Goulash Soup (Gulášová polievka)
Ingredients: 1.5 lbs of beef, 1.5 lbs of potatoes, butter, one onion, ground paprika, red pepper, ground black pepper, caraway seeds, one clove of garlic, beef bullion, half of green pepper, one tomato
Prep time: 5 hours
Goulash is originally Hungarian, but don’t let that stop you. This meal is very popular in Slovakia. There are two types of goulash – a thick sauce eaten with dumplings, and the goulash soup. This second type is what I made today. It is very popular during picnics. The traditional way is to place a large metal cauldron over an open fire, and stew up the ingredients while people go about their business socializing and drinking beer. Not having a cauldron – or an open fire! – I made mine on the stove.
Take the beef (hovedzina) and chop it into cubes, discarding as much tendon tissue as possible. Melt butter (masľo) in a pot and brown the beef.
Add onion chopped into small pieces.
Next we add spices: paprika, red pepper (if you like it spicy), salt, black pepper, caraway,…
…, and a mashed up clove of garlic.
Add water, cover and let simmer on low heat until the beef is soft (this will take a while!). Also prepare a broth from the beef bullion and thin the soup as needed. This last step is optional. Make sure you dissolve the bullion in enough water otherwise the soup may turn out too salty.
Peel potatoes, cut them into cubes, and add once the beef has softened (an hour or two).
Slice the pepper, and dice the tomato. Simmer until the potatoes get soft (another hour or so). Many people like to cook this soup until potatoes dissolve completely. Either way, it’s delicious!
Serve with a hearty wheat or rye bread. For another type of goulash, one that is eaten as the main course, see segedin.
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This goulash that Lubos made was pretty good. It was a little bit toward the salty side though, but it reminded me of something I had in Romania.
The goulash was great! I felt like I visited Hungary! The meat was tender and the sauce slightly spicy which made for a great taste.
HEY LUBOS A QUESTION WHY SO SLOVAAKS ” IN THE OLD COUNTRY” PEEL ALL THEIR ROOT VEGETABLES NAMELY POTATOS AND CARROTS ????? I HAVE BEEN LECTURED ABOUT THIS BY MY COMPANION…I WAS TAUGHT BY A BRITISH COOK THAT ALL THE ” VITAMINS ARE IN THE CORTEX” QUOTE …UNQUOTE…. DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA???? POMOC!!!!
I think it’s because when people make dishes like goulash, they sometimes let the potatoes dissolve completely. This would leave the skin behind and change the taste and consistency. I have also heard the same thing about vitamins. Usually when I fry up potatoes (home fries or french fries), I leave the skin on. I like the taste, and it’s less work for me.
About peeling root vegetables, it has nothing to do with Slovaks, it has all to do with cooking and trying to find the best way. It’s true that many “vitamins” are in shelf/skin in vegetables.
Here is a deal, and believe me I had an opportunity to talk to top chefs, French, Spanish, Italians, etc., as my good friend produces some of these TV cooking shows.
In many cases chefs do “peeling” of tomatoes, peppers, potatoes, broccoli stems, or any other stuff.
The reason is, you try to make food easy and pleasing to digest, that’s a reason you try to balance the stuff.
As Lubos said, it depends on recipe, sometimes you peel, sometimes you don’t.
Oh BTW it also has to do a lot with how fresh is a root vegetable. If I get a fresh carrot in farmers’ market, I just wash it and don’t peel it. If I get a carrot from a grocery store (as I do sometimes), I peel it, as it’s old and developing a hard skin that I don’t want on my plate.
So I cooked my first goulas ever and served it to my Brasilian friends tonite. They loved it. I wish I cooked more of it.
I added a sausage (klobasa) together with the vegetables, just because I thought there is not enough of meat..and it was quite good.
Thanks Lubos for the advices via the email also:)
Maria
Hi Maria, thanks for spreading Slovak cooking to Latin America! And don’t forget to tell your friends to become fans on facebook.
I eat a lot of wild game (elk, deer, moose, pheasant, etc.) and was curious if it is used in Slovak cooking at all?
Oh yes, definitely! We make various stews from game meat. I just haven’t posted any recipes since I don’t have access to it. But I love the taste. We also eat a lot of rabbit. It’s really tasty in stews. Rabbits are raised on farms just like chickens or pigs.
Yes Edee, wild game is used in Slovak cooking. A typical game (depending on region) is deer, wild boar, elk, in a small game it’s wild hare and then there is a bunch of fowl birds, usually hunted on game preserves.
Hunting is highly regulated in Slovakia, you go through training, exams, talking care of the game, before you get your permit (unlike in the US). I was fortunate that I was growing up spending summers with a good family friend (more like my uncle), in Low Tatra mountain (close to Podbrezova) and he was a game warden, and a wild game was on a table. Then one of my best friends went to school to become a game warden, and he did and still is, and I sometimes participated in “orginized hunts”. God, I have stories to tell.
But yes, Slovak cooking includes wild game, and I may post some recipes when I get to it.
Thanks guys. I think I’m gonna try some recipes with rabbit. I have some elk that I’m going to serve with the dill gravy and knedl’a for dinner tomorrow night. I’ll let you know how it turns out.
On this recipe,it doesn’t say how much paprika,red pepper,black pepper and caraway seeds,to add,please help.thanks scott
Hi Scott, goulash is one of those dishes “made to taste”. Of course, it helps if you know what it’s supposed to taste like… So to give you something to stand on, here is what I put in
1) Paprika: A lot! Estimating four tablespoons. I pour it in until goulash turns the “right color”, which is light red
2) red pepper: depends on how spicy you want it. I put in between 1/2 and 1 teaspoon of cayanne pepper
3) black pepper: about the same, or some 8 peppercorns is what I’ve been doing lately
4) caraway seeds: about 1 teaspoon worth
I’ve made goulash few more times since posting this recipe and I have few more tips. First, don’t bother putting the vegetables there at the end. Throw everything in at the same time. It’s better with stuff dissolved anyway. Same goes for potatoes. Instead of putting them in cubed like shown above, either shred them using a box grater, or cook them separately, mash them up with a fork, and add the porridge into the soup. It will taste much better.
I was lucky enough to meet 4 guys from slovakia,on a bear hunt in northern maine,they are from New Jersey now,They made goulash while we were at camp.It was incredible.the best flavored soup I had ever had.It was the caraway seed that gives it that flavor.Plus the paparika,Thanks for your help.scott m
I’ve made this a few times now… here are some things I’ve noticed about it:
1) I like mine even spicier, so instead of bell peppers, I put in chopped-up cayenne peppers. Also, I’ve heard that some Hungarian cooks think tomatoes are anathema in goulash, so I don’t use them (1 less ingredient to pick up!). Perhaps this observation is more applicable to segedin goulash?
2) I started making goulash when I began grad school and didn’t really have a good idea of how to cook. I would never simmer the stew enough. It definitely needs time to come together and give a chance for the meat to soften. I’d say simmer at least 2 hours, or even 3 as Lubos says in his segedin goulash recipe. I simmer mine uncovered so I can stir it easier, and I start out initially with beef broth, then thin it with water.
3) Not traditional, but I leave the potato skins on because I like to think I’m being healthy.
4) Hungarian paprika is a necessity, not an option. I use half Hungarian sweet paprika and half hot paprika. I also find this a good opportunity to use up caraway seeds, which I don’t like except in gulasova polievka.
Ja som vymenila hovadzie za” venison”(srnci gulas)a prave sme sa napraskali.Aby nebolo privelmi citit divinu,tak som vyuzila bylinkovu zahradku,ktora uz krasne rastie.Pridala som bobkovy list,zeler,parsnip,lebo petrzlen som nemala oregano(podobne majoranke),tymian a rozmarin.Mladej srne zobralo nieco vyse hodiny,pridala zemiaky a domaci chlieb.Kedze som nemala rajciny,tak vystacila aj konzerva of diced tomatoes.Velmi chutne.S tvojimi receptami nas napadaju aj tie,na ktore si len malo spomenieme.Vdaka.
Ahoj Lubos,
ja zacinam robit gulas s cibulou a potom pridavam hovadzie maso po osmazeni cibule a pouzivam olej, nie maslo, ale to zalezi asi od zvyku a chute.
maslo je bez makcena na l
Ludmila