Hungarian Beef Goulash

Taking a break from soups for a while (well, one week at least) and catching up on some recipes that have been long since consumed. Pesky things like work getting in the way of truly important blogging to be done.

Goulash was a favorite of mine as a kid, so when I saw this recipe in the slow cooker cookbook I got for my birthday I had to try it out.

Ingredients

• 3 Tbsp canola oil
• 4 slices of bacon (overkill, I didn't use this)
• 2 pounds beef chuck, cut into 2 inch cubes and patted dry
• salt and pepper
  
• 2 yellow onions chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 Tbsp paprika
• 1 tsp caraway seeds
• 5 sprigs fresh oregano
• 1 Tbsp tomato paste
• 1 cup dry white wine
• 1 cup chicken broth
• 1 red bell pepper, seeded and chopped
  
• 6 Yukon Gold potatoes, ~ 2 pounds, quartered
• 1/2 cup sour cream
  

Directions
I'm leaving out all the steps that include the bacon, it is just wrong, but basically it says to cook the bacon, then use the bacon grease as the base for everything else. Save yourselves and skip it like I did; I added 2 Tbsp of oil in exchange for the bacon grease.


In a large frying pan heat the 1Tbsp oil over medium-high heat. Season the beef generously with the salt and pepper and add to the frying pan. Cook until the beef is browned on all side. Remove from pan and set aside.


Add the remaining oil and saute the onions and garlic until softened. Stir in paprika, caraway seeds, oregano, tomato paste, wine and broth and bring to a boil.


Transfer the beef to the slow cooker, and pour the broth mixture over, stirring to combine. Cover and cook on low for 6 hours. Uncover and add the bell beppers and potatoes. Cover and cook an additional 2 hours on low or until the potatoes are soft and the sauce has thickened.

Serve over noodles, garnish with sour cream.

Results
This recipes started off with a giant cholesterol bang, so I omitted it right off the bat. This stuff really did turn out well. I did have a time constraint so my potatoes were a little on the firm side, but still tasted good. In retrospect I think I'd cube the potatoes smaller, or leave them out entirely if I was going to serve over noodles - two starches in the same dish seems like overkill again!

I also recommend using sweet Hungarian paprika if you can find it. There are specialty spice stores like Penzeys that will carry it if you can't find it at your local market.

Nutritional Information
No nutritional info on this one, but based on 8 servings with no noodles and no sour cream -

Weight Watcher Points: 11

this is definitely a once in a while dish.