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Papua New GuineaFlavors · Hungary
Beef soup with plenty of broth, onion, paprika, diced potato and csipetke, a pinched noodle that cooks in the pot. It is made without thickening with flour. The name comes from the gulyás, the herdsmen of the Great Plain.
Traditional dish from Hungary
Also known as: gulyás, magyar gulyásleves, goulash
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Gulyásleves — Hungary
In Hungary, gulyás is a soup. Restaurateur Károly Gundel described it as a very brothy dish made with onion and paprika, diced potato and csipetke, little bits of dough pinched off with the fingers and cooked in the soup itself. The official Hungarikum file adds that a good gulyás is made without roux, that is, without thickening with flour and fat, and that the quality of the ground paprika is essential.
The word gulyás referred to the herdsmen who tended cattle on the Hungarian Great Plain. They cooked meat with onion in iron cauldrons over the fire, the bogrács, and from that pastoral custom come the soup and other paprika dishes, which spread through Hungarian cuisine in the 19th century.
Outside Hungary, the name goulash usually denotes a thick meat stew. In Hungary, that stew is called pörkölt; gulyás remains the soup, eaten with a spoon. Every household has its own way of making it, with variations in the meat, vegetables and the intensity of the paprika.
The soup was inscribed in 2017 in the Collection of Hungarikumok, the official list of national values. It appears on restaurant menus across the country and is prepared outdoors, in the cauldron, at family gatherings and festivals.
Hungary
A pastoral-origin dish from the Great Plain, today eaten and prepared throughout the country, with no more precisely documented place of origin.
Beef cut into cubes, onion, lard or oil, ground paprika, potato, carrot and other vegetables according to the recipe, and csipetke (a dough of flour and egg).
Hot, in a deep plate or bowl, sometimes in a small cauldron, with bread. It can be a starter or a main course. Fresh hot chili peppers are often served on the side.
Everyday food and for outdoor gatherings, when it is made in a cauldron over the fire.
Your questions
In Hungary, gulyás is a soup, with plenty of broth, potato and small noodles. The thick stew that many countries call goulash is called pörkölt in Hungary.
Small pieces of dough made from flour and egg, pinched off with the fingers and cooked directly in gulyás soup.
From the word that designated the herdsmen of the Hungarian Great Plain, who cooked meat with onion in cauldrons over the fire.
Flavors of Hungary
Wine mixed with sparkling water (szóda), in proportions that have their own names, such as kisfröccs, hosszúlépés and házmester. White, rosé or red, it is the summer drink of Hungary’s bars, cellars and terraces.
Sweet yeast dough rolled into a strip on a wooden spindle, baked while turned over embers and coated with caramelized sugar. It comes off the spindle in the shape of a hollow cylinder. It originated in the Land of the Székely in Transylvania and is sold at fairs and Christmas markets throughout Hungary.
Yeast dough hand-opened and fried until golden, crunchy on the outside and soft inside. The classic topping is sour cream, grated cheese and, if you like, garlic. A street food found at fairs, markets and beaches across the country.
Fruit brandy distilled in Hungary from plum, apricot, pear, apple, cherry and many others. By law the fruit must be grown in Hungary, and all stages from fermentation to bottling must take place in the country. It is a protected geographical indication of the European Union.
Christmas bonbon, usually a fondant candy covered in chocolate, wrapped in shiny colored foil and hung on the branches of the Christmas tree. The most common fillings are fruit jelly, marzipan, coconut and caramel.
Baja fish soup from the banks of the Danube, made with carp, onion and ground paprika cooked together in a cauldron, without straining the broth. It’s served over a thin noodle, gyufatészta, with the fish on the side and hot pepper.
Layered sponge cake with thin layers of sponge alternated with chocolate buttercream and topped with a sheet of caramel. It was created by pastry chef József C. Dobos, owner of a delicatessen in Budapest, and presented at the 1885 National General Exhibition.
Crepe folded and filled with walnuts, raisins and candied orange peel, flavored with rum and topped with chocolate sauce. It is named after the Gundel restaurant in Budapest’s City Park, which put it on the menu; the recipe is attributed to Ilona Matzner, wife of the writer Sándor Márai.
Bitter herbal liqueur, dark, produced by the Zwack family in Budapest with a secret recipe of more than 40 herbs and spices, aged in oak casks. The round bottle with a cross on the label is recognised throughout the country.
Szeged river fish soup, red from paprika, made with a thick broth of several fish, carp heads and bones, and onion, passed through a sieve. Carp pieces cook in that broth, and the soup is served with bread and hot pepper on the side.
Sweet wine from the Tokaj wine region in northeastern Hungary, made from grapes affected by noble rot and harvested berry by berry. The aszú berries are crushed and macerated in must or wine, and the wine ages in oak barrels in underground cellars.
White wine from the kéknyelű grape, grown almost exclusively in the Badacsony wine region on the northern shore of Lake Balaton. The grape’s name means “blue stem.” The wines are usually dry with marked acidity, and there are also sparkling and sweet versions.
