* Irene and my favorite brother-in-law escaped together from Hungary by jumping into a cold, dark river and swimming, at night, to Austria. In the 50s. Those were harsh times and we’re glad they were able to join us here.
I originally copied down her oral recipe on a brown paper bag while we were on the ferry to Victoria B.C. Here’s my typed interpretation of my scribbled notes. I wrote this for my nephew when Irene died. A little remembrance.
~Brown onions, lots of onion
~add just beef or lamb, stew-chunk size, turn the meat in the oily onion [this presupposes that you know you have to brown the onion in fat . . . preferably bacon fat if you have it on hand but olive oil will do for us moderns]
~Irene didn’t mention it here, but WHEN THE MEAT IS BROWNED, here is when you add lots of paprika . . . lots, like a couple of tablespoons full but stir like crazy because you want it to be barely sauteed with the beef and onions but you don’t want it to scorch. I’d say only one minute before you add . . .
~add some water. Not a whole bunch, not too little. Be like Goldilocks here. Add just the right amount. Think twice the height of the meat. But make sure the meat is brown before you add the water.
~Simmer this. Cook the meat until it’s almost tender (depends on the cut of meat how long this will take) and add salt toward the end.
~Now to add the veggies: potatoes, carrots, celery (all chopped), a bit of caraway seed [1 to 2 teaspoons . . . don’t go crazy with it] and simmer some more until they’re all tender.
Now for the noodle/dumpling parts. They are very important because they make this dish authentic and they thicken it.
~Mix flour, salt and water by hand into a hard dough. [I learned to do this is as a child in my grandmother’s kitchen so it’s kind of hard to explain in words. It’s best explained through fingers but try this: make a pile of flour on the counter . . . about 2 cups worth. Keep it tallish. Add 1 tsp of salt and mix the two together with your hand. Then make a little hole in the top of the pile and start adding water . . . say 1/2 a cup. Work it in, then keep adding water, a little at a time, until you have a stiff dough. Meanwhile, keep the pot simmering. When the dough is sticking together, has some integrity, start pinching off LITTLE pieces and dropping them into the simmering pot. When they are cooked, the gulyás is done.
** Two notes. 1) My grandma made her noodle-dumplings with an egg added to the water and 2) Real Hungarian paprika comes in all levels of hotness so you can choose to vary that level of picante for yourself. But it really does need to be Hungarian paprika, not Spanish or Korean.