This is a large subject and this is just a start.
Goulash is a large subject with much history.
What does Goulash mean?
Goulash is a soup or stew made with meat, (mostly beef) onions and paprika.
You can also add , potatoes, root vegetables, and for seasoning sometimes
wine, bay leaf, caraway or thyme.
Where does the word Goulash come from ?
The word Goulash comes from the word Gulyás which is a word for a Hungarian Herdsman or Cowboy.
As the herdsman would go on cattle drives they would butcher the weaker cows that may not make the drive and make a stew or soup from them.
The basics of Goulash Hungarian Style from Wikipedia.
An important rule for all kinds of goulash, pörkölt and paprikás is to start by frying the onions in the fat until light gold (never darker), take the pan off the fire, immediately add the paprika powder to the hot mixture and stir well, then add the meat and stir again to coat the meat well with the onion-fat-paprika mixture before returning the pot to the fire.
This ensures that the flavour of the paprika is released by contact with the hot fat, but that it does not burn or become bitter, which can easily happen if the pan is not taken off the fire first.
Goulash can be prepared from beef, veal,[ pork, or lamb. Typical cuts include the shank, shin, or shoulder; as a result, goulash derives its thickness from tough, well-exercised muscles rich in collagen, which is converted to gelatin during the cooking process. Meat is cut into chunks, seasoned with salt, and then browned with sliced onions in a pot with oil or lard.
Paprika is added, along with water or stock, and the goulash is left to simmer. After cooking a while, garlic, whole or ground caraway seeds, or soup vegetables like carrot, parsnip, peppers (green or bell pepper), celery and a small tomato may be added. Other herbs and spices could also be added, especially hot chili peppers, bay leaf and thyme.[2] Diced potatoes may be added, since they provide starch as they cook, which makes the goulash thicker and smoother.
A small amount of white wine or wine vinegar may also be added near the end of cooking to round the taste. Goulash may be served with small egg noodles called csipetke.[4] The name Csipetke comes from pinching small, fingernail-sized bits out of the dough (csip =pinch) before adding them to the boiling soup.
A little about Paprika and it's relation to Pepper
There is a long history in all of Europe of pepper that
Bonds the Americas and Europe together.
The two most popular spices in the world are Black Pepper (Pfeffer) and Paprika which became the Hungarian word for peppers both bell pepper and the hotter chili peppers.
Germany as most of Europe loved their black pepper, that was for the most part grown in India.
In the 15th century the Ottomans from Turkey conquered most of Eastern Europe and so the trade route to India was cut off and so was their black pepper!
These are the pepper berries that grow in India
When boiled and dried they turn black.
The Spanish explorer Columbus looking for a new route mainly for pepper and ended up in Central America and found the chili pepper that tasted close to the black peppercorn, so he brought them back, but they didn't catch on food wise, only for ornamental purposes in gardens, they still favored the black peppercorn.
The Turks who traded with most of Europe found it agreeable to spice their foods with the chili peppers and took it wherever the traveled to trade or conquer.
The nearby Hungarians embraced the spice in their cooking, first they called them "Turkish peppers" . but they were a poor man's pepper. They still loved their black peppercorns.
During the Napoleonic wars early in the 1800's black pepper became unobtainable and was the price of gold, so the Turkish peppers became popular to add zest to a dish. They called them the Hungarian word for pepper, "paprika" and also dried and ground into a powder, which we call paprika also.
The Hungarians who were great beef herdsman or cowboys use to coat their beef with the ground dried pepper that they called Paprika on long cattle drives up to places like Frankfurt Germany, where they traded cattle. The coating which is now called a "rub" not only flavored it but preserved it, they didn't have ice and coolers back then.
They could make this right on the plains at night in a hanging cauldron, over an open fire.
The Germans caught wind of this Goulash seasoned with paprika and it has been popular there ever since!
Most of my early career as a chef, Paprika was something that you sprinkled on food to make it look pretty like deviled eggs. We never actually thought you would use it to add flavor.
Chili peppers were HOT and Tabasco sauce was something we would use to dare folks!
Here is a movie of the Hungarian Herdsmen Making Goulash
One of the most versitale tools in the kitchen, for scraping flour off the counter after making bread, to lifting up lots of crumbs, and loosening up stuck on food.
