Friday, November 21, 2008

By Popular Request....;-)

Hungarian Goulash in a Crockpot

2 pounds of veal cut into ½ inch cubes (I use round steak)
1 cup of chopped onion (I just chop the whole darn onion. Onions are good)
3 cloves of garlic, minced (ignore recipes that say 1 clove. The more garlic, the better)
2 tablespoons of flour
½ teaspoon of salt (put in as much as you want! You’re the cook!)
½ teaspoon of pepper (remember what I said about the salt)
4 teaspoons of sweet Hungarian paprika Pride of Szeged ( ignore recipes that say 1and1/2. Paprika is good. The more the better!)
¼ teaspoon of crushed thyme
1 bay leaf (Dad and I hate bay leaves, so we ignore this)
A couple of chopped tomatoes,or 1 fifteen ounce can tomatoes (My husband has diverticulosis, so I use tomato sauce, making it less authentic, but keeping my husband’s colon intact, priorities you know)
1 cup of sour cream.

Put the veal cubes (or round steak cubes), onion, and garlic in the crockpot. Stir in flour and mix to coat the meat. Add all remaining ingredients into the crockpot except the sour cream. Stir well. Cover. Cook on low setting for 8 to 10 hours. Add sour cream 30 minutes before serving by first putting it in a bowl, and adding juice from the crockpot into the bowl gradually, mixing the juice and sour cream until they are well blended. Now add it to the crockpot, and again, stir thoroughly. Serve over hot noodles (Polish kluskis are good, if not authentic. Spaetzle would be authentic. My mom was Polish, so we used Kluskis.)

My dad liked it with veal, making it purkay (spelled phonetically, not correctly) instead of goulash. I am too cheap to buy veal unless it is a birthday, major holiday or something, so I use round steak. Dad would be proud that I can now make a decent round steak. He would be for anything that makes round steak tastier. My parents never had a crockpot, but dad used to say it should be on a "slow fire". I once had a nightmare that he refused to eat my goulash because (I said a slow fire, not slow electricity!). In real life, he was for anything that made food good, and the crockpot does make good goulash. My comments at the top alongside the recipe correspond with the difference between "American" Hungarian goulash recipes verses my dad. My dad was an authentic Hungarian until October, 1963, when he became a naturalized citizen of the United States of America. After that, whenever anyone asked his nationality, he said "I am American. I had to take a test and I passed! What about you?" I love my dad. I miss him. May he rest in peace. God bless you.
I don't know who is playing this Csardas, by it rocks at two minutes and thirty seconds, and a little after four minutes. Don't worry, Annie, I have easier ones on C.D. for us to demonstrate at Mare's party in August. :-)

10 comments:

Annie K said...

Ok - this sounds awesome and I'm making it this weekend. I will let you know how my Hungarian Ghoulash turns out! (I'll try to remember pictures!). And yes, we'll dance at Mare's party, for sure!!!

Sherri Murphy said...

I'm gonna' try it as well.
My mom used to make this when we were kids. I'll pass thi recipe on to her as well.

NOTHING beats these authentic recipes and you do feel connected to y our family/heritage.
My Grandma was Crotion, my Grandma Italian. She was THE best cook! I miss her ad her delicous food. I hve one of her cookblooks from the 30's, complete with all her little notes that she had scribbled. Priceles.

Beth said...

I dig anything involving sour cream, tomatoes, and lots of garlic and onions! I'll have to try this, too. Although I lost the lid to my crock pot and I've been searching for it....I tried to make pot roast in the oven last night because of the lost lid and it was just sad...

I could listen to a violin like this for hours...sigh...

Hope the birthday party goes well!!

Sherri Murphy said...

Beth,
You can still use it with foil tightly wrapped around the top.
I've also "lost my lid before".

Annie K said...

Ok - the ghoulash is in the crockpot. No, we don't speak Hungarian(my dad knows some phrases), but I'm sure after eating authentic Hungarian ghoulash and drinking a good bottle of wine we will be! ;)

wv - pudgist... We will be a colony of pudgists after gorging on ghoulash.

Sherri Murphy said...

I counted 6 typos in my second post.

I need an interpreter!

Sherri Murphy said...

I Meant my first post.

Sheeesh!
I'm going back to bed!

Helen said...

Bad me. Had a party today, and no goulash. I ordered pizza instead. I'm afraid that when I have people over I am more Mary than Martha. Luckily, if your party is big enough, there is always a Martha on hand to pick up the slack....any of you girls Marthas? Martha's are great so long as they don't notice that the hostess is a Mary. I had a couple of Marthas at the party who know darn well I'm a Mary, and they accept that. Darn, I had a little tipple at the party. I hope I won't have to try to pull a "comment deleted by the author" on my own comment. My cousins were telling me about a party in which I had one two many Sangrias, and they noticed a blank look on my face and accused me of being too tipsy to remember. I told them I remember the Sangrias, but I don't remember them being at that party....do you think Lazurus's sister Mary enjoyed wine? I think she might have. I think she would have liked it even better with fruit in it....

Sherri Murphy said...

I'm a Mary at heart, but will become Martha if there's not one around.

I kinda' go back and forth. (It's called multiple personality disorder). Just another one of those little "quirks" of mine.)

Annie K said...

Helen - you're comment cracked me up. My dad's Aunt Anna liked her wine and they always knew when she'd had one too many because she became giggly and her wig would be askew...!