Things I cooked: Czech Goulash

So, outside of Salesforce and concerts and anime, I love to cook. I have since I was very young, and it’s a wonderful outlet after a day of doing. I usually put on a set of headphones, listen to a Simon Whistler podcast or some deathcore, and then make stuff. I get lucky most of the time, and others…well, i learn for the next time. For my first recipe, I am sharing the recipe for Czech goulash and knedlíky i just made (I got really lucky and a neighbour bought me some goulash seasoning after visiting Prague during vacation!). Let me know what you think if you try it!

Ingredients

Method

Make the goulash

1. Cut the beef into roughly 1-inch pieces and pat it dry. Heat the oil or lard in a heavy pot or Dutch oven over medium-high heat.
2. Working in batches, brown the beef well on all sides. Don’t crowd the pot. You’re looking for a good brown crust and fond on the bottom of the pot, not to cook the beef through. Remove the browned beef and set aside.
3. Reduce the heat to medium and add the onions. Cook slowly until very soft and deeply golden. This takes time, but the onions form much of the body of the finished sauce.
   
4. Add the garlic and caraway and cook briefly until fragrant. Stir in the tomato paste and cook for another minute or two.
5. Take the pot off the heat before adding the paprika. Stir the paprika into the onions and fat until everything is thoroughly coated. Paprika burns surprisingly easily and becomes bitter, so don’t leave it frying over high heat.
6. Return the beef and any accumulated juices to the pot. Add enough beef broth to mostly cover the meat and stir well, scraping up anything remaining on the bottom of the pot.
   
7. Bring to a gentle simmer, cover partially, and cook over low heat for approximately 2 to 2½ hours, stirring occasionally, until the beef is very tender and the onions have largely disappeared into the sauce.
8. Add the marjoram toward the end of cooking. Taste and adjust the seasoning. If the sauce is thinner than you’d like, simmer uncovered until reduced rather than immediately reaching for flour. If it still needs help, a small amount of flour mixed with cold water can be used to thicken it.

Make the knedlíky

1. Warm the milk until lukewarm, approximately 28–32°C. Stir in the sugar and yeast and leave for 5–10 minutes until the yeast begins to foam.
2. Cut your stale bread into small cubes.
   
3. Combine the flour with the egg and yeast mixture and knead until you have a smooth, elastic dough. Fold in the cubes of stale bread.
4. Cover and leave in a warm place until approximately doubled in size, about an hour.
5. Turn the risen dough onto a lightly floured surface and divide into two long, even loaves.
6. Steam the dumplings over gently boiling water for approximately 20–25 minutes, turning them halfway through if necessary depending on your steaming setup. Don’t crowd them because they will expand considerably. (I use two large pots, one per dumpling roll).
   
7. Remove from the steamer and immediately pierce them in several places with a skewer or fork to release steam.
8. Allow them to rest briefly, then slice using thread or unflavoured dental floss rather than a knife. Slip the thread underneath the dumpling, cross the ends over the top and pull. It produces remarkably clean slices without crushing the dumpling.?
   

Plating

Dependent on how people like goulash, this is quite thick so you can either spoon out mostly meat or add some of the sauce. I like mine a little drier, but I usually add it on top of some mashed potato with chives, a salad and some slices of the knedlíky.

Notes

Always check the content on the goulash spice for the salt content. I do not cook nor season with salt (I use all the other spices!), so when I made goulash with the spice packet my neighbour bought me, it was extremely salty to me. If you would like to keep the saltiness to a low level, use no sodium broth, and be minimal with the goulash seasoning (you can always add some Hungarian paprika for more colour and flavour).

And goulash seasoning: luckily you don’t need to have friends who buy you gifts when in Prague. You can usually find good, traditional goulash seasoning at International grocers, or even online. Or you can use a mix of sweet Hungarian and hot paprika (I just like seasoning packages better!) – however mix in the hot paprika to your level of temperature you want.

What I’d Change Next Time

The first time I made this (the picture you see above) I realized that at the higher level of seasoning, the food is very salty. The next time I make, I will use 3 tablespoon of the seasoning, 1 heaping tablespoon of sweet Hungarian paprika and 2 teaspoons of hot paprika.