Hungary’s capital city, once two cities, Buda and Pest, unified in November 1873. Budapest is rich in culture and history and it is so pretty, it’s no wonder it made Forbes Europe’s Most Idyllic Places To Live list in 2008. We quickly fell in love with its wonderful architecture, its cafes and the kindness of strangers. We hope that through our lens we can give you a feel for this city, the gateway to Eastern Europe.
Statue of St Stephen Outside the Cave Church
St Stephen Basilica
At the Fehérvári Úti Market
A Typical Street In The Castle District
View From Buda Hill
Fountain in a Park on Erzsébet tér
Buda Castle
At the Fehérvári Úti Market
The Parliament at Sunset
Ingredients for goulash soup
GOULASH SOUP
2014-09-29 11:41:12
Ingredients
- 1/4 cup rendered pork fat from bacon (or vegetable oil)
- 1 1/2 lb stewing beef or chuck, cut into 1" cubes
- 1 large onion, diced
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- 2 carrots, diced
- 2 parsley roots, chopped
- 2 yellow Hungarian peppers or Anaheim peppers, diced
- 2 large russet potatoes, peeled and diced
- 4 cups beef stock
- 2 cups water
- 1 heaping Tbsp sweet paprika
- 1 tsp hot paprika
- 1/4 cup tomato paste
- 2 cups spaetzle cooked or fresh dropped into the soup
- chopped fresh parsley
Instructions
- Start by searing the meat in small batches until it is well browned (a very important step) set aside
- In the same heavy bottom pot, add the onions, carrots and parsley root, sweat them over medium heat until they start to soften.
- Add the peppers and continue to cook
- Next is the Paprika, another important step, sauté the paprika with the vegetables in the bacon fat until it starts to change colour a bit and smell heavily, don't over cook it though, just enough to bring out its full potential.
- Slip in your diced potatoes, tomato paste and then the beef broth.
- Traditional recipes would only use water but I use stock to bump up the flavour and then top it up with water until it is at least an inch over the veg and meat
- Bring it to a simmer and then cook it low and slow for a good couple of hours (and a half) or until the meat is meltingly tender.
- Season well with salt and pepper then garnish each bowl with a good sprinkling of chopped parsley.
- If you are lucky you will find cspetke (pinched noodles) or spaetzl in your goulash in Budapest.
- At home, cook packaged spaetzle in separate water and then put a couple spoons full of noodles in the bottom of each serving bowl and cover with goulash.
- If you are going all out and make your own Spaetzle cut it right into the simmering soup!
Notes
- Sour cream is not traditionally served with a Hungarian Goulash but the sour cream was so unbelievable in Budapest I could not resist
- Big slices of fresh dense white bread is the Hungarian choice to mop up all this delicious comfort food
- However you choose to put your spin on it, you can't go wrong with this favourite Hungarian classic
A Cook Not Mad - Food and Travel Blog https://www.acooknotmad.com/
Good recipe overall, but I use tomato instead of tomato paste, and don’t use beef stock. I think if you have good meat the beef flavor will be there.
Thanks for your comment. We like to think of our recipes as a guideline. People should use their judgement and adapt it to their own taste. What’s the fun in cooking if you have to follow strict rules? 🙂
Just found your blog via twitter and was happily surprised to see the pictures of Budapest! My father was Hungarian and we visited Budapest many times, a beautiful city and wonderful food. The recipe brings back memories, thank you!
Glad you found us! We thoroughly enjoyed our time in Budapest and would love to return some day. The goulash soup, well it’s such a delicious comfort food, I wish we had discovered it before now!
Why do you always tempt me with pork!
Oddly enough I have never had goulash but I`d give it a shot.
Goulash soup is different from the North American goulash I remember as a kid, that was more of a thick overcooked stew, in our house anyway.
I’d love to eat my way through this city – the markets look so bright and that goulash sounds divine! I haven’t eaten that in so long! 😀
We were pleasantly surprised by Budapest and its food.
You’ve done a wonderful job with these photos.. Budapest looks like a wonderful place to visit!
Thank you so much. We really enjoyed our time there.
Love your pics of the market and the city. How colorful everything is.
Thank you, glad you enjoyed our pictures.
I love Budapest! It is such a cool place to visit. I love its old worldy ambiance and charm and its food is pretty good too.