Gemüsegulyas (von Schwein)

A good goulash is always perfect for a wintery evening - when I made this last week, it happened to be cold and foggy here in Austin. Although I now write this in the balmy 60s, I'm thinking back on the two cold nights we had Goulash on our recent trip...first, in Ljubljana Slovenia, and the second in Salzburg, Austria.

So, what is goulash? With its hungarian origins, it's basically a meat and vegetable stew or soup...depending on how thick you make it...with the key ingredient being paprika. Traditionalists say that thickening agents should come from fatty meat not flour and taste should come from paprika not tomatoes. I like a good standard chameleon goulash that does a little bit of everything.



I used a recipe from my "The German Cookbook" by Mimi Sheraton, written in the 60s, and the influences of the decade are clearly present. To me, that's a good thing since I am a fan of 60s and 70s based food. I used pork sirloin roast, since it's both flavorful and cheap, and loved the use of whole, peeled tomatoes!

The two aforementioned times I ate it in Europe used game, whether just deer or a mix of deer and wild boar (Carolignian boar, a regional type) and it was amazing. There is always the fear of deer being "gamey" and I frankly don't quite know where I'd go to get some...but maybe we leave that to the Slovenes and Austrians and my memories.



Notice the cute Christmas tablecloth; thankfully it fit on our table. We bought it last year at the city-wide garage sale and couldn't resist it...it is homemade, a cute print, and other than trimming the yarn fringe it needed no other repairs.

Time to figure out what I should do with the leftover bits of Honey Baked Ham that we have. It's been amazing and I know there is a soup or stew in our future...just not sure how the honey aspect will play into it. Hrmmm...

Tschüß!