Stroganoff

"It smells good," said my son, whose nose, which up until this moment had been metaphorically pressed against his computer screen, led him into the kitchen where I had been tinkering with dinner.

I say "tinkering" because I am a cook in the chore description only. I have no loftier aspiration than following simple instructions and am especially fond of the pre-packaged kind. Time and again, I may add a dash of this or that to doctor the taste. Sometimes it works; sometimes it fails spectacularly. No one seems to notice. 

My tinkering has been made more extensive as the years wear on and the fonts keep getting smaller and smaller. Instead of searching the house for drugstore readers, I make wild guesses as to the measured amounts the directions called for. 

Often I am wildly wrong.

There was the Great Tablespoon of Cornstarch saga one Thanksgiving not that long ago, which created the need for several rounds of hydrotherapy until finally, we paid our last respects to the decimated sauce as I tipped it into the trash.

My husband took over gravy-making from then on.

Eventually, he took over a lion's share of the regular meal preparations, too. Leaving me to bake fish, blanch vegetables, and boil instant rice in the evenings work places him elsewhere.

On this night I attempted to recreate my father's stroganoff, which is really my mother's dish that my father managed to recreate so flawlessly that he just took over cooking one day, too.

But I digress.

The stroganoff started with the slicing (against the grain for tenderness) of beef that we somehow managed to have left over from a roast the night before. He'd brown it more, adding onions and mushrooms and sautéing the lot over medium heat until the vegetables were soft. 

He'd dump the contents of the pan on a plate and add butter and flour to the pan. He'd stir and stir, slowly adding beef bouillon he'd already dissolved in hot water until this roux became a gravy, then he'd return the meat to the pan and let it cook down.

There may be a reckoning if the sauce was too thick (he'd add water) or too thin (he'd add water whitened with flour) and keep watch.

He'd splash in some Worcestershire sauce, which he would mispronounce on purpose, and a generous pinch of dill before finishing up by incorporating a solid amount of sour cream.

My mom used to ladle it over egg noodles, but my dad use to make "bowties" for his biggest fan ...

My son.

As much as I have tried ... I can't get around the roux. I brown it too fast, or it will hold on to its clumps yielding a deeply unpleasant texture. I'll forget a key ingredient and the taste will mirror paste. And no matter how hard I squint, I can't make out which way the grain is going. No matter how I slice it, I fear the meat will be tough as leather.

So I cheat.

I start with some pre-sliced beef and an envelope of powdered gravy ... and I follow the directions on the back, and in a few minutes, I have a soup that kind of looks similar. 

The boy brushed past me, picked up a spatula, and gave the pot a stir.

"You want to scrape all the way to the bottom of the pan and then kind of fold it over," I offer, hoping to blunt any perceptions of criticism with the adoption of a sing-song voice.

He digs in.

"It tastes good, too."