Recipe (was: re: [CH] Boo Ghoulash!)
Wolfgang Deimel (deimel@mabi.de)
Sun, 4 Oct 1998 18:46:14 +0200
On 3 Oct 98, at 4:24, The Old Bear wrote:
> Hungarian Paprika is actually a chile powder made from the mildest of the
> capsicum family, and the best paprikas have the delightful property of
> embodying the fruitiness and overtones which are always present in the
> best hot chile powders. But, unlike New Mexico chile powder, good paprika
> puts these subtleties center stage, rather than leaving them in their
> usual supporting role to the dominant sensation of heat.
Well...seems we always worship what is hard to get, respectively. In a way I
was raised with paprika, very common spice here and put in almost any dish
with meat; and no chile powder unless maybe 10 or so years ago a fancy dish
called "Chili Con Carne" popped up here, actually it happens to be a sort of
Ragu Bolognese with beans and a slight chile flavor. What you can buy here
everywhere now is "Chilli Powder" which consists of some obscure chiles and
other spices like cumin.
Well anyhow, I find paprika to taste distinctively different than chile
powder. They're both red and you would use about the same quantity to enhance
a dish, and that's it with the similarities. Here you can buy 2 variants:
sweet and hot. Well, the sweet one isn't sweet and the hot one isn't hot...
But enough ranting, here's a Ghoulash (sp???) recipe I picked up on TV a few
years ago, it claims to be Hungarian.
You need some cheapo pork, cut into bite-sized cubes, lots of onions (2/3 of
the weight of the beef, roughly chopped).
Fry the meet in a large pot over very high heat in lard (I used olive oil the
last time, that's ok) until brown, add onions and reduce heat. Add paprika
powder (quite a lot) and take care not to burn it because it gets bitter
then. Add red wine, tomato puree, salt, pepper, marjoram, vinegar (just a
little), chopped garlic. Cook for 2 hours over low heat. It should *look*
like Chili. Serve with noodles and beer.
Wolfgang.