Hungarian Goulash Recipe

Goulash, known in Hungary as "Guly?s" or "Guly?sleves" is a traditional recipe that dates back, or at least traces it origins, perhaps a thousand years or more.

The dish was traditionally prepared and eaten by cattlemen and herders living on the Great Hungarian plain (which extends across the South and East of Hungary, as well into large areas of neighboring countries), and thus given the nomadic lifestyle of these men, had to prepared using ingredients and cooking materials that they carried with them, or which were locally available in the countryside.

In the United States and Canada, goulash is very much a comfort food, and is often prepared using hamburger meat. Indeed, it is often served with pasta, noodles, or macaroni, and can come out tasting rather like an Italian pasta dish. The Hungarian version of the recipe is however quite different.

Traditionally Hungarian goulash is prepared using a large cauldron (known as bogr?c) and an open fire. The first step is to cut meat into chunks, season it with salt, papper and paprika (which makes the dish hot and spicy), and then brown in the pot.

Chopped onions are then added, followed with water or stock, and the mixture simmered in cauldron for a long period. Tomatoes or tomato juice may also be added to the dish, but in contrast to the North American variety of goulash, only a small of tomatoes are generally used, and the flavor of tomatoes certainly doesn't dominate the flavor of Hungarian goulash.

Although Hungarian goulash is prepared as a soup, it should be noted that it is a very thick soup. This is because the collagen in the meat turns into gelatin during the cooking process. Some Hungarian cooks also suggest adding chopped potatoes to the dish, and the starch from these also helps thicken the soup.

Some people suggest adding flour into goulash, also to help thicken it, but others recommend against it because there is a risk of making the dish taste bland. The dish can also be enhanced by adding some other herbs (such as caraway seeds, thyme or bay leaf), or rounding out the flavor with a little white wine or vinegar.

By Sunil Tanna