Goulash (Hungary)

Every chef has a favorite spice, mine is Paprika. Hungarians adore their paprika and it features heavily in their cuisine and in their national dish Goulash. Shocking to me was that there is so many varieties of Paprika as outlined here

• Különleges (Special): The brightest red paprika of all, with a good aroma and very mild, sweet flavor.
• Édesnemes (Noble Sweet): Bright red in color but with only a mildly spicy flavor. Most of the paprika exported to the rest of the world is this type.
• Csípmentes Csemege (Delicate): Mild-tasting, richly flavored, light- to bright-red paprika.
• Csemege (Exquisite Delicate): Similar in color and aroma to “Delicate,” but with a slightly spicier taste.
• Csípös Csmege (Pungent Exquisite Delicate): Similar in color and aroma to Delicate and Exquisite Delicate, but a bit spicier in flavor. One of the most popular of the hotter varieties of paprika in Hungary.
• Félédes (Semi-Sweet): Medium-hot paprika.
• Rozsa (Rose): Paler-red in color, with a strong aroma and hot-spicy taste.
• Erös (Hot): The hottest variety, pale rust-red to light brownish-yellow in color.

To me, this is like discovering your favorite TV show that you thought only have one season, had seven seasons and a movie! It is no surprise that Goulash(Gulyás) requires a lot of paprika in this case 1/4 cup!

According to the source, I used for the recipe, you can serve Goulash with a cool cucumber salad.The cucumber salad was easy to make, the perfect attribute of a side dish. To start you need to slice the cucumber into thin pieces so it can be dried of excess water and to absorb the white vinegar better.

To get the water to drain from the cucumbers you might have to get a little creative. Two Cisco Press books, and a knife holder later and the water was wrung from the cucumbers. Finally place the cucumbers in a bowl with white vinegar and throw them in the fridge to chill.

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Finally the cucumbers were thrown in with the spices and the white vinegar and were left in the fridge to chill.

While the cucumbers were “chilling”, I gathered the ingredients to start making the Goulash.

First step was to cook the onions and then add  the Paprika. Before adding the Paprika to the pan be sure to remove the pan from the heat as Paprika has a high sugar content and burns easily. If it burns it will make your dish bitter and wont taste as nice.

Go ahead and start mixing it in!

Once it is all mixed with have the brilliant bright red onion mixture!

We need a little more red, so we will add the beef, tomatoes and the other ingredients.

After simmering for around 40 minutes, the Goulash will be done(the house will smell awesome).

The Goulash came out great. It had a beautiful smokey, heat, that was never overwhelming. In addition it was cheap to make, low in calories, and delicious. A nice alternative to a basic stew.The cucumber salad was a great accompaniment which cooled down the heat from the Goulash but was not needed.

The recipe for the Goulash is available here and the recipe for the Cucumber salad is available here.