Lloyd's Goulash

We had NandS round tonight with Simon and Alison who were up from Wellington. It's Simon's birthday and when I looked back I realised that on May 10th last year we were all together in our kitchen for Simon's birthday then too! How Lovely!

Anyway, Lloyd decided to cook something nice and he spent the morning pouring over recipes in books and on the net. Nothing was doing it for him at all! He veered from Thai to Indian to porky recipes and from Rick Stein to Charmaine Solomon. Nothing!! I left him heading off to get ingredients for a stroganoff but when he came home he had everything for a goulash! This is what he'd wanted to make all along, only he didn't remember that till he got to the shops.

So this is how it went...

Ingredients ( for 6 huge portions)

1.75kg rump steak

3 onions

3 carrots

1/2 kg mushrooms

1 jar grilled peppers

2 big leeks

20 cloves ( yes, that's 20) of garlic

3 heaped teaspoons paprika

500ml Beef stock

500ml red wine

1/2 tube tomato paste

1 heaped teaspoon smoked paprika

400g sour cream

salt, pepper and flour

olive oil for frying

Cube up the steak, roll in flour salt and pepper and brown in a large pot (in batches) in the olive oil.

Remove beef after browned.

Chop up the onions, garlic, carrots, mushrooms, leeks 

Gently sweat the vegetables and garlic ( but not the peppers)  in the scrapings from the beef (don't worry if the beef left loads of sticky brown residue on the bottom of the pan - just don't burn it!) the moisture from the veggies will soften it all and this tastes really good.

Once the onions are softened but not browned ( about 15 minutes) add the wine, the stock, the tomato paste and the peppers and simmer until the liquid starts to thicken from the floury residue. Then add the paprika ~ smoked and unsmoked and the beef. Mix well and simmer very gently for about 2 hours, until the meat is very tender. 

Remove from heat and once cooled slightly add the sour cream.

Stir well and serve

We had it with rice cooked in chicken stock. Traditionally it would be served with buttered and parsley pasta.

It was delicious and everyone ( except me!) had seconds. At the end of the night, someone - who shall remain nameless - wanted to raid the fridge for crusty bread, butter it and mop up every single bit of remains! So it must have been good.