Central Europe · Volume 38, The Pepper That Came Late, the Herdsman's Pot and the Coffeehouse
Gulyás, in the bogrács
The Hortobágy, and every restaurant since the 1930s
Illustration
- Time
- 3 hours
In Hungary gulyásleves is a soup of beef, potato and paprika, distinct from pörkölt; in English "goulash" is usually the stew, which was the older Hungarian sense. The word, the herdsman and the dates are in the history. The weights below are Pénzcentrum's cauldron gulyás of 2021, one part onion to two of beef; a chef's version, from Magyar Konyha, is given on the chef's side.
As tradition built it
Serves a fire. About 3 hours.
Ingredients
- 600g beef shin, in cubes
- 300g onions, chopped
- 2 tbsp lard
- 1 tbsp sweet paprika
- 1/2 tbsp hot paprika, if the house likes it
- 1 tsp caraway
- 3 cloves garlic
- 1 tbsp salt
- 400g potatoes, in cubes
- 1 green pepper
- 1 small tomato
- 2.5 litres water
- 80g plain flour, for the csipetke
- 1 egg, for the csipetke
Method
- Cook the onion slowly in the lard until soft and gold.
- Lift the pot from the heat, stir in the paprika, add a splash of water and return it.
- Add the beef shin, the caraway, the garlic and salt, and cook it in its own juice, adding water as it dries, until the meat is tender.
- Add the potatoes, the pepper and tomato, and enough of the remaining water to make a soup, and cook until the potato is done; drop in the csipetke, pinched from a stiff dough of the flour and the egg, for the last minutes.
What a modern chef changes
János Erdei's marhapörkölt, from Magyar Konyha, done as the base
Rungs 1 and 2
Method
- Three kilos of shank and a kilo of brisket to two kilos of onion, the onion cooked down an hour in lard before the paprika goes in off the heat.
- The brisket braised apart at 130 degrees Celsius for 3 to 4 hours and returned to the pot.
- Finished with kapia pepper, parsley and chives, which is the chef's and not the herder's.
- Served as a stew, in a bowl, with the cook saying which word he means.