Mama, That Wasn't Goulash

Growing up we used to have this stuff for dinner and we called it goulash. Saute some onions, brown some ground beef, pour in ma's homemade tomato juice and then finish it with macaroni. I'm not complaining -- that was classic, tasty, comfort food. But it ain't goulash.

At the restaurant Bagolyvár (literally, Owl's Castle) in Budapest we had a quick bite before hitting the Budapest Zoo and the Museum of Fine Arts. I had the gulyásleves. Gulyás (goo-yash) is where the word we know, goulash, originates from. The word itself means something like herdsman - back in the day this was their food. Leves is the Hungarian word for soup. The goulash soup I had was a thin stew with slow cooked cubes of meat, diced carrots and potatoes, in a beef stock laden with sweet paprika. No pasta, no ground meat.

At the same place, R had pörkölt, another Hungarian dish that is simply chunks of meat (we had both pork and veal varieties) in a rich sauce with paprika, onions, green peppers, and tomatoes -- or whatever the chef wanted to put in. The sauce is thick but smooth; everything but the meat is cooked down. This is then served with dumplings or pasta.

The American dish called goulash lies somewhere between these two dishes but optimized for time by using quick-cooking beef and macaroni. Unfortunately paprika -- at least of the caliber you get in Hungary -- is notably absent.

One of my favorite things in Hungary was the little dish of hot pepper paste they would bring you to give your soup or stew a little kick. They call it Eros Pista, which literally means "Strong Steve". It's spicy hot and very salty - but addicting. It is more than just heat. My gulyásleves went from good to great with just a small spoonful. At the restaurant in our hotel, I proved my new-found love by using the entire dish of the stuff. My reward was my own jar of Strong Steve right from the kitchen's pantry -- a testament to the very friendly attitude we found in Budapest.

Cheers!