Pork goulash?

Okay, the paprika thread reminded me that I've got some fabulous "fuszerpaprika" that a friend brought me from Hungary, pork, and sour cream all in the house at once. I think goulash is in order. Anyone have a recipe they particularly recommend?

My favorite is a simple, old-fashioned recipe from the years-ago book published by McCormick spices. Unfortunately, I'm away from home and can't give you the original recipe. But it goes *something* like this one:

http://www.cooks.com/rec/doc/0,1627,147 ... 94,00.html

Obviously, caraway seeds are needed, and maybe some dill, too. Yum.

Geo

The basic goulash, or pörkölt recipe goes like this:

Fry one large onion in lard or a vegetable oil (sunflower is typical in Hungary). Traditionally, lard is the fat of choice, but folks in Hungary will use sunflower oil as a nod to more modern times. (Lard is better, IMHO, especially with pork).

After the onions have cooked to translucency--here's the important part--take the pan off the heat and add paprika. This safeguards the paprika from burning. It's not absolutely necessary, but like making Hollandaise over a double boiler, a worthwhile precaution. About 1 teaspoon will be enough for two pounds of pork. Add the pork and a little bit of water to keep the paprika from burning. Allow the pork to stew in its own juices over low heat, covered, for as long as it takes (usually a couple of hours). A nice, natural gravy should form. Feel free to add a little bit of light stock (vegetable or chicken) instead of water, if you wish.

Now here is where we get to discuss variations on our theme. I was actually speaking with my Hungarian ex-girlfriend last night and asked about two culinary fine points in goulash: the use of tomatoes and bell peppers. (While convincing her to send me some more of that Kalocsa paprika I so dearly love.)

Most of my Hungarian cookbooks include the addition of fresh tomatoes to goulash. I don't ever recall having a goulash in Hungary that included tomatoes. She agrees: no tomatoes in the goulash. But these recipes can be so varied, so I'm sure it's traditional somewhere in Hungary to use tomatoes, but I haven't seen it. The most I've noticed is the addition of tomato paste to thicken up beef goulashes and the such. That's not unusual. But I absolutely cannot stand tomato products of any sort in chicken paprikash.

Bell peppers (like green or red peppers, known as "California peppers" in Hungary), on the other hand, seem absolutely wrong in Hungarian goulash to me. German or Austrian, sure. Hungarian, not so much. I have seen Hungarian sweet peppers fried with the onions sometimes. (They look a little like Hungarian wax peppers, but are not spicy. They have a thinner, paler, and gentler flavor than green bell peppers). My usual experience with goulash and its variants in Hungary is no fresh peppers or fresh tomatoes. (Except for garnish. A ring of magyar erős paprika, or Hungarian hot wax pepper, or sweet pepper is typical).

Note, these are only for the sake of edification of folks trying to make Hungarian goulash. Feel free to make it however you like, I just wanted to point out what is usual for that style.

If you add sour cream to your pörkölt, you'll basically get pork paprikash. Typically, one beats a couple of tablespoons of flour into a generous cup of sour cream, and incorporates it into the stew towards the end of cooking time. To make chicken paprikash, just use quartered chicken instead of the pork, add 1/2 teaspoon more paprika, and finish the same way. I make my paprikash with exactly these ingredients: chicken, onion, lard, paprika, salt, sour cream, flour. As long as you use good quality paprika, there's no reason to fancy up the recipe.

Oh, and serve with galuska, aka spätzle.

Binko,

Simple and straightforward, nice discussion.

I went looking around some more for possible provenance on my favorite gulash, the one with sauerkraut, caraway and dill. According to this

http://www.astray.com/recipes/?show=Szekely%20gulyas

there is just such a basic recipe from Transylvania. Might there be other cultural influences in this part of Hungary?

Geo

Ah, yes, székelygulyás. Like you, I assumed this was a Transylvanian stew, as "székely" refers to a Hungarian ethnic group that is mostly situated in Transylvania (northwest Romania).

No so, according to my edition of Culinaria Hungary.:

The name of the dish is not derived from the Székler, a Hungarian ethnic group in Transylvania, nor is it goulash. Instead, in 1846, a country archivist by the name of József Székely is supposed to have dropped into his local inn in Budapest, the "Arany Okör," just before closing time, and found there was nothing to eat in the kitchen except a little pörkölt and cooked sauerkraut. At his request, the leftovers were heated up together. He was so delighted with the "dish" that henceforth he and his friends often ordered cabbage "á la Székely." The poet, Sándor Petőfi is supposed to have finally christened it székelygulyás.

Sounds kind of like how German Chocolate Cake is not German, but named after a guy named Sam German. I quickly glanced at a couple of Hungarian pages and, while my Hungarian isn't exactly great, the web pages do seem to agree that the Székely in székelygulyás is a Hungarian family name, and named after the aforementioned Joseph, who apparently was a newspaper writer of some sort (although Culinaria says archivist.)

Anyhow, Transylvanian cuisine is less focused on paprika, and more on green herbs such as marjoram, dill, thyme, savory, tarragon, rosemary, basil, etc. As far as I understand it, Hungarian cuisine used to be liberal with green herbs as well. These days, though, parsley and dill are about the only standard green herbs used in Hungarian cooking. Tarragon seems to be making a bit of a comeback, although often in dried form, in a yummy chicken or turkey tarragon soup that's pretty popular in Budapest.

Well, isn't THAT a hoot? Named after a Hungarian archivist. Good enough for me, since I like the dish. But I'll no longer think of it as an authentic gulash; altho', of course, it IS authentically Hungarian! :^)

Thanks for the info--

Geo

Absolutely. Székelygulyás is a very common dish in Hungary. A similar idea is present in the national dish of Poland bigos, although Polish bigos is not typically made with paprika or sour cream.

edit: I should also add that when it comes to paprika, I almost always prefer using sweet paprika for Hungarian dishes, or cutting in maybe 25% hot paprika. While Hungary has a reputation for spicy food, most food in Hungary is decidedly not spicy. The only food I recall that is typically served with a moderate level of heat is the traditional fish soup. You will, of course, find variations in recipes, but bog standard Hungarian fare, as it is served today, is not spicy.

I prefer sweet paprika because I find it more fragrant and flavorful and because it most closely replicates my experiences with the heat level of Hungarian food. If I need heat, I add it at the table with the Hungarian wax peppers or Erös Pista (literally, "Strong Steve"), a hot pepper paste that 's ubiquitous in Hungary and can be found at Bende here in the Chicago area.

Thanks so much. Since I had neither green peppers nor sauerkraut, I'd held off on my goulash-making. Now I know I don't need them--for all that the combo sounds delicious and the story is fascinating. I also appreciate the edification on goulash vs. pork paprikash.

I'm surprized that the Eros Pista is available in Chicago! I first tasted it (and its sweet counterpart) in Germany in the late 70s. I looked all over for it when I got back to the states, but couldn't find it. A call to the Hungarian legation revealed that they had to bring in their personal supplies in the diplomatic pouch!

I can get it at Balkani in the Marché Jean-Talon, gottseidank, but I'm also pleased to hear that it's now available South of the Border.

And Ann, let us know how your dinner goes!

Geo

Coupl'a interesting notes courtesy of the dean of Hungarian cookbooks, if not cooking as well, George Lang. In his chapter on traditional stews, including gulyás, pörkölt, paprikás, and tokány,* he discusses pörkölt in general terms and then talks about what is essential and what is not:

"Matters of opinion: whether the onions are chopped or sliced; whether to use fresh tomatoes, tomato puree, or none; sliced green peppers or none; whether to add salt for the last 10 minutes or in the usual way; to brown the mean after the onion is golden, then add paprika and water, or to add water and meat right after onion has been sautéed and sprinkle it with paprika toward the last stages."

Disappointingly, although he mentions pork pörkölt, he offers no recipe--presumably because he considers it so basic. It can also be made with beef, mutton, game, goose, and duck (he offers recipes for chicken, veal, and carp pörkölt), but veal and chicken are most popular for paprikás.

He gets to székelygulyás in the next chapter, on "potted cabbage." There, he gives a recipe using 1 tablespoon lard to 1.5 pounds lean pork, as well as 2 tablespoons of tomato puree. He then relates the following somewhat longer and different version of how the dish came to be, as part of a long note:

"It is a cabbage dish that is not Transylvanian and was not created by the inhabitants there, the Szekelys, and it is not even a gulyás. According to a letter in the magazine of the Hungarian restaurateurs guild, it happened this way: In 1846 the librarian of Pest County came too late to a little restaurant, Zenélő Óra (the musical clock), to choose from the menu. The librarian, whose name was Székely (a rather common Hungarian name), asked the owner to serve the leftover sauerkraut and pork pörkölt together on the very same plate. The improvisation was so good that the great poet Petőfi, who was nearby within hearing distance, the following day asked the restaurateur to give him Székely's gulyás, meaning the same mixture Mr. Székely got the previous day. This time the owner topped it with sour cream and the dish, together with its name, became part of the everyday repertoire."

Lang also points out--his notes alone are worth the price of his book--that if one stopped after the first step in the Szekelygulyas recipe, one would have pork pörkölt (disznopörkölt).

Paul Kovi, in Transylvanian Cuisine, doesn't even mention pörkölt. (I've always found his book a unique combination covering both Hungarian and Romanian and, while interesting in its own way, much less comprehensive.)

Leslie Chamberlain's Food and Cooking of Eastern Europe, with its historical and somewhat British approach, mentions only beef porkolt.

Fascinating region, culinarily--not to mention the delicious food. Think I'd better go see what's in the cupboard (besides paprika!).



*Tokány, fwiw, is not Hungarian, but Romanian and the word itself derives from the Romanian tocana which is a sort of ragout. This from Lang himself.

Gypsy Boy wrote:Coupl'a interesting notes courtesy of the dean of Hungarian cookbooks, if not cooking as well, George Lang.

I had the pleasure of meeting George Lang when I worked at the Budapest Business Journal. He is truly a knowledgeable gentleman and a person who exudes passion for his food--an infectious personality. I was becoming frustrated taking pictures for our dining section, because pretty much every single restaurant there refused to let me take pictures with patrons, apparently for reasons of privacy (like, who knows who's having an affair with whom.)

When I suggested taking a picture of George in his dining room of the Gundel, which was relatively empty since it was mid-afternoon, he suggested coming back later, for, in his words, "there is nothing sadder than an empty restaurant." Finally, somebody who got it. In the end, I ended up just taking a portrait of him sipping some tea at the Gundel, and I was quite touched, as he requested a print of it. Somewhere, I have a handwritten note of thanks from Mr. Lang--truly, one of the few really rewarding experiences of that job there, which was mostly thankless.

Also, note for reference, disznópörkölt also goes by the name sertéspörkölt. "Disznó" means "pig" and "sertés" means "pork."

edit: I should add that I firmly believe the paprika must be added to the oil, and never water. The flavors of the paprika dissolve in fat and that is where the true Hungarian taste comes out. Paprika added at the end or to liquid just ends up floating and looking pretty, but not adding much to the flavor or body of a dish. This is also something I learned in my time out there, and, having done it both ways, I firmly believe there is a difference. In fact, some cooks, if they feel the paprika flavor is lacking, will dissolve more paprika in heated fat and add that to the dish, instead of adding straight paprika to a soup or stew.

Geo wrote:I'm surprized that the Eros Pista is available in Chicago! I first tasted it (and its sweet counterpart) in Germany in the late 70s. I

Just another point of info: the sweet counterpart is known as Édes Anna, or "Sweet Anna."