New Year's Goulash
01 January 2008
Although somewhat knackered from yesterday night I will of course not miss to post my New Year’s recipe!
I rarely cook traditional Austrian recipes (or even traditional recipes in general). For our little New Year’s Eve party I nonetheless decided to make goulash, for which I consulted my mother, my standard cook book for traditional cuisine (Die Gute Küche by Plachutta), and added some own ideas (using vegetable stock instead of water and adding some red wine). I also made my personal choice of meat. Traditionally you should take the calf of the beef, which is juicy but also quite a bit nerved with fat. As opposed to some others I am not so fond of that, so after consulting with my butcher I opted for a part of the shoulder, which contains less fat, and yet does not dry out.
As a matter of fact goulash is a perfect party dish if you want to serve more than snacks. You can conveniently prepare it one or two days in advance, so you are done with all the kitchen work when the guests arrive. People say the goulash gets even better when it is warmed up, and I absolutely believe this is true. Generally you can say that the longer you cook it the more tender the meat gets, which gradually gets soaked with the sauce.
So goulash takes a long time to cook (I let it simmer for a few hours here and a few hours there over a period of two days), but except for slicing tons of onions (don’t be lazy here – they will give you all the juice!) it does not create all that much work, nor is it particularly difficult to prepare.
Goulash
| serves 4 as a main dish |
| 800g beef for goulash (calf or shoulder, filleted and chopped) |
| 800g onions |
| 2 cloves of garlic |
| 4 tablespoons of sweet paprika powder |
| 1/2 tablespoon of hot paprika powder |
| 1 tablespoon of dried marjoram 1/2 teaspoon of powdered cumin |
| 2 leaves of laurel |
| 2 tablespoons of tomato purée |
| 500ml vegetable stock |
| 250ml red wine |
| a dash of red wine vinegar |
| some oil for frying |
| spaetzle as a side dish |
Finely chop the onions. Briefly sear the meat in a little bit of oil while constantly stirring until the pieces are slightly golden, then take it out of the pot and put it aside. If necessary, add some more oil to the pot and sweat the onions. Keep stirring them so they all get a bit fried. Add the sweet and the hot paprika powder as well as the tomato purée, stir with the onions and deglaze with a dash of vinegar. Pour in the vegetable stock, add the marjoram, the cumin, the whole laurel leaves as well as the mashed garlic and stir everything well. Let it simmer for at least 30 minutes, until the onions are completely soft, then take out the laurel leaves and process the rest with a blender.
Add the meat to the blended onions, season to taste with salt and let the goulash simmer at moderate temperature (it should be boiling only very lightly) for at least 2 hours. You can also add the laurel leaves again for a while, if you wish. Stir it from time to time to make sure it does not burn at the bottom of the pot. In an extra pot boil the red wine to reduce it to about one third. Once the goulash sauce has considerably thickened, add the reduced wine and allow to concentrate again. The sauce should ideally be very thick and creamy in the end. To serve garnish each plate of goulash with some sour cream and serve spaetzle as a side dish.