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Beef Stroganoff, in its simplest form, is simply tender beef with a mushroom and sour cream sauce served over rice or noodles.
The current accepted history of this dish dates back to the 1890s when a chef working for Count Pavel Alexandrovich Stroganov, the famous Russian general, invented the recipe for a cooking competition in St. Petersburg, although it should be noted that recipes of meats braised in a sour cream base are fairly typical of medieval Russian cookery. After the fall of Imperial Russia, the recipe was popularly served in the hotels and restaurants of China before the start of the Second World War. Russian and Chinese immigrants, as well as U.S. servicemen stationed in pre-communist China, brought several variants of the dish to the United States, which may account for its popularity during the 1950s. It is commonly served with noodles or rice.
It is also very popular in Brazil (where it is better known as "strogonoff" or "estrogonofe"), but the recipe is slightly different there, with tomato sauce added to the cream.
Russian style Beef Stroganoff is usually served over noodles or buckwheat groats (kasha). It can also be served over french fries, or thinly cut potato. The sour cream sauce also contains more sour cream, giving the dish a more white to gray color, instead of the common American or Chinese brown.
It is very popular as a basic food service dish as it is very easy to produce it in large quantities. An example of this, said to be very fine , is served at the Bluebird Cafeteria in Clarksburg, West Virginia.