Goulash soup with beef and paprika: thick, slow-simmered, for frosty days
A soup that is almost a stew: beef browned in lard, plenty of onion, plenty of sweet paprika, caraway and tomato, simmered an hour and a half until the meat falls apart under the spoon. Potatoes, carrot and fresh pepper go in towards the end so they don't cook to mush. Hungarian roots, a Polish table, one pot.
Your own work in that: 35 min.
- Browning 25 min
- Meat simmering 90 min
- Vegetables 30 min
- Seasoning 10 min
Step by step
0 / 6 doneBrown the meat in batches
Pat the beef dry with paper towel and cut into 2.5 cm cubes. Heat the lard in a large heavy pot over high heat and brown the meat in three batches, 3–4 minutes each (about 12 minutes in all), until dark brown on all sides. Set aside on a plate.
Ingredients: 600 g stewing beef · 2 tbsp lard · 3 pcs onions · 3 cloves garlic · 3 tbsp sweet paprika · 1 tsp caraway seeds · 2 tbsp tomato paste · 1500 ml water · 2 pcs bay leaves · 4 pcs allspice berries · 2 tsp salt · ½ tsp black pepper
TipIn batches, because too much meat at once drops the temperature and the meat boils in its juices instead of browning. The brown crust is half the flavour of this soup.
Three batches, a dark brown crustSoften a lot of onion
Slice the onions and add to the same pot over medium heat. Fry 10 minutes, stirring and scraping the browned bits off the bottom, until soft and golden. Add the crushed garlic for the last minute.
Ten minutes, golden, bottom scrapedPaprika off the heat
Take the pot off the heat, add the paprika and caraway and stir half a minute, until the onion turns brick red. Add the tomato paste and return to the heat for a minute.
TipGround paprika burns in seconds and turns bitter. Off the heat, in the onion fat, it only dissolves and gives up its colour.
Paprika and caraway off the heat, then tomato pasteSimmer slowly
Return the meat and its juices to the pot, pour in hot water to cover the meat by 2 cm, add the bay leaves, allspice, salt and pepper. Bring to the boil, turn the heat to minimum and simmer with the lid ajar 90 minutes, until the meat pulls apart with a spoon. Top up with hot water if needed.
Barely bubbling, an hour and a halfAdd the vegetables
Cut the potatoes into 2 cm dice, the carrots into slices, the peppers into strips. Add to the pot with the rest of the water and cook 25–30 minutes, until the potatoes are tender. The soup should be thick but still a soup: add water if needed.
Ingredients: 500 g potatoes · 2 pcs carrots · 2 pcs red peppers · 1 tbsp dried marjoram
Potatoes, carrot, pepper at the endSeason and serve
Crush the marjoram between your palms over the pot, season with salt and pepper. Serve with bread and, for those who like it, a spoon of sour cream. Better the next day; keeps 3 days in the fridge and it can be frozen, though the potatoes turn slightly spongy once thawed.
Ingredients: 100 g sour cream, 18 %
Marjoram, bread, sour cream
Before you start
Hot
A teaspoon of hot paprika with the sweet, or a small whole chilli dropped in for the simmer. Fish it out before serving.
With little dumplings
Instead of potatoes, drop dumplings of egg and flour (4 tablespoons of flour per egg) by the teaspoon into the boiling soup 10 minutes before the end. Similar little dumplings (csipetke) go into Hungarian gulyásleves.
Meat still tough after an hour
Heat too high or not enough time. Beef only softens once the collagen dissolves: it needs barely bubbling liquid and patience, sometimes two hours.
