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Ingredients
- 2 medium onions
- 2 tbs lard (or olive oil)
- 2.5 lbs beef chuck or round, cut into 3/4 inch pieces
- 2-3 garlic cloves
- pinch of caraway seeds
- 1/2 cup celery chopped coarsely
- salt
- 2 tbs Hungarian paprika
- 1/3 tube Hungarian "Gulyas krem" paste
- 1 medium ripe tomato
- 2 green frying or Italian peppers
- 1 lb potatoes
Details
Preparation
Step 1
1. Peel onions and chop into course pieces. Melt lard in a heavy 6 to 8 quart Dutch oven. Sauté onions in in lard. Heat should be low in order not to brown the onions.
2. When the onions become glossy, add beef. Stir so that during this process, which should last for 10 minutes, the meat will be sautéed with the onions.
3. Meanwhile chop and crush the garlic with the caraway seeds and a little salt; use the flat side of a heavy knife.
4. Take kettle from heat. stir in paprika and the garlic mixture. Stir rapidly with a wooden spoon. Immediately after paprika is absorbed, add 2/5 quarts warm water. (Cold water toughens meat if you add it while the meat is frying)
5. Replace covered kettle over low heat and cook for about 1 hour.
6. While the braising is going on, peel the tomato and cut into 1 inch pieces. Core green peppers and slice into rings. Add the celery as well. Peel potatoes and cut into 3/4 inch dice.
7. After the meat has been braised for about 1 hour (the time depends on the cut of the meat) add the cup-up tomato and green peppers and enough water to give a soup consistency. Add a little salt. Simmer slowly for another 30 minutes.
8. Add potatoes and cook the Gulyas till done. Adjust salt. You can add "Gulyas Krem" (tubes) for extra flavor
9. Serve the Gulyas steaming hot in large extra deep bowls. The meat should be tender but not falling apart.
History of the Gulyas Soup: (There should e an accent over the a)
The origins of the soup can be traced to the ninth century - shepherds cut their meat into cubes, cooked it with onion in a heavy iron kettle (Bogracs) and slowly stewed the dish until all the liquid evaporated. They dried the remnants in the sun (probably on sheepskin capes)and then put the dried food in a bag made of a sheep's stomach. Whenever they wanted food they took a piece of dried meat, added some water and reheated it. With a lot of liquid it became gulyas soup (gulyasleves). If less liquid was added it became gulyas meat (gulyashus). Even today this distinction exists, probably to mystify foreigners and foreign cook book writers.
The more parts of beef and beef innards are used, the better the gulyas will be. Of course, lard and bacon(either one or both) and chopped onion are absolute musts. Never use any flour, never use any other spice besides caraway, Never Frenchify it with wine, never Germanize it with brown sauce. Never put in any other garniture besides sliced potatoes or galuska (dumplings).
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