2010 Cooking Club Week 3: Goulash

foodaholic

I made a hugh pot of it on friday so cant wait to sit down to another bowl of leftovers. I doubled the recipe but put in 2 chillies to give it a bit more of a kick. Thanks this is a cracker of a recipe

unkel

Made it today and it was gorgeous! I've never made Goulash before and it turned out it is one of the favourite foods Mrs unkel enjoyed when she was a child. She loved it!





My experience: I used 2 medium red onions and 2 large cloves of garlic. I borrowed JO's ideas of using a bit of red wine vinegar and I had a jar of roast red pepper in vinegar, so I used a bit as well (about the equivalent of a small red pepper). Used sirloin steak (half price at the mo in Superquinn).

I used 600ml of stock (Knorr beef stockpot) but this was way too much. (You can see from the picture - doesn't matter though, just leave some liquid in the dish). As I used sirloin, I only let it simmer for about an hour. More than enough, but I forgot that that meant that I should use less stock.

When I tasted it, it lacked oomph, so I added a third heaped tbsp of standard paprika powder. Sorted!

So 4 large portions of Goulash (using good quality sirloin steak) for less than a tenner for all ingredients, including herbs. From now on this will be one of my regulars. Thanks a million, OP.

The Black Oil

Made it again this weekend. Left out the pepper as some people are a bit fussy, but I threw in a teaspoon or two of cayenne pepper. I reduced the amount of stock as it was a bit too watery on the first attempt.

Yum!

Mr Magnolia

Funny. I cooked this again today myself. Went down very well (again ).

unkel

Mr Magnolia wrote: »

Funny. I cooked this again today myself. Went down very well (again ).

I'm already looking forward to the large left over portion that's waiting for me in my freezer

Toto Wolfcastle

I have this simmering at the moment. I wont get around to eating it until Thursday though I reckon.

unkel

janeybabe wrote: »

I have this simmering at the moment. I wont get around to eating it until Thursday though I reckon.

Well, did you get around eating it? Let us know

Toto Wolfcastle

unkel wrote: »

Well, did you get around eating it? Let us know

I did! I had it for lunch and for dinner yesterday and I have 3 portions in the freezer.

I left out the beef stock as I kind of lost it. I used pasata rather than tinned tomatoes as I hate the texture of tomatoes. I also left out the cornflour but it was thick enough without it. I simmered it for around 3 hours and the meat was beautifully tender. I could have put in a bit more paprika as I love the flavour but it was still nice.

I really enjoyed it. It was lovely and comforting. I'll definitely make it again.

unkel

LOL, for lunch and for dinner?

I don't think I've ever done that, not even as a very poor student back in the day

Interesting to see you didn't need to use corn flour. It might be that it reduced / thickened because of the long cooking time. The one thing I omitted from my experience is that I used about 2 or 3 times the amount of corn flour. And it was still too thin. Again probably because of my short cooking time

Toto Wolfcastle

unkel wrote: »

LOL, for lunch and for dinner?

I don't think I've ever done that, not even as a very poor student back in the day

Interesting to see you didn't need to use corn flour. It might be that it reduced / thickened because of the long cooking time. The one thing I omitted from my experience is that I used about 2 or 3 times the amount of corn flour. And it was still too thin. Again probably because of my short cooking time

I know! But in my defence I didn't have long to eat at lunchtime so I didn't have time to go to the shop. And I never have bread at home for sandwiches! So it was easy to heat up some goulash.

I think the fact that I left mine after cooking for a couple of days helped it thicken too. That's strange that that much corn flour didn't thicken it enough. Corn flour is usually great for that.

Little Alex

Made psycho-hope's goulash a couple of days ago.

It was lovely. Thanks for the recipe!

I added some floury potatoes for the last 20 minutes, until they were tender, but not falling apart.

I guess the starch from the potatoes thickened it up because I didn't need to add any cornflour.

unkel

Made it again today and got it spot on this time. Using "ordinary" round steak, simmering for 2 hours and using the red wine vinegar and rather a lot of paprika powder. Only needed the one tbsp of corn flour as in the original post and the result was a lovely thick sauce - perfect with rice. I've never seen the missus clear as full a plate as I served her today so I must have done something right

Thanks again psycho-hope. This is a new regular to me, thanks to you. BTW this freezes well, as I tried the last time.

BaZmO*

Made this again last night. Made a big pot of it so I can have it for dinner again tonight and then freeze some for the future.

I added a small bit of smoked paprika and it was lovely, also served it with a dollop of sour cream on top with really added an extra yumminess to it.

irish_goat

I made this today and it was lovely. Clean plates all round the dinner table.

Used the OP's recipe but added a handful of peas for colour and a slug of red wine.

Definitely making it again.:D

Little Alex

Winter arrived yesterday and I thought that goulash would be just the thing against the cold and rain.



There's still enough left over for dinner tonight aswell!

---

We finished off the rest of it this evening.



This time I made Czech knedliky to go with them. Apart from Hungary, other central European countries have their own version of goulash and in the Czech Republic it is often served with knedliky, which are sliced bread dumplings and are perfect for mopping up the sauce. I guess I could just have used a couple of slices of bread, but that wouldn't have been any fun!

matrim

Plan to try this tonight and also plan to try serve it in a bread bowl instead of with rice.

Hopefully it will all work out.

unkel

Little Alex wrote: »

This time I made Czech knedliky to go with them.

They look nice

Care to share your recipe for these?

matrim

matrim wrote: »

Plan to try this tonight and also plan to try serve it in a bread bowl instead of with rice.

Hopefully it will all work out.

Just to follow up on this. I made it with the only change being I used peas instead of mushrooms and if I do say so myself it was lovely.

The pictures aren't the best but roughly show what it looked like




The bread bowl worked out really well and really soaked up the flavour. For it I bought a small crusty loaf from M&S and cut it in half, hollowed it and roughly followed this

Little Alex

unkel wrote: »

They look nice

Care to share your recipe for these?

If nobody minds, unkel, then no problem! Waits for mod input... Would it be bringing the thread off topic?

BaZmO*

Little Alex wrote: »

If nobody minds, unkel, then no problem! Waits for mod input... Would it be bringing the thread off topic?

Just start a new thread here and link to it (not that the mods would mind anyway)

unkel

Little Alex wrote: »

If nobody minds, unkel, then no problem! Waits for mod input... Would it be bringing the thread off topic?

I doubt the moderators would mind. And if they would, they could move it out into its own thread anyway methinks. So go ahead

This goulash dish is now on our regular list and will sure be so going into winter. Any variations / additions / suggestions are very welcome!

Thanks matrim for the bread bowl idea. I've only had one in a coffee type cafe / restaurant once (not expecting it to be the dish my soup was served in) and I was pleasantly surprised.

Truley

Great receipe, thanks for sharing it. I made it this evening with gnocci (potato dumplings.) I think it will become a staple this cold winter

Mr Magnolia

We don't mind at all Little Alex, post away

Little Alex

Right so...

I made my knedliky with the following ingredients:

1 cup flour
half cup milk
salt to taste
half teaspoon baking powder.

Mix the ingredients until the dough can be handled without it sticking to your hands: you may need to add more milk or flour, depending on how absorbent the flour is, what its moisture content is, etc. Then roll the dough into a kind of oval sausage.

Place it into a pot of water at a rolling boil, cover the pot with a lid and adjust the temperature so that the water is bubbling slightly. After about 15 minutes you can remove the dough and re-roll it to adjust the shape, if you like. I did this with rubber gloves on so as to make the heat bearable. Then return it to the bubbling water. After 25-30 minutes it should be done.

I ended up making it twice. The first time with eggs and cubes of stale bread, which the recipe I found called for, but I wasn't really happy with it and for the second go I didn't use these at all. Some recipes use eggs, some don't (just a disclaimer there as some people got very excited about variations made to regional speciality recipes!) You should probably also use yeast instead of baking powder, but I didn't want to wait that long!

The next time I make it I might wrap it in oiled cling film instead (only oiling the layer of film that is in contact with the dough so that the film will cling to itself) as there was a little bit of water seapage into the dough. You can see it in the photo. It might also help it keep its shape better.

This stuff is quite glutinous and doesn't seem to keep at all, so it should be eaten straight away.

And of course, if there is anyone here from Czech or Slovakia, then please don't be shy about giving suggestions on making this!

irish_goat

Making goulash tonight so might give those knedliky a go if I can find baking powder.

aquascrotum

Had a lash at Goulash last night - roaring success! Thanks to the OP for the recipe. Was overcautious with the paprika the first time due to not being overly familiar with it, but next time I'll not hold back as much. Am looking forward to tucking into a plate of this when it starts to get properly cold outside...

angeldelight

I made this today - forgot to take a picture as was eating late and was too hungry to mess about!

I didn't like it It smelled nice and I'm sure it was nothing to do with the recipe, I think I just don't like goulash to be honest

FewFew

I'm making this as I type... just in the dreaded waiting stage! Found a really nice Hungarian tomato/pepper puree to use instead of the tomato paste, so I'm hope it kicks up the flavour

jjdubya

Made this ages ago and making it again tonight in between watching the game. Great recipe - didn't have paprika first time though and used equal parts cumin, garam masala and tumeric. Worked out great, thanks for the recipe!

corblimey

Just wanted to thank the OP for posting this. I had it on my to-do list for about 6 months and finally made it last weekend, by which time I'd completely forgotten where I'd even got it. It was simple to make, and tasted great. It may just have supplanted stew as my go-to cold-day food