Hungarian goulash recipe: the herdsmen's paprika pot

This Hungarian goulash recipe follows gulyás as Hungarians cook it: beef and onions stewed in their own juices, sweet paprika stirred in off the heat, then potatoes, root vegetables and pinched egg noodles simmered in a deep red broth. The key is patience before the water goes in.

Gulya means a herd of cattle in Hungarian and gulyás the man who drove it across the Great Plain to markets as far away as Vienna and Venice, cooking meat with onions in a kettle over an open fire. Paprika reached Europe only in the 16th century, and the potatoes are a later addition too. In Hungary gulyás is eaten as a soup, yet it is a one-pot main course: no flour, very little tomato, with the body coming from onions that melt into the broth. It suits the first cold evenings of autumn.

Ingredients

Paprika goes in off the heat: a few seconds over a flame and the whole pot turns bitter.

• 1 kg beef shin or chuck, in 3 cm cubes
• 2 tbsp lard or sunflower oil
• 3 onions (about 400 g), finely chopped
• 2 garlic cloves, crushed
• 3 tbsp sweet Hungarian paprika
• ½ tsp hot paprika (optional)
• 1 tsp caraway seeds, lightly crushed
• 1 ripe tomato, chopped
• 1 pale green pepper, sliced
• 1.5 litres water or light beef stock
• 2 carrots, diced
• 1 parsley root or small parsnip, diced
• 500 g waxy potatoes, in 2 cm cubes
• Salt and black pepper
• For the csipetke: 1 egg, 100 g plain flour and a pinch of salt

Method

1. Melt the lard in a heavy pot and soften the onions over medium-low heat for 10 minutes. They dissolve during the long cook and thicken the broth, which is why no flour is needed.
2. Add the beef, raise the heat and turn it for about 8 minutes until it loses its raw colour. Salt it now: salt draws out the juices the meat will stew in.
3. Take the pot off the heat and stir in both paprikas, the caraway and the garlic. Paprika burns within seconds over a flame and turns bitter.
4. Back on a low heat, add 200 ml of water, the tomato and the pepper, cover and braise gently for 1 hour, adding a splash of water if it dries. Little liquid concentrates the flavour.
5. Pour in the rest of the water, add the carrots and parsley root and simmer for 30 minutes. Add the potatoes and cook for 20 to 25 minutes more; their starch gives the broth its final body.
6. For the csipetke, knead the egg, flour and salt into a stiff dough and pinch fingernail-sized pieces straight into the simmering pot. They cook in about 5 minutes.
7. Rest the goulash for 10 minutes off the heat, check the salt and serve with bread and sliced fresh chilli.

Cut, kettle and wine

Choose shin or chuck: cuts with connective tissue turn soft and gelatinous in two hours, while lean steak dries out. Hungarian cooks vary the base rather than the method: babgulyás adds beans, birkagulyás uses mutton as the herdsmen once did. Pour a Hungarian red such as Kékfrankos and finish with our apple strudel recipe, a dessert the old Austro-Hungarian kitchen shared.

Hungarian goulash recipe: your questions

Is goulash a soup or a stew? In Hungary it is a soup served as a main course. The thick paprika stew without potatoes that other countries call goulash is closer to Hungarian pörkölt.

Can I make it ahead? Yes, and it tastes better the next day. It keeps for three days in the fridge; freeze it without the potatoes and csipetke, which turn grainy.

Which paprika should I use? Fresh, bright red sweet Hungarian paprika. Smoked Spanish pimentón makes a different dish, and a tin opened months ago tastes of dust.