Ever since my 3 years in Budapest, I have been regularly cooking Pörkölt with the delicious sweet, but hot, peppers from Hungary. We now grow these peppers or “paprikas” in the garden here in France.

In fact “goulash” in Hungarian is more often used as the version of this dish as a soup. This is how I make it:

– Fry two or three large onions, sliced
– Add your meat (beef, veal or chicken) diced into bite sized pieces
– When the meat is browned, add both sweet and hot Hungarian paprika powder (the amounts depend on how spicy hot you want it to be)
– Add some ground caraway seeds also
– When the spices have impregnated the meat, add some diced tomatoes (or tomato pulp from a can) and red wine (or white wine if you are using chicken)
– Sometimes I add chopped carrots as well
– Season with salt, cover and cook in a low oven (150°C) for 2 hours
– Serve with rice or steamed potatoes and decorate with chopped marjoram and sour cream
– As a variation, and to replace the rice, I sometimes add cooked sauerkraut cabbage for a few minutes at the end.
– You can also make this dish with fish but, in this case, cook the sauce first for about 45-60 minutes until it starts thickening and tasting good, then add the fish at the end.