Out on the Goulash: Hungary's most famous dish

My original introduction to this got a bit ranty so, whilst I'm going to include it on the blog, I'm going to hide it here. Optional reading, so don't whinge at me if you find it boring, right? Good. Glad that is sorted.


I have been to two of the many countries which claim goulash amongst their national dishes, Hungary and the Czech Republic. I'm not taking sides (actually I am, and that side is Hungary's, the Czechs invented Pilsner and they can't take the credit for everything) and I'm sure both regional variations on the dish have things going for them.


Goulash, as I'm sure you must all know, is basically a stew or casserole, the defining ingredient probably being paprika, lots of paprika in fact. There must be hundreds of variations of the recipe, some of which are basically soups, some of which have dumplings, some of which have noodles, some which use beef, some which use other meats. Lots of variety, get the picture? 

I've been trying to perfect my version of goulash for a while now. Unfortunately when I try and 'perfect' a recipe it more often than not ends up with more ingredients rather than less. This is a flaw of mine. Antoine de Saint-Exupry would not be happy.


An easy Goulash 
(has been known to feed six hungry men at a poker night)


Ingredients

Oil (I used olive, vegetable would be fine)

1 kilogram stewing steak, such as shin, cut into bitesize pieces

3 tablespoons plain flour

2 large onions (chopped finely)

3-5 cloves of garlic (finely chopped)

3 bell peppers, a combination of green and red (chopped into small pieces)

Carrot/parsnip/potato (about 3 whole veg in total, whatever combination you fancy, in this version I used a potato and two carrots. Diced)

Some chillis (depending upon how spicy you like stuff, you don’t want goulash too spicy-hot though in my opinion, I used three small red chillis)

6 tablespoons tomato purée (Confession- I usually just use a whole tube)

Shedloads paprika (min 3 tablespoons, depending on how old it is) you can use a little smoked paprika too if you like as well

2 teaspoons caraway seeds, ground

Bay leaf

4 large tomatoes, diced

A large splash of dry white wine

600 ml beef stock

handful flat leaf parsley, chopped

black pepper and salt

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Serve with bread or rice. Some sour cream or cream fraiche can go well.

Instructions

Lots of vegetables

Heat up a tablespoon or of oil in a casserole dish.

Dust the pieces of beef with the flour and brown them (in batches if necessary), in the hot casserole dish. Set the browned meat aside for later.

Add a little more oil to the casserole dish. Add the onion, garlic, peppers, diced vegetables, caraway seeds and chilli. Fry until softened, around 5 minutes.

Return the beef to the pan and add the tomato puree and LOADS of paprika. Cook for a little while, stirring continually.

I used a big pan until stirring was complete to help avoid making a mess

Add in the tomatoes, white wine, bay leaf and beef stock. Again, give it a good stir. Put the lid on the casserole and bake in the oven at about 180 oC for at least 1 hour 30 minutes.

Transferred to casserole dish to go in oven

Take out of the oven and season with salt and pepper. Stir in the chopped parsley, saving a little for garnish if you wish. 

Why Steve hates the French

The Hungarian Parliament in Budapest, modelled on the Palace of Westminster apparently.

 This was originally the introduction to my goulash recipe post, but acting on feedback that the posts where I go on about history are not particularly popular, I've separated this from the recipe.

I've sometimes felt a bit sorry for Hungary, thinking that they have been on the receiving end of several bum deals throughout history. Or twentieth century history at least; the period of history I am probably most familiar with. When I was at school it seemed like the only real history allowed to be taught by the national curriculum was twentieth century history. The rest of the lessons seemed to cover fairly mundane subjects such as 'women in Tudor Britain' and 'how clothes were washed in the days of the Regency'. Not particularly exciting.

But back to Hungary. I won't lie, I couldn't be bothered to go back and check my facts on the history of Hungary so this is largely done from memory, so please forgive the odd inaccuracy (I'm looking at you here father). At the start of the 20th century Hungary was the junior and somewhat reluctant partner in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, effectively ruled from Vienna by everyone's favourite European royal family, the Hapsburgs. At the end of the First World War the Empire was dissolved and Hungary was also taken apart. One of the treaties at the end of the War split the country, with Hungary coming out of the process having lost circa 70% of her territories to Romania, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia. Here comes an anecdote.

Every music festival should have a tent of logical games

I've been to Hungary twice. The first time, in the summer of 2007, I was attending a week long musical festival called Sziget. (by the way, a week is too long to spend in a tent in Central European heat. Just so you know). On the first or second day we were there a drunk Hungarian man came over to speak to us and insisted on buying me a pint. This was because of the shirt I was wearing, an AC Milan top, apparently his favourite football team in the world. A free pint is always good, but the best thing about our new Hungarian friend (he told us to call him Steve as we wouldn't be able to pronounce his name, quite possibly true given how I struggled with the Hungarian language) was that he would spit on the floor every time you said 'France', 'French' or the name of any Frenchman. This was a game which didn't get old quickly. 'Steve' explained to us that all Hungarians hate the French because it was they who gave away most of the country in 1920. This hatred must be pretty strong to be passed down 3 or 4 generations. I don't know what role Britain played in these negotiations but we don't seem to be blamed for it to the same extent, in Steve's eyes at least...

Right, anecdote over and back to my three paragraph expression of sympathy for Hungary. The inter-war years were not amongst Hungary's proudest moments, the burden of war reparations and the Great Depression causing a drift to the right and towards one of the fashionable political ideologies of the time, fascism. Like its former Imperial partner, Austria, Hungary ended up on the side of the axis forces in the Second World War. As (hopefully) every schoolkid knows, this was not the winning side. Austria and Hungary both ended another war with little control over their own destiny, their future dependent on the decisions of others.

Austria formed the Second Austrian Republic, going from strength to strength and becoming one of the  world's richest countries. Hungary was not so lucky, falling on the wrong side of the Iron Curtain and having Communism forced on it by the Soviet Union for almost 50 years.

AND THAT IS WHY I FEEL SORRY FOR HUNGARY. Phew, that went on a while. It was originally meant to be a brief lighthearted introduction to my goulash recipe and ended up being a 600 word borefest. Sorry about that.

Signs of Hungary's Communist past

Americans hate Lennon, hence the policy of McCartneyism