Last Thursday I made some delicious Gulyas soup for my friends! (ask them if you don't believe me). The reason was that two Japanese students, who spent 9 months at LMS are going back home. And they really wanted to learn how to make real Hungarian Gulyas soup. So I tried my best :-)
Here is how to make it:
Gulyas soup
Ingredients for about 4 people:
400 gr of meat cut in small cubes (beef or pork is traditional but you can use chicken if you like it better )
100gr of smoked bacon cut in small cubes (gerookte spek)
150gr of onion, finely chopped
2 cloves of garlik, finely chopped
200gr carrot and white carrot (pastinaken) (half-half) cut in thin slices
400gr potatoes cut in small cubes
(optional: 200gr beans)
1 tomato cut in half or into four pieces
1 sweet pepper (paprika) cut in half
spices:
marjolein
komijn (powdered but seeds are also fine)
petersilie
sweet red paprika powder
pepper
salt
and white bread
Preparation:
Fry the onions and garlic over medium flame in a deep pan with a little oil (it is going to be a soup! cca 1.5 liters)
When it turns transparent increase the flame and add the "spek" fry it a bit,
then add the meat to and fry it until it turns a white/slightly brown,
After this take it off the flame add about 4-5 teaspoon sweet red paprika powder, mix it then add a little (~0.3l) water.
(Be careful, the paprika powder can easily turn bitter if it is fried.)
You also sprinkle it with cumijn at this point.
Cook the meat until it is half cooked, then add more water (cca 0.6l).
When it starts to boil add the carrots, they need more time to cook.
This is the time to add a bit of salt, marjolein and petersilie too.
Roughly after 10 minutes add the potatoes, the tomato and the paprika too.
After a bit of cooking taste to see if the spices were enough.
About the beans, in case you'd like to add some:
- if they were dry, then you should soak them in water for a day and add them with the carrots.
- if you use canned beans, those are pre-cooked so you only want to add them at the end when the potatoes are half ready.
It is supposed to be a thick soup, eaten with white bread as a main course.
- Often people put small pasta dumplings in the soup too, but I've never made them before and you get more or less the same satisfaction if you have some nice white bread with it :-)
- The amounts are just there to give general idea, you can give and take depending on whether you prefer the meat, the carrots, the onion or the potato.
- The idea behind using a relatively large amount of onions is that as the soup is boiling, the onion slowly disintegrates, creating a thick gravy together with the paprika powder.
It was a great time, we ate all the food, we drank all the wine and enjoyed each other :-)
What more do you need?
