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Before you can digest the history of the Goulash soup, start making it yourself. Here comes the recipe for the national food of Hungary!

Goulash soup recipe

Recipe for four persons
Cooking time: 90 minutes

Ingredients:
500-600g shank of beef
1 large onion
1 large carrot
1 parsnip
1 small celery
2 middle sized potatoes
4-5 pieces of parsley
3 teaspoons sweet paprika (powder)
3 bay leafs
1 teaspoon caraway grains
1 teaspoons black pepper grains
salt after taste
3 spoons oil
1 small green paprika (not necessary)
1 small tomato (not necessary)
2,5L water
(If you use these ingredients you will be able to make a really tasty and good Goulash soup.)

You should start cutting the carrot, the celery and the potatoes into same size pieces.

Put the onion (cut into small pieces) into a pot together with the oil and let them fry together. As it gets golden brown take the pot of the heating and add the paprika and the meat that has been cut into small pieces.

After this you should add some of the water and let it steam together for a while. Later add the bay leafs, the caraway, the paprika and the tomato. Add salt and taste continuously (about 1 teaspoon). Let the mixture be boiling for around one-two hours to make sure the meat gets well cooked. As the meat gets almost soft you should add the carrots, the parsnip, the celery and after ten more minutes the potatoes. Together they should be cooked together for ten more minutes.

Taste the soup and if needed, add some more salt. Add some black pepper powder to the top of the soup and also the parsley cut into small pieces.

The Goulash soup should be served together with fresh white bread, and if you like strong stuff, add some strong paprika to the soup or maybe some Erős Pista (hot paprika on glass) to the soup as you are about to eat it.

Bon appetit!

Goulash soup history

The birth of the goulash soup origins in a time when the shepherds spent much time far away from home. Out on the open fields they made the goulash soup in the traditional cauldrons (kettles), or bogrács as we call it in Hungary. Today you can still see these cauldrons as Hungarians cook Goulash soup, fish soup and other traditional Hungarian food both in their gardens and at festivals around in Hungary.

The Goulash Soup is known as the national food of Hungary since the end of the 18th century. It was claimed that the unity of the Hungarians were helped forth by creating a local fashion (Hungarian clothes) and also by making the Goulash soup the national food of Hungary.

In reality the Goulash can not be called a traditional Hungarian course, since the paprika, which gives the special taste to the Goulash soup, only started to spread around in Europe in the 16th century as it was first found in America.

There are several types of Goulash soup available as you visit restaurants in all of Budapest and Hungary, but the best soups are normally the ones you get from a real Hungarian grandmother, giving her heart, soul and lots of ingredients into it.

The following recipe has been given to me by my mother-in-law, so if something goes wrong, she is the one to blame 🙂