Ingredients for 40 servings: 1.5 cups oil, 3.3 lbs onions (about 8 large ones), 7lb cubed beef, water, 4 tbsp paprika, 1 tbsp Cayenne pepper, 1 teaspoon ground black pepper, 2 tbsp salt, 4.5 lbs potatoes (15 small ones), 3 tbsp marjoram, 8 cloves garlic, beer (optional)
Prep Time: 30 minutes of prep time, 2 hours for cooking

Here is what you will need for this version of goulash: beef, potatoes, onions, and various spices.

Chop the onions (cibule). The pieces don’t have to be too small since the onions will dissolve during cooking. Pour the oil (olej) into your kettle and wait for it to get hot. Then add the onions. Fry them until they get golden and glass-like translucent. Add the meat (mäso) and brown it from all sides. You can brown all the meat in the kettle but I figured it will be faster if I do one half (one 3lb packet) separately in a frying pan. If you fry your meat separately like this, make sure to pour in all the juices into the kettle. Add water. I didn’t measure how much I added in, but it was enough to get this 16L stock pot 2/3 full. Roughly speaking, you want half the soup be water and the other half meat. When adding water, it’s better to add in several small batches and wait for the water to come to boil in between each addition. This way the meat will continue to cook.

Add the spices: paprika (sladká červená paprika), Cayenne pepper (štiplavá červená paprika), ground black pepper (mleté čierne korenie), and salt (soľ). Cover and let simmer on low heat for about an hour. In the meantime, peel and cube all but two potatoes and get minced garlic ready to go.

About an hour later

Add the cubed potatoes into the goulash once the meat is almost ready. Also add the marjoram, I used both fresh and dried. When substituting fresh herbs for dried ones, use one tablespoon of fresh herbs for each one teaspoon of dried herbs.

Mince the garlic cloves and add these into the pot. Also grate the remaining two peeled potatoes using a grater. Add these in as well, these potatoes will help thicken the stew.

Finally, if the goulash tastes too thick, you can thin it by adding some dark beer. Or just add the beer regardless. I used about 1/3 bottle of “dark amber” brew. And that’s it, look at all that delicious oil floating on top!

Slovak Picnic in Turkey Run, VA

And just few photos from the picnic. I ended up reheating the goulash using this portable gas stove. This was my first time using it and it’s a really handy thing! The only issue is that the flame is really hot. It didn’t even occur to me to keep stirring the goulash while heating it up, and some potatoes on the bottom burned. So unfortunately the goulash had bit of a burned taste. But nobody really complained, I guess that’s part of the charm of eating in the outdoors…

We also had hot dogs (párky). The Giant grocery chain sells “New York deli-style” hot dogs that look and taste very much like Slovak hot dogs. By the way, hot dogs are served differently in Slovakia than here in the US. One way is to serve them in a hollowed out bread roll. These are hollowed out by a heated spike that toasts the roll from the inside. You then squirt mustard into the slot and then put in the párok. This kind of hot dog is called, quite appropriately, párok v rožku (hot dog in a bread roll). The other way of serving hot dogs is by simply placing two cooked pieces on a paper plate with mustard and few slices of rye or whole wheat bread. This way is popular at festivals where vendors may not have that fancy bread roll toasting spike.

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Treska is my favorite Slovak salad. So I was really excited when Kristina posted a recipe for it on the Facebook page! I made it and it turned out quite tasty. Here I show you how to make it. But, there is a caveat. When I went to buy the ingredients, I learned that my grocery store was having a 60% off sale on fillets of “blue fish”. This was a deal too good to pass! Well, this is a problem because, you see, the word treska means “cod”. So here you have a cod-free cod salad. You’ll see that when you make this salad out of the right fish, the resulting creation will be of much lighter color.

Start by preparing “vinegar stock” by combing 3 liters of water, one cup of vinegar, whole black peppercorns, 6 bay leaves and salt. Let boil for 5 minutes. Then add the fish fillets. Cook for 10 to 15 minutes. Then take the fish out and place in a large salad bowl. Let cool down.

While the fish is cooling, cook two whole peeled carrots. Place them into boiling, salted water, and cook for about 3 or 4 minutes. Let them cool down. In the mean time, finely flake up the fish with a fork. You could also use a mixer.

Next finely grate the carrots and two whole onions.

Add mayo (3/4 of this medium sized tub), …

…, two tablespoons of vinegar, 4 tablespoons mustard (I used spicy brown), …

…, black pepper and salt. Then let sit in the fridge for 24 hours. This will let the flavors mix through. Enjoy with few fresh rolls, or even better, with rožky, Slovak mini baguettes. Dobrú chuť!

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