What the f*** is "balkan style"???
It started with the idea of a hungarian "goulash session" with Kriszti, although it turned out to be a "Pörkölt". We started around 1 p.m. with a good "Vilmos Körte Palinka" to warm up and to burn the fat that would be consumed afterwards....
(typical hungarian breakfast -ya, right!!!)
Afterall we got serious and focused on cooking the best Goulash - sorry - "Pörkölt" ever.
- Sliced the onions into small cubes that made us sheding some tears and fry them in pork lard addig the pressed garlic gloves
- When they were nice gold brown the cubed beef was mixed and fried it until the color of the beef turned to be grey- brownish.
- We covered the mixture with red mild-sweet hungarian pepper powder and increased the intesity of this amazing spice blend with freshly milled black pepper, caraway seeds, completed it with marjoram, laurels, filled it up with water.
- Then we tranferred it to our bonfire, using our tripod (yeah, after 3 years we used it for the first time!!). Smelling the seducing aroma in the air The "Jedis" (Mario, Heidi, Ben, Lauri), Chrstian and Barbara joined us.
- We tasted and tested the Pörkolt, but after 3 hours it was still quite chewy while Kriszti stated: "Hey guys, this is Balkan Style! ;-)". This became the slogan for the rest of the afternoon ;-))
- Half an hour before the stew would have been finished we added a shot of red wine and the hot pepper / chilies.
- After 4 hours of simmering, fighting the smoke, eating Apfelstrudel (recipe coming soon), cheesecake (from Heidi, recipe coming soon) and chestnut from our tree the Pörkolt was finally ready!
- Accompanied by polenta (from Christian) and tarhonya we enjoyed the delicious meal.
Now we sit in the kitchen, happy, smoked like a salmon, blogging this story and enjoying ourselves.
Wanna try yourself?
"Jò ètvagyat!'
Shopping List for 10 persons
Time required: 1 hour preparation of meat and onions, 3-4 hours for slowly cooking
- Sunshine ;)
- 2.7 kg of beef (ask for goulash meet)
- 2.5 kg onions
- 500 g of lard
- 10 gloves of garlic
- freshly milled black pepper
- 1/2 Tbs. freshly milled caraway seeds
- 2 Tbs. marjoram
- 8 pcs. laurels
- 1/8 l of Wine
- 1-2 Tbs. salt
- Green hot pepper / chilis as needed
- 1 bottle of Vilmos (a must!)