Beef Goulash

Ingredients:

8  onions 

Vinegar

1/3 cup fat

Summer savoury

3 lbs beef chuck

1 tsp. salt

 1/2 tsp. paprika

Method:

            Cook onions slowly in fat. Cut beef into cubes or slices and sprinkle with vinegar. Add salt, paprika, and cooked onions. Cover tightly and simmer about 2 hours. The liquid may be increased just before serving by the addition of good beef stock or cream, either sweet or sour. Serves 6.

Variations-There are many variations for goulash; here are a few:

·   Use red wine instead of stock.

·   Add two crushed cloves of garlic.

·   Flavour with caraway seeds.

·   Add finely diced gherkins just before the end of cooking time.

·   Omit the sweet pepper and in its place add a small tin of mushrooms half an hour before the end of cooking time.

·   Add tomato puree to the stock.

·Add two small, sliced sausages just before the coking is finished.

·Goulash and Spatzel-Spatzel are thin strips of dough (very common in Russian cuisine) cooked in boiling water.

            Sift 3 cups flour, 1 tsp. salt, and dash each nutmeg and paprika. Add 4 eggs and 3/4 cup water. Beat well with spoon until thick and smooth. Dampen end of small cutting board; put on 3/4 cup of dough. With spatula, smooth a small amount of dough very thin. Cut off small strips of dough into a large kettle of boiling, salted water. Dip spatula in water several times during cutting. If dough is too thin to hold together, add a little flour. Cook until tender (about 5 minutes). Lift out; place in dish, and pour a little melted butter over strips. Continue with remaining dough, adding a little fresh boiling water to kettle each time.. Serve hot.

            The most famous goulash of all comes from Segued in Hungary. To make genuine Szegediner Goulash you should use veal instead of beef; then add 1 Tbsp. caraway seeds and 1 lb. sauerkraut at the beginning

©Al (Alex-Alexander) D. Girvan. All rights reserved.