Wakefield Bake Off star Karen Wright whips up a retro Russian dish for birthday celebration

Even though it is such a tiny space it is still possible to cook great food. One of the companies that I work with sometimes is The Great British Food Festivals. All the festivals have been cancelled this year so we have been holding what we call Cook along online YouTube sessions. The last one was last Wednesday, and I led the show with a cook-along live from my caravan.

It was John’s birthday, so I chose a dish that sounds a bit fancy! What we cooked was beef stroganoff. Stroganoff is a bit retro, popular in the 70s. It is very easy to make and if you are vegetarian just leave out the beef and add lots more mushrooms and perhaps spinach.

I set the tripod and phone on top of my little sink unit and pointed it at the hob. We had a good bit of banter with the other cooks and chefs joining in. The dish took about half an hour to make. I served ours with creamy mashed potato but sometimes I use tagliatelle or rice.

This is what I did: I cut two sirloin steaks into strips and put them in a Ziplock bag with a tablespoon of oil. After rubbing it all around in the bag I seared the meat in a dry frying pan. For good measure I sploshed in a bit of brandy then removed the meat and juice to a plate and sprinkled with a tablespoon of plain flour. Back to the pan, I add a knob of butter and a splash of oil and cooked down one chopped onion. I added 400g of thickly sliced mushrooms and a few cloves of crushed garlic. I let the onions and mushrooms simmer until they had given off their juices and wilted down. I added about 200ml beef stock, salt and pepper, 1 tbs Dijon mustard and teaspoon of smoked paprika and let it all reduce. Then I returned the beef to the pan and continued to cook for a few more minutes until the sauce was thickened. Then I add about 150g of crème fraiche and stirred it through.

So very delicious. Stroganoff is a Russian recipe, it is the only one I can think of so perhaps I need to do some research on what Russians like to eat. More recipes on www.karenwrightbakes.co.uk