Goulash Soup

Goulash, or the original Hungarian word gulyás is a well known one all over the world. Some people when hearing about Hungary, they think about goulash. It's a traditional dish and not only in Hungary but in most parts of Europe. It's a stew or a soup that dates back to medieval times as shepherds dish and it became a symbol of Hungary.

The name originates from the Hungarian "gulyás". The word "gulya" means "herd of cattle" in Hungarian, and "gulyás" means "herdsman" or "cowboy". source

This dish has endless varieties and the more places you visit in Europe, the more versions you can discover. It is known to have more than 50 versions and some have nothing to do with the original but this is the beauty of gastronomy.

The early versions were made of cattle meat and if you go to Hungary, you most likely will be served cattle meat. They have both soup and stew but I advise you not to eat both at once as you basically can't. Both dishes are so filling you will leave half of your meal on the plate. I made this mistake once and never again. Ok, let's get back to the gulyás.

I grew up having goulash all the time and still cook it as we love it. Who doesn't? When I was a kid, life was tough, meat was almost non existent and my poor mom had to use all kinds of tricks to substitute meat. So we had pork goulash, goulash made with sausage, just like mine in the photo. She and my grandmother mostly made stew but I'm making soup as well.

Goulash Soup Recipe

It's been a while since I posted recipes and this week this is already the third one I believe. Today I thought I'd share with you one of my goulash recipes, maybe someone will be interested in trying it out.

Ingredients for 4 servings:

• 700 g potato,
• 200 g smoked sausage,
• 1 medium onion,
• 1 garlic clove,
• 2 tbsp red paprika powder,
• 1 tbsp salt,
• 3 bay leaves,
• 1 tbsp olive oil,
• pepper,
• sour cream.

Clean and cut the potato, slice the sausage.

Add the oil to the the pot, heat it and then add the sausage. Steer and let it cook for a couple of minutes but make sure not to burn it. This will give the soup a nice flavor.

When it starts to turn brown, add the red paprika powder, mix well and water immediately. The paprika powder can burn very easily and then the whole dish becomes bitter.

Add the potato, salt, bay leaves, onion and garlic, water to cover all, cover with a lid and let it cook till the potato is soft.

Serve while it's still hot with sour cream.

Tips

The pepper powder or paprika powder is a very important ingredient here and you need to pay attention to what you're buying as it's the most counterfeit as well. Unfortunately you can buy something that is sold in a very eye catching package that turns out to have nothing to do with paprika and in fact is red brick powder and can be very toxic.

If you're not sure what you are buying and don't trust the product, use normal, fresh bell pepper, it will do the job perfectly.

You can add tomato sauce if you like that is also a possibility although I'm not really in favor of it.

Goulash Stew While Camping

If you go camping and you have the possibility to cook outside in a cauldron, then goulash is a must.

A few years ago we made a trip to the mountain, to a wooden cabin where there was a fireplace for the cauldron. This is the real deal as back in the day herdsmen were also using cauldrons as they had no other fireplace. This is a bit like going back in time.

What you see in the cauldron is oil, pork,bacon, onion and carrot...

... and red bell pepper added.

Potato, water, salt, pepper and turmeric.

And lunch can be served, the goulash stew is ready!