Hungarian Stew (Pörkölt/Goulash) Recipe

Hungarian Stew (Goulash/Pörkölt) Recipe

Hungarian Stew (Goulash or Pörkölt) is a very simple meal, easy to make but it is one of the the best food in the world.

The world knows Hungarian Stew as Goulash. I’m Hungarian and for me the Goulash (Hungarian: Gulyás) is a soup, Pörkölt is a stew.

Never mind Hungarian stew is called Goulash or Pörkölt, it is one of the the best food in the world.

I made stew from pork, beef or chicken. If I add the sour cream to the chicken stew, this is the chicken paprikash. Often we add the sour cream in the pork stew, but it is also called pörkölt.

By the way. Pörkölt means roasted. The meat is roasted at the beginning of cooking. The Hungarian Goulash Soup starts the same method: we make a good stew. But we put less water in the stew than in the Goulash Soup. And we cook Goulash Soup from beef and pork. If we cook it with pork, it is fake Goulash (hungarian: “hamisgulyás”).

Hungarian Stew (Pörkölt/Goulash) Recipe

Hungarian Stew (Goulash/Pörkölt) Recipe

Every Hungarian family has an authentic stew recipe. This is my Hungarian Stew (Goulash/Pörkölt) recipe. We love it!
Prep Time: 20 minutes
Cook Time: 1 hour 30 minutes
Course: Main Course
Cuisine: Hungarian
Keyword: cheap, easy, goulash
Servings: 4 people
Author: Myreille

Ingredients

  • 1000 g pork (pig leg/ham or shoulder) diced
  • 2 medium onions (chopped)
  • 1 tomato (chopped)
  • 1 Sweet Hungarian yellow wax pepper (or banana pepper or red bell peppers) (chopped)
  • 1 tablespoon Hungarian paprika powder (sweet)
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 1 tablespoon oil (or pork lard)

Instructions

  • In a large pot (or a Dutch oven) sauté the chopped onion in oil over medium-high heat. Cook slowly until the onion turns clear and glassy.
  • Add the meat to the onion and cook over high heat, stirring, until the meat is no longer pink (about 5-10 minutes).
  • Remove the pot from the heat and add the paprika powder, stirring, add 2 cups water to the meat and back to the heat. Note! If the paprika powder is burn, the stew will be bitter.
  • Add the salt, tomato and yellow pepper.
  • Bring to a boil, cover, reduce the heat to medium and simmer until the meat is cooked. (Cook for about 1,5 hours.)

Notes

If you want, put garlic, ground black pepper or carraway in the stew, but I think the simple Hungarian stew is the best. Maybe a little chili can put into it.
We eat the Hungarian stew with fresh noodle (nokedli), pasta or cooked rice.
If there is spring onions in our garden, I add chopped spring onion to my stew. Stew with spring onion is not autentic, but I like it.
Fun fact: If you mix Hungarian stew and cooked rice, you prepare an another food. This is “rizses hús” (the meat with rice). In my childhood the meat with rice was my favourite. 

There is a fresh noodle (nokedli) recipe here.