Those who come from the USSR probably remember a very popular beef dish in kindergartens and school canteens - goulash. Just don't confuse it with real Hungarian goulash cooked according to all the rules. This recipe is very simple to prepare and does not require much investment. The dish could rightfully be called "beef with gravy", but for some reason the almighty "Obschepit" gave it the proud name "Gulash".

A minimum of labor and food is a maximum of pleasure for those who want to plunge into dear childhood memories for a few minutes. Well, if you managed to be born after the collapse of a great country, prepare, try, what your grandmothers and mothers were fed with when they “walked under the table”. Such goulash can be given even to small children, and if you show your imagination and add garlic and spices, it will turn out amazingly delicious!

To prepare goulash you will need:

- beef meat - 500 gr.;
- onion - 1 pc.;
- carrots - 1 pc. (optional);
- flour - 1 tablespoon;
- tomato paste - 1 tsp;
- sour cream - 1-2 tablespoons;
- bay leaf - 1 pc .;
- vegetable oil
- salt to taste, in our case 0.5 tsp;
- you can pepper.

How to make goulash "from childhood"

Cut the beef into small pieces, put in a deep frying pan. Add the onion cut into rings, grated carrots, vegetable oil and water. Water can be added in half a glass. It is important to ensure that it does not boil away and add the liquid until the meat is cooked through. It is not worth pouring in the entire portion of water at once, because then boiled meat will turn out, but we still stew.

We continue to simmer this whole mixture over low heat. Carrots are not the main ingredient, so they can be eliminated. Pieces of meat can also be pre-fried, but since it will be stewed until tender, you do not need to do this.

As the water evaporates in the pan, add it a little at a time. On average, 500 gr. beef, 1 glass of water or more is enough. The water lightly covers the meat and in this broth it is stewed until fully cooked.

About 10 minutes before the meat is ready, you can salt it and add bay leaves and peppercorns.

The cooking time of meat is difficult to determine, as it can be different (Read:). At least an hour and a half is required to make goulash. In order to determine the degree of readiness of the dish, you need to check it with a fork or knife. Finished meat becomes soft and easily separates from the main piece.

How to make delicious goulash gravy

It doesn't take long to make the sauce (or gravy). Pour flour into a glass half filled with cold water and stir vigorously with a fork. Then add 1 tsp. tomato paste and, if desired, sour cream. Sour cream in goulash is not a required ingredient, so you can do without it. Everything is mixed until smooth and poured into a frying pan.

Simmer the dish with sauce for 5-10 minutes. The thick sauce can be diluted with boiled water and boiled again.

Goulash is a winter dish that beckons us with its aromas. Hearty, hot and warming. This dish can be ranked as a second course, or it can be used as a thick meat soup.

A bit of the history of this dish. Goulash is a national Hungarian dish and was cooked in an open-air cauldron using beef fried on Hungarian bacon. Supposedly goulash is the food of the shepherds.

Nowadays, at home, we cook goulash using different types of meat, and, of course, not in a cauldron, but in a deep frying pan or cauldron. Today I will tell you a few recipes for pork goulash. I really hope you enjoy it and please your loved ones with a delicious dinner or lunch.

I strongly advise you to add dishes to your recipes from. In this article, there are some interesting marinade ideas that I managed to take note of.

Hungarian pork goulash soup classic recipe

Traditionally, classic Hungarian goulash is made from beef or veal. I decided to tell you how to make such pork goulash. There is no big difference in cooking.

Ingredients:

• Pork neck carbonate - 800 g
• Bulgarian pepper - 2 pieces
• Tomatoes - 2 pieces
• Potatoes - 500 g
• Bulb onion - 1 piece
• Garlic - 2 cloves
• Paprika - 1 tbsp. a spoon
• Cumin - 0.5 tsp
• Flour - 50 g
• Egg - 1 piece
• Salt to taste

Prepare the meat, cut it into medium cubes.

Finely chop the garlic and dice the onion. Now put the cauldron (if there is no cauldron, then a deep frying pan) on the stove, add vegetable oil and heat it. According to the classic recipe, frying meat with onions is done with fat from bacon, but there is already enough fat in pork, so we will use vegetable oil. Add the garlic and fry for literally one minute, immediately add the onion and fry until transparent.

Then send the meat to the cauldron and fry it as well.

Once the pork is fried, pour boiling water over the meat to lightly cover the meat, add sweet paprika, stir and bring to a boil, then reduce heat on the stove and simmer with the lid closed for 15 minutes.

You can add other seasonings to the meat according to your taste.

Cut the tomatoes into cubes and add to the meat, bring to a boil and reduce the temperature of the stove again, cover and leave to simmer for another 10 minutes.

Cut the Bulgarian pepper into cubes. Peel the potatoes and also cut into medium-sized cubes.

Let's deal with chipsets (dumplings). Beat the egg, shake and pour about half. Add salt, a little greens, a clove of garlic passed through a press and mix everything. Add a tablespoon of sifted flour and knead the dough with a fork. Sprinkle your hands with flour, form small peas from the resulting dough and put a plate with them in the refrigerator.

Remove the lid from the cauldron and taste the meat, it should be tender and already cooked. If the meat is tough, let it simmer for another 15 minutes. When the meat becomes tender, add potatoes and bell peppers to the cauldron, mix everything gently. Add a little boiling water, bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer until potatoes are tender.

10 minutes have passed and now we add the desired flavor to the dish. Add caraway seeds, salt and, if desired, ground black pepper, cover and leave for another 3 minutes. There remains a highlight of the program - chipets (dumplings). Dip them in boiling goulash, it is very easy to determine their readiness, they should float.

The classic Hungarian goulash soup with meat is ready. Such goulash can also be used as a first course.

Bon Appetit!

Cooking goulash with onions and carrots - step by step description

Pork goulash is one of the most delicious dishes. A great addition to any side dish. The recipe is very simple, any housewife is sure to handle it.

Ingredients:

• Pork - 700 g
• Onion - 1 piece
• Carrots - 1 piece
• Tomato paste - 3 tbsp spoons
• Flour - 2 tbsp. spoons
• Ground black pepper - to taste
• Salt to taste

Cut the pork into walnut-sized cubes. Grate the carrots, cut the onion into cubes. Place a deep skillet on the stovetop, add vegetable oil and wait until it is fully heated.

As soon as the oil in the skillet is hot, brown the meat.

Transfer the fried meat to a cauldron and set aside. And in the same pan, fry the onions and carrots.

Add tomato paste to the finished vegetable frying and mix well.

Now transfer the onions and carrots to the cauldron for the meat. Stir.

Add hot boiled water to the cauldron so that the meat disappears, if you like more gravy, then add more water. Reduce heat on the stove, cover the cauldron with a lid and simmer until the meat is tender, about 1.5 hours.

For gravy, the flour must be fried in a dry frying pan until light yellow.

Dissolve the fried flour with a little cold water.

When the meat is tender, season with salt and pepper to taste. Add a couple of bay leaves and stir in the flour diluted with water. I also added dried chili to my goulash.

Cover and let stand for 5 minutes.

I garnished pasta and lightly fried it. The goulash turned out to be very tasty. Cook and receive admiring compliments.

Remember childhood - recipe for goulash with gravy as in kindergarten

Since pork is prohibited in kindergarten, they cook there either from beef or using chicken meat. But we can easily replace this main ingredient and cook it from pork, the goulash will turn out to be just as tasty, take my word for it.

Ingredients:

• Pork - 600 g
• Onion - 1 piece
• Carrots - 1 piece
• Tomato paste - 1 tbsp a spoon
• Sour cream - 1 tbsp. a spoon
• Flour - 1 tbsp. a spoon
• Water - 300 ml
• Salt to taste
• Black peppercorns - 3 pieces
• Bay leaf - 2 leaves

1. Cut the pork into small cubes and fry in hot vegetable oil.
2. Cut the peeled onion into small cubes and add to the pork in the pan.
3. Grate the carrots on a fine grater and also fry with meat and onions.
4. Add a glass of water to the pan, stir, cover and simmer over low heat for 40 minutes.
5. Pour in half a glass of warm boiled water and mix one tablespoon of sour cream, a tablespoon of tomato paste and one tablespoon of flour. Stir well until smooth.
6. Remove the lid from the pan, season with salt, add black peppercorns and a couple of bay leaves.
7. Pour the resulting dressing into the goulash and stir. Simmer for another 10 minutes.

Goulash cooked like in a kindergarten will bring you back to childhood. Nothing compares to childhood taste memories. Serve the aromatic goulash with mashed potatoes. Your kids will appreciate it too.

Bon Appetit!

How to cook goulash in a slow cooker

I very often ask for help in preparing dishes for a multicooker. Goulash is no exception. With the help of a multicooker, the finished goulash will be very aromatic, and the meat will be the most tender. If you have this technique idle in the kitchen, it’s in vain. I will show you step by step how to make pork goulash, you can use any other meat. Believe me, it's not difficult.

Ingredients:

• Pork carb - 600 g
• Onion - 1 piece
• Carrots - 1 piece
• Tomatoes - 2 pieces
• Butter - 30 g
• Ginger root - 15 g
• Flour - 1 tbsp. a spoon
• Tomato paste - 1 tbsp a spoon
• Sweet paprkika - 1 tsp
• Ground black pepper - to taste
• Salt to taste
• Water - 250 ml
• Greens - dill, parsley

Cut the meat into thin slices.

Cut the onion and tomatoes into small cubes. Grate the carrots on a coarse grater.

Turn the multicooker to the "Fry" mode, pour in the sunflower oil so that it completely covers the bottom. While the bowl is heating, place thin slices of ginger root in the oil.

The multicooker bowl is hot, add the meat, do not extract the ginger root, it should remain in the multicooker saucepan until the end of cooking. So ginger will give all its taste.

Fry the meat for 20 minutes, periodically do not forget to stir.

Once the meat is browned, add the vegetables and stir. Fry all together for about 12 minutes, look at the readiness of the vegetables, they should become soft. Stir frequently at this stage to avoid scorching.

12 minutes have passed, now add a teaspoon of sweet paprika, half a teaspoon of black pepper, maybe a little less, a tablespoon of flour and a tablespoon of tomato paste. Fill with a glass of hot boiled water, mix well.

Then we close the lid, select the “Multipovar” mode and set the temperature to 95 degrees, and set the time to 10 minutes. Since our meat and vegetables are ready, it doesn't take much time. If your model does not have such a mode, put it on "Extinguishing", and after 10 minutes, turn off the multicooker yourself.

The goulash is ready, there are small touches left. Chop the parsley and dill, add to the goulash and stir.

This pork goulash can be served with any side dish of your choice.

Bon Appetit!

How to make pork goulash with gravy without tomato paste

The recipe on the video. There are people who do not like tomato paste, it doesn't matter, this recipe is especially for you.

Delicious pork goulash - recipe with photo

Juicy and tender meat, delicious taste and aroma of gravy. The recipe is very simple and doesn't take long to prepare. A great option for dinner after a hard day.

Ingredients:

• Pork meat (preferably shoulder) - 1 kg
• Bulb onions - 1 pc.
• Tomato paste - 2 tablespoons
• Wheat flour - 2 tablespoons (no top)
• Bay leaf - 2 pcs.
• Salt, sugar, black pepper - to taste
• Vegetable oil for frying

Cut the meat into small cubes. Well, or whatever you like best, you can also use straws.

Cut the onion into cubes, but do not grind it.

Dip the meat into a pan with heated vegetable oil and fry until a beautiful golden color.

Fry the onions in a separate pan, add tomato paste and flour to it, mix well.

Transfer the meat to a saucepan and fry the onion from the pan to it. Stir and fry for 5 minutes.

Then add water, the water should be hot and boiled, and simmer, stirring for 40-45 minutes. Stir frequently to distribute the flour evenly in the water. Season with salt and pepper to taste, add a couple of bay leaves.

Delicious goulash is ready. In the meantime, the goulash is being prepared, you can easily prepare any side dish. A delicious dinner is guaranteed.

Bon Appetit!

The principles of making delicious goulash - video from Ilya Lazerson

Ilya Lazerson is a famous chef. He is known for his delicate sense of taste for food and knows how to properly prepare a particular dish. In the video, Ilya will show and tell you step by step how to make a simple and tasty goulash. Be sure to take note.

Goulash is, first of all, hearty food, and as you know, people love to eat tasty and satisfying food. And it may well become one of the favorite dishes. Cook and experiment in the kitchen.

Family and friends will definitely ask for supplements.

Today we will cook pork goulash, with a thick vegetable sauce of sweet peppers, carrots and onions, with the addition of tomato paste. To thicken the sauce, add some toasted wheat flour. The pork goulash will turn out to be very soft and juicy, soaked in a fragrant sauce. In the summer season, tomato paste can be replaced with fresh tomatoes. In this case, blanch the tomatoes in boiling water, remove the skins and punch them until puree. To balance the flavor, you can add a little sour cream at the end of cooking. You can also experiment with spices; paprika, coriander, chili will do. The amount of water for the sauce can be adjusted according to the desired gravy thickness.

Total cooking time: 60 minutes
Cooking time: 45 minutes
Yield: 4 servings

Ingredients

• pork - 400-500 g
• carrots - 1 pc.
• large onions - 1 pc.
• bell pepper - 1 pc.
• tomato paste - 1.5-2 tbsp. l.
• flour - 2 tbsp. l.
• bay leaf - 1 pc.
• vegetable oil or lard - 1 tbsp. l.
• black pepper - 2-3 chips.
• sugar - 1 tsp
• salt to taste
• hot water - 200-300 ml
• dried or chopped greens - 1 tbsp. l.
• hot pepper - optional

How to make pork goulash with gravy

Grind the onions and carrots into cubes - coarsely, if you want the vegetables to be clearly present in the gravy, or vice versa, finely, if you want them to dissolve in it. Fry vegetables in a pan in a small amount of vegetable oil until soft, about 5-7 minutes, stirring occasionally.

As soon as the onion starts to turn golden, I immediately add chopped bell peppers (fresh or frozen) to the pan. I fry for another 1-2 minutes so that the pepper reveals its aroma. I put the vegetables aside.

Next, you need to fry the pork. Any cut is suitable for making goulash, preferably with small layers of fat: neck, loin, shoulder blade, and so on. I cut the meat washed and dried with paper towels into 20-30 g portions - it can be diced or cubes. I reheat the pan. If the meat is low-fat, then literally pour in 1 spoon of refined oil or heat the lard, but very little, because pork itself is very heavy meat. If you have a neck, then you can completely fry in a dry frying pan. I spread the pieces of meat in one layer and fry them over high heat until firm crust for about 3 minutes on both sides (always without a lid). In the maximum heat, they will quickly grab from all sides with a crust, which, as it were, seals all the meat juices inside, they will stay inside, which means that the goulash will turn out to be incredibly soft and juicy, and will not dry out.

Now that the pork is thoroughly fried, I add flour and mix everything vigorously so that it covers each piece with an even layer. In order not to feel a flour aftertaste in the finished dish, I keep everything together for another 1 minute over medium heat. But do not fry too intensely, the flour should only dry out, but in no case burn, otherwise you will ruin the dish. The flour will add the desired thickness to the gravy goulash. To avoid lumps, try to distribute it evenly over all the pieces, so that it literally envelops them (you can sift the flour through a small strainer, thus distributing it in a thin layer).

Fried? Return the sautéed vegetables (onions, carrots, and bell peppers) to the pan. Having combined all the ingredients, I stir the contents of the pan, reduce the heat to low. I spread the tomato paste in hot boiled water and pour the contents of the pan with the resulting sauce. The liquid should completely cover the meat, if it is not enough, then you can add more boiling water. I bring to a boil, add salt and pepper, bay leaves and sugar (to balance the sourness that tomato paste gives). At the same stage, you can add some of your favorite seasonings to choose from, for example, rosemary, garlic, paprika, and so on will do, but do not overdo it so as not to drown out the taste of the pork itself.

I cover the pan with a lid and simmer over low heat until the meat is tender - about 40-45 minutes, stirring from time to time so that the thickened tomato sauce does not burn. During this time, the pork will reach full condition, and the gravy will become thick and smooth. A few minutes before cooking, I add the chopped greens and remove the pan from the heat.

Pork goulash with gravy can be supplemented with a couple of slices of white, slightly toasted bread, or served with a side dish - the classic version usually goes with mashed potatoes, rice or pasta. Bon Appetit!

Our article will tell you how to make beef goulash with gravy. This dish cannot be called unusual, new or trendy, but this is its peculiar charm.

Once upon a time, beef goulash was a much more common dish, thanks to which it could be tasted in preschool institutions and schools, student and factory canteens, buffets, restaurants and cafes. In Soviet times, this dish was prepared according to GOSTs, so the taste of goulash was almost the same everywhere. Much more creativity opens up for today's culinary enthusiasts.

Let's take a look at some great goulash recipes, each with its own benefits.

Features of the dish

Goulash is considered a Hungarian dish. However, the traditional recipe has changed a lot. In the old days in Hungary, potatoes, bacon, paprika, fresh tomatoes were added to this dish. Yes, and today the Hungarians know a slightly different goulash, not quite the kind that is common in the post-Soviet space. It is not served as a gravy with chunks of meat, but as a thick soup.

Surely all varieties of beef goulash with gravy are good. The step-by-step recipes presented in our article will help you learn how to cook this dish.

Pay attention to the photo. Goulash is a harmonious union of tender stewed meat with a thick aromatic sauce.

Taking into account the rather high cost of food at the present time, it can well be attributed to the festive cuisine. And its taste is quite consistent with this.

The complexity of the process is average, but it will take a lot of time. Therefore, modern housewives prefer to treat guests to goulash at a festive feast or serve this dish for a Sunday family dinner. But, of course, you can also make goulash on weekdays. This treat will definitely bring a lot of pleasant moments to them.

How do I choose the best products?

Before making goulash with beef gravy, it is advisable to go to the market or specialty store. It is worth giving preference to homemade meat, with a rich taste and a well-defined texture.

For goulash, choose any part without bones and fatty layers. Beef or veal tenderloin will do. The meat should have a rich color and a pleasant fresh smell.

Remove all fascia, veins, fat and cartilage with a sharp knife before cooking.

We also need vegetables. The list is different for different recipes. In any case, they should be fresh and slack, and seasonal ones are especially good, only torn from the beds.

Classic goulash recipe

Hungarians add celery, paprika and other condiments to regular goulash with beef gravy. You can follow their example or pick your favorite spices. You should not choose too active ingredients for this dish. For example, hops-suneli or a mixture of herbs are best left for other dishes. The taste of meat should dominate in goulash.

If you have never cooked this dish before, use the following recipe. It is simple, but the result is excellent.

You will need the following products:

• 500 g of beef;
• 1 carrot;
• 1 medium onion;
• 1 tbsp. l. tomato paste;
• 1 tbsp. l. flour;
• 1 tbsp. l. sour cream;
• vegetable oil;
• salt, bay leaf, peppercorns to taste.

Before making the beef goulash with gravy, sauté the flour in a dry skillet and transfer to a bowl. Cut the meat into finger-sized cubes, grate the carrots on a medium grater, chop the onion into cubes.

Fry the beef in a preheated skillet with butter. You do not need to try to bring the meat to readiness, you just need to wait for the golden color. Transfer to a saucepan, stew the vegetables with the remaining fat.

Combine the toasted ingredients, add flour and spices, add pasta and sour cream. If the gravy looks too thick for you, add a little broth or water.

Put simmer on low heat. Cooking time - at least an hour. The beef should be soft. Remember to stir the goulash occasionally.

Cooking in a frying pan

This method helps to complete the task even faster. You already know the approximate proportions of the products indicated in the first recipe. But you don't need flour or sour cream to make beef goulash with gravy in a pan. And tomato paste can be replaced with fresh tomatoes or juice made from them.

Preheat a deep frying pan well, load both meat and vegetables at once. First, cook the goulash over high heat, stirring occasionally with a spatula. Bring the tomato paste to a semi-liquid consistency with water and add to the skillet when the meat, onions and carrots are golden brown.

Turn off the gas immediately and simmer the dish for another 40 minutes under the lid. When serving, such goulash can be garnished with sprigs of parsley or basil.

Option for a multicooker

Happy owners of modern technology can easily prepare a fragrant and soft beef goulash with gravy. You need to start by roasting vegetables and meat.

Load the chopped beef into a buttered bowl, add finely chopped carrots and onions. Set the "Fry" mode and cook with the lid open for 10 minutes. In a bowl, dilute 1 tsp with water. tomato paste, add 1 tbsp. l. sour cream and 1.5 tsp. flour. Pour the mixture into a bowl, stir. If you like the scent of bay leaves, add this ingredient. Season the dish with salt. Turn on the "Extinguishing" mode, close the lid and set the timer for 1 hour. Then add the spices and simmer the goulash for another 5 minutes.

Cooking in a pressure cooker

If you decide to make beef goulash with gravy in a pressure cooker, don't forget about safety! Under no circumstances open the lid immediately, it is dangerous. After turning off, you must wait until the pressure cooker stops puffing and making noise; then you need to open the valve and release the remaining steam.

Even “aged” meat is perfect for this dish. The pressure cooker will make it soft and tender.

To make the meat fragrant, sprinkle it with pepper and salt before frying it and leave it for a quarter of an hour. Fry a pound of chopped beef in a skillet, transfer to a bowl. Fry the onions and carrots in the same skillet. This recipe will require a lot of vegetables - as much as meat. Half a glass of minced tomato, fresh or in its own juice, dilute with the same amount of water, add a teaspoon of paprika. Pour into the vegetable mixture, simmer for 10-15 minutes.

Combine the ingredients in a pressure cooker, pour in an incomplete glass of beef broth. Let it simmer with the lid open, then seal and simmer over medium heat for 40 minutes.

While the goulash is cooking, prepare the sauce. Mix half a glass of sour cream with a tablespoon of flour, rub thoroughly. Pour in half a glass of cold water, bring until smooth.

After 40 minutes from the start of cooking, turn off the heat, let the pressure cooker cool slightly, release the pressure, and carefully open the lid. Add sour cream sauce to the bowl, stir, cook with the lid open for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. The goulash will begin to thicken. Season to taste, if necessary.

Fragrant dish from the oven

This option will certainly be appreciated by lovers of unusual tastes. Would you like to add variety to your usual recipe? Replace your usual sauce with beer and make beef goulash with gravy in the oven!

The beginning of the recipe is no different from other options: you need to brown beef, carrots and onions in a pan.

And then we will cook in a different way. Place the toasted ingredients in a baking dish with a high rim and cover with dark beer. You will need 500 ml of a frothy drink. Add bay leaf, salt a little, scatter peppercorns over the surface.

Place the deco in a preheated oven. It is periodically necessary to check how the process is going by adding water. 10 minutes before the end of cooking, dilute half a glass of sour cream with a little water, add a small handful of flour (the more there is, the thicker the sauce will be). Stir and pour over the deco with the goulash, spreading the sour cream evenly over the entire surface. Return the dish to the oven and brown it a little more.

Beef goulash "like in kindergarten"

This taste is probably familiar to everyone. What is the secret of this dish? It is prepared very simply.

Cut 500 g of meat into cubes and fry in a cauldron over high heat. Add the diced onion (250g) and stir. Only 1 tbsp of tomato paste is required. l., it must be added to the meat and mixed. At the same stage, spices are also loaded.

The future goulash must be filled with water so that all components are completely covered with it. We cover the cauldron with a lid, put on a small fire and simmer for an hour.

You can cook such a beef goulash with gravy and without flour, the dish will not suffer from this - it will be just as fragrant and tender. And the sauce turns out to be quite thick. But in kindergartens, flour is added to goulash. It will take 1 tbsp. l. with a slide. It must be fried in a dry skillet until it begins to emit a peculiar aroma, very appetizing and expressive. Then the flour is diluted with a small amount of water and added to the goulash 5 minutes before the end of cooking.

What to serve goulash with?

Surely you thought about the menu even before you cook beef goulash with gravy. Most housewives choose such an addition to this dish as mashed potatoes. This option is really good.

But he's not the only one. Boiled rice, spaghetti, fresh vegetables go well with beef goulash.

Once upon a time, goulash was a camp food for Hungarian shepherds who cooked it in cauldrons over a fire. It is no coincidence that this word is translated from Hungarian as "shepherd's soup", simple, hearty and very nutritious. In modern cuisine, goulash is more common as a second dish served with a side dish. Pieces of meat cooked in a thick gravy with vegetables are an ideal winter food that satisfies hunger well, warms up and cheers up ...

Goulash, azu or kuyrdak

Nobody knows which culinary recipe for goulash is considered classic, since even in Hungary this dish has many cooking options. Moreover, goulash can be found in different cuisines in a modified form. Tatars cook azu, Kazakhs and Kyrgyz make traditional kuyrdak, Spaniards cook kosido by adding beans to it, Germans cannot imagine Eintopf meat soup without cereals and pasta, and Americans have created their own gumbo goulash, in which you can find not only meat and sausage, but also seafood. At first glance, it seems that the recipe for a delicious goulash with gravy is so simple that you can easily master it at home. However, there are some subtleties you need to be aware of in order to make a flavorful, mouth-watering and thick goulash, not a runny soup.

How to choose and prepare meat for goulash

Prepared from different types of meat - beef, pork, lamb and poultry. However, the classic "shepherd's soup" was cooked with beef, veal and lamb, that is, with meat that was available to shepherds. When the hunt was successful, goulash was made from game and hare. If you decide to cook beef goulash according to the classic recipe, as cooked by Hungarian shepherds, choose fresh brisket, tenderloin, hind leg pulp or shoulder blade with a thin layer of bacon, but always from a young animal. When buying lamb, give preference to the shoulder and collar, and for pork goulash, take the pulp from the top of the ham, back, brisket and neck. Pork loin and ham are not very suitable for cooking, as it can turn out to be a little harsh and dry. The selected piece is cleaned of films, tendons, cartilage, cut into cubes and spread on a napkin to glass the water. You can cook soft, tender and juicy goulash only from quality meat, especially when it comes to beef.

How to cook Hungarian meat goulash

Traditional Hungarian goulash is made like this. Sliced ​​onions are fried in lard in a frying pan, in a cauldron, a gosyatnitsa and any thick-walled dishes, to which are soon added pieces of beef generously sprinkled with sweet paprika, with a pinch of caraway seeds. The meat is stewed in its own juice until half cooked, then water or broth is added to the dishes, vegetables (potatoes and bell peppers) cut into pieces are added, tomatoes are added to the dish 15 minutes before readiness. At the very end, Hungarian dumplings, made of unleavened dough with garlic and dill, are dipped into a boiling aromatic dish. You don't need to give them any shape - just pinch off small pieces from the dough and throw them into the cauldron. Delicious Hungarian goulash with aromatic garlic dumplings is ready!

Goulash in Russian

Russian housewives cook a little differently. Meat and vegetable sauce are made separately and only then are mixed for stewing or are initially prepared in one cauldron. In this case, the meat is first fried and then stewed. Some housewives immediately fill the meat with liquid, but it is the pre-frying with a crispy crust that preserves the juiciness of the goulash.

The sauce is cooked like this: onions and carrots are chopped (carrots can be grated), fried with paprika, caraway seeds and other spices, then tomato paste and sauteed flour are added to them. Flour is usually fried until creamy until a pleasant nutty flavor arises. The resulting spicy gravy is poured over the meat and the dish is stewed until tender within an hour and a half. After prolonged simmering, the sauce becomes viscous and envelops the meat pieces, making them tender and appetizing. If desired, potatoes are added to the cauldron during the stewing process, although some chefs believe that it is correct to cook goulash without potatoes, which are best served as a side dish. Well, there are so many housewives - there are so many ways to prepare this dish.

Several subtleties and secrets

The sauce can be thickened not only with flour, but also with starch dissolved in cold water, and meat and vegetables are fried not necessarily in lard and fat, but also in butter or vegetable oil. Here are the rules. If you are cooking with fatty meats, fry in vegetable oil. It is better to take pork lard or fat if the meat is too lean and dry.

A variety of vegetables, fruits and other products are added to goulash. Some exotic recipes include sauerkraut or fresh cabbage, beans, peas, mushrooms, egg noodles, apples, prunes, all kinds of spices and herbs - dill, parsley and basil. Instead of meat, fish or soy is sometimes added to goulash, broth or wine is used for stewing instead of water, and mayonnaise and sour cream are often used as a substitute for tomato paste.

Aromatic and juicy goulash is served with potatoes, cereals, pasta, vegetables, mushrooms and legumes. On our website, you will learn how to properly cook beef and pork goulash so that it is thick enough, flavorful, juicy and melts in your mouth. We publish the best goulash recipes submitted by our readers who share the intricacies of roasting meats and vegetables, making sauce and pairing spices. Choose any recipe and indulge your family with simple yet delicious homemade food!