What's 4 Dinner, by Marie: Hungarian Goulash Soup

As many of you are aware, I returned from Europe a couple days ago. One of our stays was in Budapest, Hungary. A traditional meal there is Goulash Soup. This truly is a soup, not the stew many call goulash. This recipe is from a woman in Budapest.

This is not a quick recipe. It's especially good for a cool weekend. It will be on the stove for hours. This took me 5.5 hours.

2 or so pounds of beef chuck roast
6 Tablespoons bacon fat, or other cooking oil
3 medium onions, chopped fine
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 Tablespoon caraway seed
2 Tablespoons Hungarian Hot Paprika *
16 cups beef stock
4 medium yellow potatoes, peeled and cubed, 1/2 inch
2 Hungarian Wax banana peppers, seeded and diced
2 medium tomatoes, peeled, seeded, and cubed
1 bunch parsley leaves, tied

One egg
3/4 cup flour
1 Tablespoon finely chopped green scallion tops, optional
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Cut beef into 1/2 inch cubes, removing fat.

Saute onion in fat until softened and starting to brown. This takes a while. Don't rush. Once the liquid has dried and it starts to brown, add in the garlic and caraway seed. Don't let the garlic brown.

Add the Paprika, mix in very well. Add the cubed meat and mix to coat meat with paprika onion mixture.

Cook over a medium heat until meat is no longer pink. Stir every 5 minutes. It should not dry out. You may add stock if you need to. This will take about 15 minutes.

Once the meat is cooked, add 8 cups of stock. This should easily cover the meat. Cover and allow to simmer for 1 hour.

While the meat is simmering, cut up your veggies, if you haven't already.

After an hour, add the cubed potatoes, peppers, tomatoes and the last 8 cups of beef stock. Finally, add the tied bundle of parsley to the pot. Bring to boil, lower heat and allow to simmer another hour.

While the soup is simmering, make your pasta.
Combine 1 egg and the 3/4 cup flour and green onion if you are using it. It will be very dense. After it is kneaded, wrap in plastic wrap and allow to rest on counter the hour the soup is cooking.

After the hour is up, unwrap your pasta hunk. Cut off about 1/5 of it and roll into a pencil sized log. Nip off small pieces of the pasta and lay them out on a plate to dry a bit. They don't need to DRY, just try to keep them from sticking together. Try to keep the pieces pea sized or smaller. They will double in size in the soup. In Hungary, the pasta is almost crumbed rather than "pieces." Repeat until you've cut up all the pasta.

Remove the parsley bundle. Bring soup back to a boil. Add pasta pieces, stirring. Lower heat again, allowing to simmer about ten minutes. Serve hot!

* If you cannot find Hot Paprika, use your sweet paprika and add 1/2 teaspoon of cayenne pepper. This does not make the soup "hot" it only keeps it from being too sweet.

Cut up the meat

Add fat to the pot, and heat.

Cut up the onions.

I like to have all of my ingredients at the ready.

Have I told you lately, how much I LOVE my Pampered Chef Chopper? Easy Peasy chopping!

Into the pot the onions go.

Cooking onions. This takes a while. Cook away all the liquid, and slightly brown.

Minced garlic. So easy in the Pampered Chef garlic smasher! No garlic on your fingers. :)

Onions starting to brown...

Add the garlic and caraway...

Mix it all up.

The Paprikas I brought back from Hungary. Hot on the left, sweet on the right. We will use hot today. If you only have sweet, add 1/2 teaspoon of cayenne.

2 Tablespoons Paprika.

There is that color you were expecting!

Add the cubed beef.

Salt to taste, I added a pinch

Mix it up and get the fire up.

Cook and stir till the meat looks cooked and doesn't stick together anymore.

Add the first amount of beef stock.

Cover and simmer for an hour.

Lovely golden potatoes. Peel and cube, small.

Gold Potatoes

Even a nice yellow on the inside. Good old Idaho potatoes will disintegrate, please try to find yellow potatoes. They will hold up to the long cooking process better.