Information about goulash

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Goulash

Goulash with gnocchi

Goulash is a spicy dish, originally from Hungary, usually made of beef, onions, red peppers, and paprika powder. Its name comes from Hungarian gulyás (pronounced goo-yash), the word for a cattle stockman or herdsman.

Goulash is traditionally prepared as a soup. Meat is cut into chunks, seasoned with salt, pepper and paprika, and then browned in a pot with oil. Shank, shin or shoulder is used — goulash derives its thickness from tough, well-exercised muscles rich in collagen, which is converted to gelatin during the cooking process. Sliced onions, hot red peppers and garlic are added. After the meat is browned, water or stock is added and left to simmer. Some finely diced potatoes may be added to provide starch as they cook, making the stew thicker and smoother. Other herbs and spices may also be added, especially bay leaf, thyme and ground caraway seeds. A small amount of white wine or a very little wine vinegar can also be added near the end of cooking to round the taste.

Some cooking books suggest using flour or cornstarch to thicken the stew, but this produces a starchy texture and a blander taste. Others suggest using generous amounts of tomatoes for colour and taste. A small amount of tomatoes in the stock that is used, or a drop of tomato puree, may improve the taste and texture, but goulash is a paprika-based dish and the taste of tomatoes should not be discernible. Many Hungarian chefs consider tomatoes to be absolutely forbidden in goulash, and they also feel that if they cook a stew instead of a soup, it should only be thickened by finely chopped potatoes, which must be simmered along with the meat.

Goulash is generally served with boiled or mashed potatoes, polenta, dumplings, or spatzle, or, alternatively, as a stand-alone dish with bread.

This "beef stew" version is not usually referred to as gulyás in Hungarian but is rather called marhapörkölt (or "stewed beef"). Gulyás is more often used as the shortened version of gulyásleves as described below.

Goulash is nowadays popular in almost all the former Austrian-Hungarian Empire, from Northeast Italy to the Carpates.

North American variations

In the United States and Canada, various adaptations have made the dish more suitable for local preferences, with the result that American "goulash" often bears little or no resemblance to the Hungarian original.

The amount of peppers and/or paprika is often drastically reduced, even omitted altogether, leaving the dish with a tomato-juice base. Hamburger frequently replaces stew beef in American goulashes, which reduces the cost as well as the cooking time. The meat and onions are then placed in the kettle, the other ingredients are added to them, and the dish might be ready to serve in as little time as 30 to 45 minutes. American goulash is commonly finished by the addition of noodles or pasta (elbow macaroni being particularly popular), which does not so much thicken the product as absorb the juice of the tomatoes. Depending on the amount of noodles or pasta used, American goulash may be a stew, a soup, or a casserole, rather than a true "goulash" such as one finds in Hungarian cuisine. This form of the dish was made popular by its inclusion in popular cookbooks in the twentieth century, e.g., in Betty Crocker's Cookbook. It is also believed to gain in taste after being reheated, making it an ideal lunch food.

A dish made with macaroni, tomatoes, onions, green peppers, and hamburger is often referred to as "goulash". This is an American dish with more in common with Italian pasta dishes than goulash. The dish normally does not use paprika at all, but does have a red color due to the tomatoes. This is also known as American Chop Suey in New England.

Other dishes

There are several other dishes with goulash in their name.

Goulash soup (Hungarian gulyásleves) is a soup made with same ingredients (sometimes with the addition of root vegetables such as carrots, parsnips, and/or celery root) but with more broth. Sometimes sausage slices are added.
Goulash can also be cooked with mutton, to make mutton goulash (Hungarian birkagulyás)
Gypsy goulash, (Hungarian cigánygulyás, Croatian and Serbian ciganski gulaš) is augmented with vegetables. Green and red bell peppers and carrots are most commonly used. Sometimes one or more other kinds of meat are added, e.g. pork loin, bacon, or mutton.
In partisan goulash, Slovenian partizanski golaž, favoured by Slovenian partisans during the Second World War, and still regularly served at mass public events; most meat is replaced with quartered potatoes. It's not as thick as goulash, but thicker than goulash soup. In German-speaking countries, this is made with sausage; Kartoffelgulasch ("potato goulash") is a less-expensive goulash-substitute.
A quite different stew, prepared with pork and sauerkraut is known as Székelygulyás, named after county archivist József Székely (and not the Székely people of Transylvania, as is sometimes thought), and as "Szegedi Gulyás" in many of its neighbours.

Other uses

In English, "Goulash" is occasionally used to mean any mixture of diverse things.
"Goulash" is also slang, often used by restaurant workers to describe an attractive female customer.
"Goulash Communism" is often used to describe the maverick brand of Communism practiced by Hungary during the Cold War, characterized by some degree of political freedom within the Hungarian Communist Party as well as limited economic freedom and freedom of speech, inspired at least in part by the 1956 Hungarian Revolution.
Parody singer Allan Sherman included a song titled "Hungarian Goulash No. 5" on his 1963 album My Son, the Nut; the song lists real and fictitious dishes associated with different nations, then suggests mixing them all to make "Hungarian Goulash." The tune used is that of Brahms's "Hungarian Dance No. 5."^[1]

Notes

1. ^ Lyrics for songs on My Son, the Nut

External links

Wikibooks has an article on

Austrian Cooking, meet their Goulash recipe
Steve Holzinger: Goulash, A Rose By Any Other Name...
Who Put the Paprika in Goulash ...and Other Hungarian Soup Tales
Dinner & a Movie Ghoul-ash Recipe
For goulash recipes, see the
"The Idiot Foreigners' Guide to the Perfect Bográcsgulyás" - from Chew.hu, the Hungarian foodblog

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C. annuum
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C. frutescens
(incl.

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Paprika is a spice made from the grinding of dried sweet red bell peppers (Capsicum annuum). In many European countries the name paprika also refers to bell peppers themselves. The seasoning is used in many cuisines to add colour and flavour to dishes.
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stockman is the name given to a person who looks after the livestock on a station, while a drover tends to cattle on a stock route. Trainee stockmen are known as "jackaroos" (trainee stockwomen are known as "jillaroos").
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herder is a worker who lives a possibly semi-nomadic life, caring for various domestic animals, in places where these animals wander pasture lands.

Usually if the person is a minor, he is called herdboy, if adult sometimes by contrast herdsman.
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Soup is a liquid food that is made by combining ingredients, such as meat, vegetables or legumes in stock or hot water, until the flavor is extracted, forming a broth. Boiling was not a common cooking technique until the invention of waterproof containers (which probably came in
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Gelatin (also gelatine , from French gélatine) is a translucent, colourless, brittle, nearly tasteless solid substance, extracted from the collagen inside animals' connective tissue.
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About 350 species, including:
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An ingredient used in many foods, flour is a fine powder made by grinding cereals or other edible starchy plant seeds suitable for grinding. It is most commonly made from wheat—the word "flour" used without qualification implies wheatflour—but also maize (now called
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Solanum lycopersicum
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Lycopersicon esculentum

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