Friday 8 January 2010

Goulash


Ok so haven't done a food post in a while and am desperately trying to avoid work. So for the last year Jen has been going on about beef stew and how she really wants to eat it. I usually ignore this request as it is usually followed by a description of how in the States you can buy really good stew in a can?!? Growing up I was rarely fed food from a can (I know I was spoiled) so it just doesn't appeal to me. Actually beef stew in general has never been a favourite of mine. We used to eat kalops (a swedish beef stew) a lot at home and it never really appealed to me. However all this changed when we went to Moya (a slovakian restaurant) before Christmas to celebrate Gabe's PhD viva. I decided to have Goulash and I loved it. I know its silly, its essentially beef stew but if you call it Goulash I seem to like it more... a rose by any other name would smell as sweet, or perhaps not in my case. So after scouring the internet for a recipe here is what I came up with.

Ingredients:

250 g beef (the longer you have to stew it the worse the beef can be, I didnt have long so I used sirloin... I know pretty plush, but it was only 6 quid for 400 g)
1 onion
1 clove garlic
butter/olive oil
salt and pepper
200 ml beef stock
2 tbsp tomato puree
2 bell peppers (sliced)
2 tomatoes (sliced)
1 tbsp paprika
1 tsp mccormicks spicy all season (optional)

Directions:

Chop steak into cubes. Fry with onions, garlic, and butter/olive oil (or both). Salt and pepper. When steak is brown add beef stock and tomoato puree. Mix it all around. Add peppers, tomoatoes, paprika, and I used this all season spice I found lying in our cupboard. You can also add a splash of red wine. Bring to boil and the let simmer for 30 mins with lid on the pan. You can leave it for as long as you want I reckon but you might want to add the veg at a later stage in that case. Easy peasy. In moya they served it with dumplings, but we just ate it with bread which was equally nice.

Price: 7/10
Taste: 9/10
Difficulty: 4/10

2 comments:

the style crusader said...

yum yum... beef stew. this was seriously delicious. well done chef freddy.

jill said...

Ha! I'm the exact same way (procrastinator). I seem to thrive under pressure: tight deadlines don't phase me, I just do a ton of other thing - like leave long message on other people's blogs - and blithely ignore it until I have to work really, really hard. And then I really do work hard, and something magic happens.

Last night I was working on photography for a deadline til midnight then goofed off watching TV til 3. And now, having to write 2 more 200 word articles each on what I shot, what am I doing? READING ABOUT GOULASH.

I feel the same way about it. It's almost an identical story. Over the past few winters here I've (she says modestly) perfected a beef stew that is so yummy. Well my husband calls it beef stew but I secretly think of it as goulash!! I can't find our paprika and thought we had a huge supply, but what I do is I'll take a separate batch and jazz it up with paprika, mushrooms, some sour cream, serve mine on buttered noodles and his with potatoes.. two separate meals for the very cheap price of one!

My method is brown carrots, onions & (optional) celery in oil with butter (I swear, butter makes everything better). Throw in big covered casserole. Then same pan, brown cheap beef in more oil & some butter (flour, salt & pepper on beef first). Scrape up/deglaze pan with red wine, slop into pan. Lots more red wine, some hot water, too. Oh! Lightly saute lots of garlic, add that. Some thyme or parsley if you have it. Then cook the shit out of it for hours & hours. Chill, reheat, cook some more. If you can't eat it all fast enough, freeze some. Then the various variations.

Okay, that's well over the 400 words I should have been writing! Hope your essay's going equally well ; )