Passport & Plate - Goulash Two Ways
Hungary | Friday, March 6, 2015 | 5 photos
Ingredients
1 brown onion
2 tbsp olive oil
250g beef
2 tbsp Hungarian paprika
2 large field mushrooms
Black pepper
Sea salt
1 capsicum
2 tbsp tomato paste
2 carrots
½ kilo potatoes
3 tsp Vegeta
½ -1 tsp chilli powder or 1 chilli, chopped
1 cup of fresh, flat-leafed parsley + extra to serve
Cream or sour cream, to serve
Crusty bread, to serve
* This recipe serves six people divided equally across two soups – one for vegetarians (3 servings) and one for meat eaters (3 servings). If you wish to make one large soup (6 servings), simply leave the quantities as they are and combine in one large pot. Double the meat and omit the mushrooms for the traditional carnivore version, omit the meat and double the mushrooms for herbivores or simply use the above quantities of both meat and mushies for a happy medium.
How to prepare this recipe1. Chop onion. Make sure it is fine, but not too finely chopped. Take out two medium/large saucepans. If you are doing one soup, use a large crockpot or dutch oven. Put olive oil and half of the onion in each pot. Fry until lightly browned and remove from heat to cool down.
2. Meanwhile, peel and cut your potatoes into squares, about 2cm – not too big or too small. Trust your instincts and make it with love. Peel and slice your carrots. Dice the capsicum. Cut the meat and mushrooms into squares.
3. Add the meat to one of the pots (henceforth referred to as the ‘carnivore goulash’). Don’t put the meat in hot fat, otherwise it will turn the soup brown and lose its beautiful red colour. The other pot will be the ‘herbivore goulash’, but now is not the time to add mushies. Be patient.
4. Now the most important part: add a tablespoon of Hungarian paprika to each pot. Do not be frugal about this – be generous and embrace the flavours. Stir both pots well and return to the heat.
5. Add a small amount of water to eat pot and simmer. Keep adding water until the meat is covered.
6. Add the tomato paste, chilli and vegeta to both pots. Divide the carrots, potatoes and capsicum among both pots. Now add the mushrooms to the ‘herbivore goulash’. If your carnivore is eying off the mushrooms (as my husband does), add a third chopped mushroom to the carnivore pot. Stir well. Slowly continue to add water until you have a decent amount of soup broth. Simmer for about an hour with the lid on. It should be starting to smell like Hungary, if it doesn’t already.
7. Chop the parsley. When the vegetables are cooked (that is they are holding their shape but fall apart in your mouth), stir through the parsley. Add salt and pepper to taste.
8. Serve into bowls with a dollop of cream or sour cream and garnish with parsley. Enjoy with crusty bread.
The story behind this recipeLajos, or Louie to the Australians, was 15 when he fled Hungary. It was 1944: his eldest brother had died in World War II and the Russians were coming. The family spent six years in Germany, where he met my grandmother, before migrating to Australia.
Louie was a dishwasher at Maralinga base camp, in the South Australian outback, where British military and civil personnel tested nuclear bombs in the 1950s. One night, he was hunched over a pot when the major general walked past. Hit by the smell of paprika wafting through the desert air, the general stopped.
“What’s that?” he asked.
“My dinner,” Louie replied. “Goulash.”
“Gee, that smells good. Can I have some?” My grandfather poured him a bowl of velvet red soup and gave him bread to mop up the juices with.
“This is bloody nice,” the general said between mouthfuls. “It’s better than the crap we eat here. Want to cook for us?”
Louie became the base camp’s head cook while the chef became his assistant. Those at smaller camps would drive two hours just for his cooking, making him the most popular guy there.
The recipe has been tweaked throughout the years, but Opa made the best goulash. His version was full of fatty meat and enough chilli to punch you in the face. It defined him: hearty, cheeky and unapologetically spicy, but oozing with class and charisma.
I ate goulash in Budapest on my 18th birthday and I won over my husband with it, but it had been two years since I became vegetarian and last made it. When Opa died three months ago, it was time to cook goulash again. I made two soups: traditional goulash for the carnivores in my life and a vegetarian version, using mushrooms like those my grandfather used to forage in the forest for.
“It smells like Hungary in here,” my husband said when he walked in the door. That smell is my Opa, the home he left behind in Hungary and the new life he made in Australia, armed with nothing but a kick-arse goulash recipe.
