Goulash (in Hungarian gulyás) is a well-known and popular dish originating from Hungary. As today is a public holiday (= a lot of time for cooking) and the temperature has fallen under -10 degrees Celsius outside (hearty food, yes please!), I decided that making a delicious soup would be a splendid idea. Last night I got out all the ingredients and started stirring the pot.
Goulash is eaten all around central Europe and it’s very popular in Scandinavia as well. Sometimes it comes as soup and sometimes it’s stew. Some people add potato dumplings to the mix, others like to throw in sauerkraut. It can be spicy, or not so spicy. In other words, there are probably as many ways of making goulash as there are cooks. I used this Slovak recipe as a guideline but did some freestyling along the way. Here’s how I did it.
Goulash: ingredients (going in the stew)
- 3 onions
- 3 garlic cloves
- 1 kg pork
- water
- 1 potato
- 3 carrots
- 1 apple
- 1 chili pepper
- tomato puree
- marjoram
- salt
- pepper
- chili powder
Goulash: how to make it
A word of warning: you will need a couple of hours until the soup/stew is ready – this is by no means fast food.
Start by chopping the onions and frying them in oil (I used normal olive oil) in a large pot. Once the onions are golden, toss in the chopped garlic cloves and stir for a couple of minutes. Then add the meat and let the ingredients cook until the meat has turned grey. Now you can add the water. I used enough water to cover the all ingredients, not more. This is also the moment to add a couple of potatoes, the carrots, and the apple. Unlike the recipe above, I did not put any more potatoes in the stew later. Instead I only mixed in the chili pepper and tomato puree. I didn’t use any paprika either (oh, the disgrace!) because I couldn’t find any in the cupboards. All the spices were added in the end.
The result
After a couple of hours on the stove, the stew was ready. Fragrant and fire red, it did indeed wake up at least my senses. There was a total of seven servings, so apart from a delicious lunch today, we have our lunches covered for tomorrow and Friday. Goulash goes perfectly with boiled potatoes and some bread on the side. And it will keep you warm.
Rounding off with a funny fact. According to Wikipedia, the word guláš is used in Czech and Slovak to mean mishmash. The phrase mít v tom guláš translates to being disoriented or lacking understanding.
