pour from the bottle near the flame. In it goes. Scrape the bottom. Boil it to a syrup. If it catches, leave it alone until it goes out. Don't light it under the rangehood.

  7. Sauce, Glaze

    Mushrooms back in. Ketchup, both mustards, Worcestershire. Bubble 60–90 seconds, until a spoon dragged across leaves a line. The beef stays on the plate.

  8. Cream, In

    Pan off the heat, 20 seconds. Stir in the cold cream. Back on the lowest heat until it steams and coats a spoon, 1–2 minutes. Small bubbles at the edge are the limit. If it boils, take it off.

  9. Beef, Back

    Heat off. Beef and its juices in, fold 30–45 seconds. Taste. Pinch of salt if the cream's dulled it. Still tastes like sweet ketchup? A few drops of vinegar, then taste again. Pepper.

  10. Plate, Up

    Rice on one side, estrogonofe beside it. A big handful of batata palha on top at the table. Leave the bag out, so everyone can top up when the first lot goes soft. Never in the pot.

Next level

Homemade batata palha

Optional · +2 ingredients · +35 min

Homemade batata palha, served warm. A bag is fine. Fresh is the shatter you can't buy, and it's the one thing that lifts this plate from great weeknight to better than the restaurant. About 35 minutes extra, mostly while the rice cooks.

Peel 500 g sebago potatoes. Cut them into 2 mm shoestrings on a mandoline. Rinse in cold water until it runs almost clear, soak 10 minutes, then dry them completely in a towel. Wet potato in hot oil is how you get soggy palha and a mess.

Heat about 1.5 litres of vegetable oil in a deep pot to 175°C, on the probe. Fry small handfuls, stirring for the first 30 seconds, 2–3 minutes until pale gold and crisp. Let the oil come back to temperature between batches. Drain on a rack and salt them straight away. Onto the plates warm. The air fryer won't do this one; the strands are too light and cook unevenly.

If it goes wrong

How to save it

The beef's grey and tough
The pan was crowded or not hot enough. Can't be undone. Next time smaller batches and a smoking pan. Fold it through at the end anyway.
The sauce has split or gone grainy
It boiled. Off the heat, a splash of cold cream whisked in hard. Next time, steam only.
It tastes like sweet pink ketchup
Cook the tomato paste longer next time. Now: a few drops of vinegar and a pinch of salt.
It's too thick
A tablespoon of hot water at a time, off the heat.
The palha's gone soft
It went on too early or the bag was old. Fresh bag, on at the table.

Keep wandering

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Estrogonofe de Carneserves 4 · 45 min