We REALLY needed comfort food this week, and Hungarian Goulash fit the bill. Easy to execute and with its long cooking time offering tantalizing aromas wafting from the kitchen it was the perfect choice.

Winter seems to be lingering on forever and the snow keeps piling up…and I’m questioning, once again, why I choose to live here! Oh right, it’s beautiful and we have all 4 seasons and coastline and blah blah blah…Yes, I love New England.

I just think winter is about 6 months too long. If we could just have a nice picturesque winter for about a week…okay, maybe even a month, and then be done with it, that would be great!

This week, adding insult to injury, I woke up to a new and totally unplanned water feature in my kitchen. The two most dreaded words in the winter lexicon… “ice dam”. For those of you living somewhere blissfully winter free, this is when ice builds up on the edge of the roof and and snow melt or rain is trapped with no place to go except back up under the shingles and into the walls or ceiling.

In a stunning feat of creative engineering, I directed the water back outside until I could solve the problem at the root. with a hammer and chisel. on a ladder. So you can see why comfort food was in order!

I had been thinking Hungarian Goulash thoughts for a week since the temperature has been at arctic levels and this is a warm, slightly spicy, totally addictive beef stew. With the main ingredients being beef (obviously!), onion, red pepper, and sweet paprika - which I had spotted lurking in the top of my spice cabinet.

In my usual fashion, I googled a few favorite food websites to ascertain what might be needed and decided I could cobble together enough of the critical pieces with what I had on hand. Most recipes called for 3 lbs of beef and I only had 1 1/2 lbs, but I still made the full recipe because it is delicious anyway.

The Smitten Kitchen recipe called for bacon and since I think nearly EVERYTHING is improved with a little bacon…you can probably guess I chose to include it. Some recipes called for potatoes, carrots and celery - I had one out of three so I threw in some carrots.

All called for between 2 and 4 onions and 2 red bell peppers - I used 3 large sweet onions, and 3 red bell peppers since I had less beef and no potatoes or celery. Serious Eats called for the addition of gelatin, fish sauce(?!), soy sauce, bay leaves, and fresh thyme. Kenji adds fish sauce to everything it seems! Again I had only 3 out of 5 of those.

*Another note - the recipe calls for stew beef and I only had sirloin tips. The looooong cooking time is primarily to cook the stew beef until it is tender. I was able to cut the cooking time way down because I started with a tender cut of meat (AND we were impatiently hungry!)

Hungarian Goulash

My mashup recipe is adapted from mostly Smitten Kitchen with a few Serious Eats additions. Probably twisted logic, but that’s the beauty of soups and stews - they are infinitely flexible and quite forgiving!

Ingredients

• 5 slices bacon, cut into small pieces (I used 6 because that’s what was left in the package and it seemed cruel to leave 1 lonely slice!)

• 3 lbs stew beef* cut into cubes

• 1 tbsp vegetable oil

• 3 large sweet onions, chopped

• 4 cloves garlic, minced

• 4 carrots, peeled and diced

• 3 -4 Tbsp paprika (preferably Hungarian sweet - I had about 1 1/2 Tbsp of that and used generic paprika for the rest)

• 1/2 Tbsp caraway seeds (these don’t appear in every recipe, so are optional)

• 1/3 cup all purpose flour

• 1/4 cup red wine vinegar

• 1/4 cup tomato paste (I was a little accidentally generous with this!)

• 5 cups beef broth (I used Better than Bouillon beef base to make this)

• 1 to 2 cups water - this is in addition to the beef broth

• 3 red bell peppers chopped

• 2 bay leaves

• 1 Tbsp soy sauce

• 1 Tbsp Asian fish sauce (I honestly don’t know what this does, but we had it so…)

• salt to taste

• Cooked egg noodles for serving

Directions

• In a heavy 8 qt pot, cook bacon pieces over med-hi heat until crispy. Remove with a slotted spoon to a bowl.

• In the rendered bacon fat, brown the beef over high heat in batches. Remove as browned with a slotted spoon and add to the bowl.

• Reduce heat to medium and add oil. Add chopped onion, garlic, and carrots and cook until caramelized and golden.

• Add paprika, caraway seeds, and flour and cook stirring constantly for 2 minutes.

• Whisk in vinegar and tomato paste, stirring for 1 minute

• Add beef stock, soy sauce, fish sauce, bay leaves, the browned beef and bacon, the chopped red pepper, and any additional water and bring to a boil.

• Reduce heat to simmer and cook, covered, for 1 to 1 1/4 hrs until beef is tender, stirring occasionally. (We only cooked it about 15 or 20 minutes because we used sirloin tips AND we were really hungry?!) NOTE: Serious Eats cooks this in a low 300’ oven for 2+ hours instead, adding in potatoes and the carrots in the last hour - I haven’t tried this yet, but it should work just fine if you have the time, and with less chance of any sticking to the bottom of the pot.

• Check seasoning and add salt to taste.

• Serve ladled over cooked egg noodles.

This makes around 12 servings and just gets better as leftovers! And like most soups and stews, it freezes well too.

This was just what the doctor ordered for our wintery week! It was almost sweet and very rich, and we are still enjoying the leftovers.

Jo étvágyat!

(which the internet tells me is the Hungarian equivalent of Bon Appétit!)