Gulaschsuppe - My Photographic Journey to find the perfect receipe

I devised this recipe from a few southern German and Austrian recipes, and augmented them to fit my memory both from growing up in South Germany and from my visits as an adult.

If you are not familiar with this particular soup, it's based on Hungarian Gulash, and is generally like American chili in the sense that there are hundreds of ways to make it. This is my particular style, and I feel after working on it a few times this is a good base recipe to expand upon.

I used beef, but you can also use lamb (which is equally awesome), pork, ox, etc. Last note, I do not use a crock pot because I feel soup is something you need to watch and is a process.

So, let's begin with the basic ingredients:

- 1 lb stew meat
- 1 lb (about 3) potatoes. I skin mine, but if you choose to leave the skin on, use thin skinned potatoes. I am currently using the Yukon Gold, which are very tasty soup/stew potatoes.
- 1 lb onions. I don't recommend you use the sweet onions on your first try.
- 2.5 teaspoons Hot Paprika
- 1.5 teaspoons Sweet Paprika
- 3/4 teaspoon Marjoram
- Caraway Seeds
- Salt
- Pepper
- Olive Oil
- 1 can petite diced tomatoes
- 32 oz beef stock
- 3 cloves of garlic, minced

Prep time - 20-30 mins, depending on how fast a chopper you are
Cook time - 5-6 hours

By the way, sorry but my camera is kinda old... sorry



Start with a bit of Olive oil in your pot, heat with medium heat.



Prepare your meat, potatoes, and onions



Mince garlic. I don't have a press, so I do it by hand, which is quite sticky.



When the oil is hot, add meat of choice and garlic, cooking about half way. The good part about stew meat is that it's fairly fatty, which will help to create the broth. If using a more lean meat, you may need a little extra oil or (if you can get it) a little fat from the animal the meat is from (not always easy to get in America).



Add onions and cook for about 10 mins. This isn't really needed to saute the onions, but I like to think it gets the onion and garlic into the meat.



Add Petite Diced Tomatoes and the juice. The juice is important and 1 can is about 14 oz. If you like big tomato chunks you can use the regular diced tomatoes, but be aware that there seems to be less juice in those cans, so you can compensate as needed.

Also add beef stock (32 oz). Since I have not had the time to really make real beef stock recently, I really like Better Than Bouillon.



Here are the less known spices that you'll need. Please read up a little on hungarian paprika, regular paprika WILL NOT WORK.

At this point I add the Marjoram, add more or less to increase or decrease the bitterness (some is good).



and the Caraway Seeds. Caraway Seeds have a really nice minty smell, don't hold back on this because of that. The flavor is excellent.



Bring to a boil, then ease it back to about 2.5-3 (if your oven uses 1-10). Cover and Cook for about 2 hours. I cover mine in towels to reduce water loss.

After the 2 hours, I then add the hot paprika, sweet paprika, salt and pepper. All of these spices (and the previous two) are really season to taste, but be aware that the hot paprika can get pretty hot as you eat it (cumulative effect) so don't make one spoon full really hot, unless you like that sort of thing.



Cover and cook again for 2 hour.



Add potatoes, Cover, and Cook for another 2 hours or so.



And we're done. I highly recommend this with some brotchen or other german bread. The potatoes should be quite soft (but not falling apart) and be stained by the paprika.

Hope you all enjoy.

Peace
KJ

Looks good, how much would you estimate this costs to make?

By the way, sorry but my camera is kinda old... sorry

Your camera's fine, you just aren't still when taking the pictures

This is my favorite dish.
Your recipe is almost perfect the only thing that you need to add are fresh red paprika .

Originally posted by satron
Looks good, how much would you estimate this costs to make?

God, I don't have the foggiest idea. 15-20 bucks if you don't already have the spices. Cheaper if you do.

Your camera's fine, you just aren't still when taking the pictures

No, I swear, the auto-focus on it is wonky and even when still it can come out all crazy.

reply to post by Monte-Carlo


I thought about that, but I don't think I've ever seen fresh ones in America. They might be around, but I certainly don't know where to get them.

I'll have to look into it, thanks. btw, how hot are the fresh ones?