Inspired by Pebcak.
Now y'all know I don't eat much meat and I for sure don't eat pasta but...Pebcak's thread about his baked ziti had me 'thankin' 'bout goulash. Now both sides of my family are pretty much all bohunk. Pop's dad was English with I believe some bohunk thrown in somewhere down the line. Pop's ma', and ma's p's were bohunks too and they're parents all came over from Budapest. Which side of the river I don't know. Anywhooo, my dear sweet ole ma used to make us the americanized version of goulash which was just start throwing whatever in the pool, but usually was stewed chuck or even ground chuck, pasta, (most often rigatoni or large elbow mac) paprika, heaps of garlic, onion, tomato, and often shredded up cheddar. Kind of a mac gone wild. But ma's ma', well she made goulash the old country way with lard, onion, garlic, beef chunks, lots of paprika, and stewed the whole thing until the meat fell apart. She'd finish it off at the end with fresh made dumplings dropped in. Both versions were incredibly good and filling and was and still is comfort food as I know it.
So here's mine which is a bastardization of the two versions combined. I started like this...
Got Betty fired up and splashed in some olive earl and started slow cooking the garlic and then sweated a whole chopped onion.
To which I added a pound of 93/07 ground beef mrs. blues hadn't used that was sitting in the freezer, and a shit ton(official SoFlo measurement) of the hot and smoked paprika's.
Now here's where I brought the funk. I felt like pasta but reckoned I had to put some kind of hippy healthy twist on it so got some wwwhole wwwheat rigatoni and threw that in. Added a little water too. Why start another pot of water just for pasta? Makes no sense to me. Just throw that sheeit in there brocephus!
After about 30 minutes on low, this is what you get.
Now season it with real honest to 'Gawd sea salt that actually came from the sea. Because I love the sea and I'm a man so I like all thangs sea and man..whatever. (no homo) Take it off the heat and let it cool, put a lid on it and throw it in the fridge. Por que' pinche' bway? Because its a 100 times mo' betta' the next day that's why. Didna' ya' mama' teach you nuthin'?
So now the next day which is now TODAY, pull that stuff out and heat it back up. As that's goin' on, run out to your onion patch and snip off some foo foo (y'all do have an onion patch right?) and then grab some sour cream and tho' down brown!
Like this.
And this...
Spicy and fairly hot for paprika but not too zippy. The hint of smoke is nice too. I think gulyas more or less translates as herder or herdsman, so you could make the case that this a hunter style stew. Use whatever meat you got. Beef, pork, lamb, rabbit, baboon, its all good. The main 'thang is the paprika, onions and garlic. Lots of gulyas are made with potato's and/or carrots too. It's all good. 'Tho down brown whatever you got. And it goes great with cheapass cold hosky too!
Salute'!
