Ground Sweet Paprika, Yellow Onion, your meat of choice, garlic, ground caraway, tomato.
In no particular order, these six ingredients will be your best friends from now on. It's very simple, actually!
Dice your onion as finely as you can, and throw it into a pot with some lard or oil. At this point you can either caramellise it, or just cook it on low heat until the pieces appear translucent. I prefer to caramellise, since it helps the pieces actually dissolve into the finished stew, but my mother thinks it's a waste of time.
When the onion is ready, add in the meat. Depending on what your end goal is, the meat could be ground or diced. (like on the photo) Stir until the outside has a thin crust on it, then add in about a tablespoon (or a bit less) of ground paprika, and about a teaspoon of ground caraway seed. Though these are my go-to ratios, you should adjust it to the amount of meat you're using, since too much paprika makes it taste bitter.
Stir around, try to avoid burning it, then add in water. Don't forget to salt it! You can add your tomato to the water, but it's an optional ingredient for thw most part. The crushed/diced garlic could be added along with the other spices, but my mother prefers grating it into the water later on, so its flavour doesn't cook away. You may also use pepper, and/or your preferred source of spiciness.
Your pörkölt should be ready when the meat is tender and the water has cooked down into a thick sauce.
2. What's next?
The simplest way to modify this dish is to mix it with rice when it's done! It's your average school cafeteria food, literally called "Meaty Rice." (rizseshús) You could go even further by laying this mixture in the bottom of a casserole dish, then layering cooked broccoli, green beans, or cauliflower. Top it with Sour Cream, and then bake until the sour cream on top goes matte. You could also add grate cheese on top, and bake until it browns! For casserole ("layered") variations like this, ground beef is usually used. Or you can replace the meat with fesh/frozen green peas or canned mushrooms. The list doesn't end here, though!
Gulyásleves - Goulash soup
-make your pörkölt, but before the meat is fully cooked, add potatoes, carrots, celery (if preferred, we don't use it) parsnips, and chopped or dried parsley.
-you can add canned beans and some smoked meat to make babgulyás (bean goulash)
-pour a generous amount of water, this is soup.
Hortobágyi Húsos palacsinta
-make a basic pörkölt with ground meat, mix sour cream into it,) and fill into thin crepes made from milk, egg, oil, flour.
-pack them thightly into a casserole dish, pour the remaining juice over it and bake in the oven until the top of it is browned
Brassói
(i haven't heard a proper translation but this is a childhood comfort dish for me)
-when your pörkölt is nearly done, add green peas and cook them
-peel some potatoes, cut them into cubes, cook, and then fry in oil
-mix, or just plate together
Paprikás Krumpli
-fry your onions, do everything as usual but add slices of sausage (the hungarian types with paprika work the best) instead of meat.
-Pour water over it and add raw cubed potatoes. Reduce or leave it soupy. We made industrial amounts of this on a class trip this year, it is simple enough that my classmates almost didn't fuck it up by oversalting it and adding herb liqour (don't)
Bakonyi sertésszelet
-cut your pork (doesn't have to be pork if you can't have it! I can imagine chicken, tofu, ect. It's just how it is traditionally) into flat slices, cover them in flour and fry in oil until a crust forms, then take them out
-if possible, (if you hadn't burned it like i did) fry your diced onions in the same oil. You'll need to use more onions than usually. double the usual amount.
-make your pörkölt without adding any meat: paprika, water, your other spices, ect.
-let it cook until the onion is nearly gone, then add back in your pork
-when the pork is nearly done, add a can of mushrooms (drained)
-when it's done, stir in sour cream and you're done
Broccoli cream soup
-boil 450 grams of broccoli, one large or two medium sized potatoes cut into cubes, one peeled onion, and 1-2 cloves of garlic in enough water to cover. Add salt and
vegeta seasoning if it's avalible to you.
-When all your veggies are soft, take it off the heat and blend with an immersion blender. Or regular blender, just make sure it doesn't explode since it's hot.
-Mix in 200mls of cooking cream (we use 10% fat cream) well, then put back on the stove and until it boils. Stir so it doesn't stick to the bottom and burn.
-Serve with Grated cheese,
(we use trappist) toast/croutons, and Enjoy! :)
All-purpose meat soup you can modify however you want
-Take any meat you want to see in a soup. Chicken, turkey, (i recommend turkey neck!) diced pork, ect. and add it to a pot. The best soup I ever made was made from a chicken whole that I was a little scared of initially since its skin was fully yellow. - It was fully fresh, it was just more fatty. At the meat desk at the grocery store they said it's free ranged.
-Peel a large onion, a clove of garlic, a couple parsnips, carrots, and a
kohlrabi and add those to the pot as well. I also sometimes add a whole tomato for flavour. If you use whole peppercorns, it's time to add them, but if they're ground I recommend adding them to your bowl when serving.
-Simmer the meat and vegetables, making sure to skim the scum off of the surface for a clear broth.
-Towards the end, (when the meat feels cooked when poked with a fork) add in diced potato, even more towards the end consider adding noodles. we use
csigatészta so consider something small.
-garnish with dried parsley or celery leaves.
Vegetable soup.
-In a tiny bit of oil or fat, briefly steam diced onion and green peas, (do not let it develop colour, just until the onion is translucent) then add more water to the pot.
-To this, add any vegetable you want. Carrots, Broccoli, Parsnips, Kohlrabi, ect. Season with salt, a whole clove of garlic, and just a dash of vegeta seasoning.
-As with the meat soup, add in your potatoes when everything else is soft. Broccoli also cooks fast, you can add that later too.
-Yeah this one is really simple. It's really good when you're feeling a little sick.
Coconut muffins
-this is a recipe I keep losing and it's driving me insane So now you can have it in english
-Mix 20dkgs (200g) of flour with 10dkgs of shredded coconut and a packet of baking powder. In a separate bowl, mix 12dkgs of melted butter (margarine is fine, I've made this in a dorm with limited resources multiple times, but butter tastes a bit better) with 25dkgs of sugar, and two eggs. You can substitute one eggs for a mashed banana and it blow your tits straight off. Slowly mix the two bowls, make sure it doesn't clump.
-The website says you need coconut extract, but since no one has that around the house, just use a dash of vanilla. It will still taste like cocconuts, don't worry.
-Preheat the oven to 180°C, and fill in your muffin tin. If you don't have muffin paper, you can use parchment paper. You can add jam in the middle (we grow peaches so I add peach jam) Website says to bake for 15 minutes but it always takes me longer.
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