Being a sales representative for a company that imports and distributes mostly French wine and having a name like Jacqueline, often people assume I’m French until they find out otherwise. And generally, I identify myself as a Sicilian American, since that’s pretty much how I was raised. But I’m also Hungarian and Slovakian (or, as I’d like to call my Hungarian heritage, Magyar). And what I’ve noticed in the past few years is that while it’s quite common to be of Italian, Irish, German, Polish, etc. heritage, being Hungarian is a little less common and lately there have been quite a few Hungarians and Hungarian Americans coming out of the woodwork - it’s like we find each other somehow and embrace the common thread.
But Hungarian or not, I’m sure you’ve all heard of goulash. It’s a delicious Hungarian stew or soup, and I’ve been enjoying making that, even a little more often now. It’s generally served over egg noodles (that have bee lightly buttered and sprinkled with parsley). The stew itself consists of vegetables, beef, wine (of course), and it would hardly be Hungarian without paprika.
How about I just tell you how it’s done? It’s a little time consuming as I’ve clocked it even when I’m moving as quickly as if I were making marinara sauce, and prep time and cook time combined, it gets to somewhere between 2 and 3 hours. Anyway, I use about a pound and a half of stewing meat (but I still cut away any fat) and cut it into fairly small pieces. Some say to toss them in flour, but since my dad doesn’t care much for flour in most dishes, I tend to avoid the flour. And it doesn’t seem necessary anyway. I heat a bit of olive oil in the large round Le Creuset Dutch oven and brown the meat, seasoning it with kosher salt and fresh ground black pepper. Once the meat is cooked, I remove the meat to a separate bowl but keep the juices left behind. In the juices, I cook 3 medium sized yellow onions cut into thin rings, roughly a dozen garlic cloves peeled and cut in half, and one of those packages of baby portobello mushrooms (I believe that’s about 8 oz), which I cut into quarters. I add a bit more olive oil and cover the pot, cooking on med-high heat until the vegetables are softened but have not browned. I then deglaze the pot with some red wine (some recipes call for sweet red wine but I prefer a good quality dry red with some fruit characteristics). After letting it cook a bit longer, I add about 2 cups of beef stock and I put the meat back in, as well as a small jar (drained) of roasted red peppers which I love (and I cut them into fairly small pieces), and a quarter of a cup of paprika. Stir it all together and cover and cook on simmer-low for somewhere around an hour and a half. The meat will be a lot softer and the stew will have thickened a bit and reduced somewhat. Once it cools a bit, I add a cup of sour cream and stir it in, and heat it up again and serve it over the noodles.
It’s really easy, just a little time consuming, like I said.
My favorite pairing is currently Blaufrankisch, from Austria. I’m a sucker for Austrian wines, both red and white, as I mentioned in my last blog post. But something about the dry, spicy, earthy, and somewhat tart red wine like Blaufrankisch just seems so perfect with the goulash. Eventually I’ll try a Hungarian red with it, but for now, Blaufrankisch suits me just fine (and as in the case of Zweigelt and how I like saying the word, it’s the same thing with Blaufrankisch, I like saying it).
So, in 3 days, I’ll be sitting in a Guild of Sommeliers master class on Austrian wine - while I’ve got a cool new blog post coming on this blog about a great experiment I did this week, my next blog post will probably be on the Austrian class, and it’ll appear on my other blog, Champagne Taste, so please be sure to check it out!
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