🍝 IZZY'S FAMOUS GOULASH
I'm Hungary!
Bonjour, la grenouille!
That is French for frog. A little la grenouille taking a leisurely walk down a cobblestone avenue in Paris, having a little look at all of the yummy treats in the bakery windows, humming a most dignified tune, smiling at passersby!
That is what I have been doing today, on this my first day outside after two weeks of self-isolation. I feel so good! Call me Ray White, because I have a new lease on life.
This charitable energy needs to be shared. Cue: Goulash recipe.
Like any good recipe on the internet, it’s my duty to write a long-winded, unnecessary wall of text before getting to the ingredients and method. Here goes.
I first learnt about Goulash in September last year. I’d moved in with my new housemate, Izzy. She is a 26-year-old executive from Perth. She spent half of her life on a farm in Manjimup. She has one of those dogs that look like they have a name like ‘Red’ or something. In other words, she is very “typically Australian”.
But her eyebrows? They tell a different story entirely.
Like Gretchen Wieners hair, they are so big because they are full of secrets. Most of them Goulash-based.
“What is a goulash?” you ask. It sounds like a skin condition. A fungal thing between the toes. Or maybe some rare strain of genital herpes? Nope. According to Google, it’s this:
So it’s a soup or stew. Neither of those things sound good. They certainly don’t sound worthy of Best Meal Ever status.
But I promise you that when I say this is my favourite home-cooked meal, I am not fucking about. It’s unreal. If you go to the shops tomorrow, buy the ingredients, spend 5 hours cooking and hate it? I will personally come over to your house and take the damn thing off you and eat it myself.
It’s super simple. 6 pieces of bone-in chicken, 4 onions, sweet paprika, tomato paste, garlic and water. Pair it with noodles (either homemade or store-bought) and a lightly-pickled cabbage salad and you’ve got a real panty dropper.
It’s cheap, too. We calculated costs the other day and it came in around $2.50 per serving. The real “cost” is the hours spent letting it simmer. Thankfully, some cunt in Waterloo had a party last week so you’ve got another week in lockdown to give this a burl :-)
Move over Peggy… there’s a new GOU in town!!! Here she is.
IZZY’S FAMOUS GOULASH
INGREDIENTS
6 pieces of chicken*
4 onions
4 cloves of garlic
140g tomato paste (one of those mini tubs)
4 tbsp sweet paprika
olive oil
1 whole green cabbage
bunch of parsley
white vinegar
salt
pepper
noodles or pasta**
*with the chicken, get thigh and leg pieces with skin-on and bone-in. You need the skin and the bone for flavour. This is integral!
**for our noodles, we made a dough out of 4 cups flour, 4 eggs and then squeezed it through a thing called a ‘spaetzle maker’. You can just buy pasta. If you become a goulash freak you can totally buy one, it’s fun to use.
METHOD
Chop up all your onions. You can be rough, they’re gonna disintegrate anyway
Get a big frypan (one of those deep ones that come with a lid) and cover the bottom of it with olive oil
Let it heat up, then throw in the onions. You’re going to want to cook these for at least 15 minutes, turning them constantly so they don’t burn. If it starts to get dry in there, add a dash of water. The point is to get them full caramelised. When you’re close to finished, let them get a little bit of burn on the bottom so they’re super caramel-y. Take them out of the pan:
Grab your chicken bits. Rub it with paprika, salt and pepper
Use that same onion pan, again cover the bottom with oil
Heat it up, then drop in the chicken
The chicken will probably be crowded in there. That’s ok, we’re just putting them in to brown off a bit. Wait till both sides of each piece have a bit of brown colour on them (you’re essentially ‘searing’ and sealing them as you could a steak. Don’t cook them)
Ok! Now, return the onions, 2 gloves of crushed garlic, the tomato paste, and one and a half cups of water. Mix it all up. Bring it to a simmer. Once it’s bubbling, turn it down to low and put the lid on
You’re gonna wanna keep it like that for at least an hour and a half. For the most molte bene goulash, keep it on there for 4 hours. Check on it every halfa or so… you don’t want it to be sticking to the bottom of the pan too much
If it looks like it’s getting dry, add splashes of water. The chicken will be cooked pretty much from the 1 hour mark… you know it’s done when it’s falling off the bone oh baby
The point of keeping it on for longer than that is to create a richer sauce. You want to try strike a perfect balance where the sauce is thick but also that there is enough of it when you laddle it out onto the noodles!
NOW!! The salad.
Finely chop a whole cabbage. And I mean seriously fine. Use a serrated knife and just cut downways as thinly as you can. If you press against the cabbage as you draw the knife down, you can get it pretty thin. Try to avoid the core, you don’t really want that
In a jar, make the dressing. 2 tablespoons of oil, 1 tablespoon of white vinegar, 2 crushed garlic cloves, salt and pepper. Give it a shake… and then a taste. Is it salty enough for you? If not, add a bit more. Pour it all over the salad. If there isn’t enough dressing, double it. GO off
Meanwhile, cook your pasta or noodles. Salt the absolute shit out of the water! Izzy taught me that it makes it more flavourful (I used to just put a pinch in, then I saw her do it and she tipped at least 2 tablespoons of Saxa into that pot. Strong)
HOW TO SERVE?
Grab your parsley, chop it all up really small. put half on the salad, and half on the chicken
When Izzy and I eat it together, we bring the pot of chicken, the bowl of salad and a dish of pasta into the dining room and dish it up right there. It’s a real ‘family’ meal – it deserves a table reception!
And enjoy! Pair it with whatever you like to drink. I choose SodaStreamed water, turned up to level 3 for maximum bubblage. Really nice for cutting the salty richness of this meal.
Now… dessert. If you really want to have a truly yummy night, I can recommend these Sally’s Baking Addiction Rolo Cookies. If you’ve been an employee since 2016 you’ll recognise them as a top tier, tried-and-true FROOMESWORLD recipe. I’m gonna make them tonight!
Thanks for reading. I wish you the very best on your goulash adventures.
CEO,
F