Cold day recipe for Hungarian goulash

Alison Prince

Ingredients to serve 4 people

600g (about 1½ lbs) stewing beef, cut into approx 2×2 cm cubes
2 tablespoons cooking oil
2 medium onions, chopped
2 cloves of garlic, chopped
1-2 carrots, diced
2 medium tomatoes, peeled and chopped, or use 1 tbs. tomato purée
2 fresh green peppers, cut up
At least 1 tablespoon sweet paprika powder – make sure you don’t accidentally use hot chilli powder as I once did, or the result will be spectacularly disastrous.
1 teaspoon ground caraway seed
1 bay leaf
ground black pepper and salt to taste
Sour cream if liked

Ideally, use a lidded cast-iron pot that can be started on the hob then put in the oven, but a heavy frying pan will do, transferring the goulash into a casserole to finish cooking in the oven with no risk of burning.

Method

Heat the oil and put in the beef and the chopped garlic, turning with a wooden spoon until gently browned. Add the chopped onions (unusually, you don’t fry them before the meat, and this seems to matter.) Cook gently for a few minutes then put in the paprika, bay leaf and the caraway seed, which is what gives the dish its real Hungarian flavour. Stir these in. When the onions are transparent, add the chopped tomatoes. If using tomato purée, splash some water in to give the same moisture as fresh tomatoes. Put in the diced carrots. Some people add parsnips and chopped potatoes as well, but this is closer to the goulash-soup commonly served everywhere in Europe from Germany eastwards. Check the flavour and add salt and black pepper to taste. Put the lidded pot in the oven or transfer the goulash to a casserole for oven cooking, at slowish heat, about Regulo 3 or equivalent, until the meat is thoroughly tender. Allow at least an hour. If you’ve opened a bottle of red wine to go with it, add a slurp to the goulash if it shows any sign of getting too thick, but don’t worry – it’s a dish that will hold with no bother.

If liked, you can top the goulash with thinly sliced potatoes, dotting them with knobs of butter and a sprinkle of salt, before putting it in the oven. Otherwise, serve the goulash with fluffy rice and a dollop of sour cream, called smetana in Russian, unless your guests go all British on you.