The finest Hungarian food comes out of the shepherd’s cauldron. Shepherds are actually famous for several different dishes, of which probably the best are the Hungarian stew (pörkölt) and goulash (gulyás). Pörkölt - Hungarian Stew
Meat stews are a very traditional Hungarian dish. They can be conjured up out of virtually any meat: pork, beef, veal, lamb, venison or even poultry. The term Hungarian stew refers not to the ingredients but rather to the method of cooking or rather stewing. All the different types of stew are basically cooked in the same way:
Fry diced onions in fat or vegetable oil. When the onion has glazed, sprinkle over ground red paprika, stirring all the while. Paprika can easily burn and become bitter, so it is best to remove the pot from the heat while adding paprika! These two simple but superb ingredients lay the foundation of the stew.
Add the diced meat or poultry (veal, beef or turkey breast are best), and while stirring, the meat will begin to fry, releasing its natural juices. The meat should thus be cooked in its own juices for a while, then you can add other ingredients according to taste: salt, pepper, fresh tomatoes and green paprika. Once the juice evaporated, a small amount of water or dry wine – red for beef, white for poultry – is added.
The liquid must never cover the meat; instead, it should be topped up in the course of cooking. This avoids watering down the stew and preserves all the flavors of the meat.
Although you can prepare memorable stews can be cooked at home, the real thing comes out of a cauldron cooked over an open fire. In short, making Hungarian stew is not complicated, but requires considerable attention.
Gulyás - Hungarian Goulash
Goulash is a genuine Hungarian specialty, and features on the menus of restaurants around the world. Of course, all these foreign goulashes bear traces of local cooking styles and indeed the chef’s own creativity. Follow these guidelines if you want to create an authentic
goulash (which is a soup and not a stew). In Hungarian, the name of the dish is the same as that of the person who tends the cattle herds, both called gulyás. The goulash has made the move from Hungarian herdsman’s provision originally cooked in a cauldron over an open fire, to a popular one-course meal consumed around the world.
Like many other Hungarian dishes, goulash too is based on onion sautéed in fat or vegetable oil. Once the onion softens, tip in the meat (beef or veal) chopped into small dice, and sprinkle it liberally with red paprika and a little water. Add salt and pepper, a little cumin according to taste, but ground spice paprika is a must. Keep topping up with water as it evaporates.
When the meat is half cooked it is time to add the vegetables: carrots, parsnips, sliced tomatoes, green peppers and a few cloves of crushed garlic. Add more water and then, towards the end of the cooking, potatoes cut into cubes. The proportion of ingredients is up to personal preference, but as a general rule of thumb, you should add twice the quantity of potatoes to meat.
Halleves - Hungarian fish soup
Everyone coming to Hungary and finding themselves by the Danube, Tisza or Balaton shore will come across the local version of the Hungarian fish soup.
Although every region has its own way of making fish soup, each is a memorable culinary experience. Hungarian fish soup really is special. True fish soup must be cooked in a
cauldron. It can be made from one or several types of fish: some claim pure carp or catfish soup is unequaled, others are convinced it is tastier with a little bream, crucian carp or silver carp added to the pot.
There are two ways of cooking fish soup. The simpler method is to place the main fish offcuts – the head, tail plus additional tasty small fish – in the bottom of the cauldron, cover with finely sliced onion, tomato, green pepper and ground paprika, and pour water on top. Reckon on half a kilogram of fish and one and a half bowls of water per person. When the whole has come to the boil continue cooking for a further 15 minutes and then pass everything through a sieve, return the strained stock to the cauldron and add the lightly salted chunky fish cuts. Add spicy paprika to taste (no true Hungarian fish soup omits the paprika) and cook on a slow heat for a further 30-40 minutes before serving.
Paprika for Flavor
One of everybodys first personal identifications with the Hungarian cuisine that all still hold today: Csípős Paprika (hot peppers). The greatest discovery was that of the Hegyes Paprika (peaky peppers) which is the only one that matches the flavor and intensity of the Hatch green chiles from my own region. The erős piros paprika (strong red pepper), bableves (bean soup) with chunks of beef resembled the red chile with beans that my grandmother made. I can still remember her in her own kitchen chopping up sirloin steak to put into her red chile.
So many people think that chile peppers are just to make food hot. People from my region and Hungarians know that chile peppers must be carefully selected for flavor and to fit the food they will be cooked with, not just to make the food spicy!
Pick and Hercz Szalámi
Hungarian salami is another product consumed around the world. In Budapest Herz Szalámi, and in Szeged Pick Szalámi are made only from the finest pork, with the greatest care and on the basis of jealously guarded recipes.
Salami meat is not ground but finely chopped, smoked over beech shavings and matured for 100 days under the watchful eye of the salami master. During this ripening procedure the suspended salami gradually becomes coated with a thin layer of mold which gives the salami an aroma and flavor unique to the Hungarian product.
The technology used in making Pick salami, and thus the resulting flavor, has remained unchanged since 1869!
