Updated 3.30.2019.
With approximately five pounds of lamb leftover from Christmas, we needed to come up with creative ways to use it. Dad’s suggestion: Lamburger Stroganoff. Sis once made a sausage stroganoff from a recipe she found in Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking by Marcella Hazan. We decided to switch out the Italian sausage for lamb, and voila! Lamburger Stroganoff was born.
When this was recreated in March 2019, we changed the recipe up slightly. I had been wanting to remake this recipe for a while and when my friend and I were planning a “cooking” date, she asked if I liked/wanted to eat lamb. She was up for stroganoff when I suggested it and we discussed subbing ground lamb for leftover roast so she wouldn’t have to roast some lamb just to have leftovers to make this dish.
We stood around the kitchen cooking and drinking wine all day and made this later in the evening. I sliced the mushrooms; she chopped the onions. She browned the lamb; I sautéed the onions and mushrooms in a separate pan. When it came time to add the cream, noodles and beef she looked at me and said: You brought noodles, right? Um. No. I thought you said you had noodles? Yeah. I did. My mistake.
She rummaged through her pantry and we squealed in delight when she found two packages of egg noodles (of different width) yielding 12 ounces of dried egg noodles. )Her boyfriend heard us squealing all the way in the backyard.) Turns out 12 ounces of wide egg noodles was plenty of noodle. Winning!
This tastes equally as good with ground lamb as it does using a leftover roast.
ingredients.
- 1 lb leftover boneless lamb roast or freshly ground lamb (previously frozen is fine too)
- 1 large onion, chopped
- 4 c. mushrooms, sliced
- 2 T. butter
- 1 T. vegetable oil
- 1 T. olive oil
- Black pepper, freshly ground
- 1 c. heavy cream
- salt, to taste
- 1 lb pasta (use wide egg noodles if you have them but can also substitute your favorite shape of pasta)
- freshly grated parmigiano-reggiano cheese
directions.
- Put the chopped onion, mushroom, butter, and vegetable oil in a large pot. (Or use all butter or all oil.)
- Turn the heat to medium and cook until the onions become a pale gold. Add a few grindings of pepper and the cream. Turn the heat up to medium high, and cook until the cream has thickened, stirring once or twice. Taste and add salt, if needed.
- While the sauce is cooking, start cooking the noodles according to package directions. (The first time we made the dish we used flat wide egg noodles that were about 3 inches long–I found them at a deli in Pike’s Place Market.)
- Sear the lamb pieces in some olive oil quickly on each side – for about one or two minutes – then add to the sauce or brown ground lamb over medium-high heat, drain oil and add to the sauce.
- Toss the sauce and noodles together and let stand about five minutes to thicken. Sprinkle generously with freshly grated parmigiano-reggiano cheese.
We dubbed this dish “Rich Man’s Stroganoff.” The dish turned out phenomenal. You could barely tell you were eating lamb (for those of you who might shy away from the meat), and it was a great way to incorporate our leftovers.
Now what to do with the other four pounds of lamb in the fridge…
Recipe rating:
Food Snob 