Print the recipe page!  hungarian goulash with spaetzle

I’m going to Europe with this dish — who’s going with me?!  Hungarian Goulash is very different from American Goulash.  We love it and lucky for us it adapts to being a food storage meal without any trouble!

Spaetzle — a German dumpling-like noodle — is a lot of fun to make, especially with kids!  It’s something different on the table but yet it goes with all kinds of things.   This noodle recipe is brought to us courtesy of Shari Haag’s book “The Everyday Gourmet”.

Pairing these two together makes for a good hearty meal!  Guten appetit!

Serves 6

Prep time:  30 minutes

Ingredients

Hungarian Goulash

1/2 cup dried onion

1 TBS Sweet Paprika (*see note)

1 TBS Smoked Paprika

3 (12 oz.) cans roast beef (*see note)

1 (6 oz.) can tomato paste

1 1/4 tsp. salt

1/2 tsp. garlic powder

2 TBS cornstarch

1 can beef broth

German Spaetzle

4 eggs (8 TBS water mixed with 4 TBS egg powder)

1 cup milk (1 cup water mixed with 4 TBS dry milk)

4 TBS water

3 cups flour

1 tsp. baking powder

1 tsp. salt

dash of ground nutmeg, preferably fresh grated

—–

10 cups water

1 1/2 tsp salt

Tools and supplies you’ll need:

Pastry tip

Zester / grater

Pastry bag or Gallon sized freezer bag

Instructions

Making the Goulash

In a small bowl whisk together tomato paste and beef broth.  Add paprika(s), salt and garlic powder, whisk until smooth and set aside.  In another bowl rehydrate the dried onion with the broth from one can of roast beef.  Drain the other two cans of roast beef, reserving the broth and setting aside.  In a large bowl combine the drained roast beef, tomato mixture, rehydrated onions and fresh ground pepper.  Transferring to a skillet, heat to a gentle boil.  To the reserved beef broth whisk the cornstarch until smooth and add to the simmering sauce.  Stir until thickened and then turn the heat to low and simmer for 20 minutes (*see note).

Add in reserved broth and cornstarch mixture and bring back to a boil until thickened.

Simmer on low for 20 minutes and serve.

Making Spaetzle

In a large bowl, add the eggs (egg powder and water) and whisk for 2 minutes.  Add milk (powdered milk and water) and additional 4 TBS water.  Beat briskly again and stir in the flour, baking powder, salt and nutmeg until well combined.

In a large pot boil the water and add 1 1/2 tsp. salt.  Once water is boiling drop 3/4 tsp. of dough in and check to see if it is light.  If it isn’t add 1-2 TBS water to the dough and mix well.

To make noodles use a pastry bag with a tip the size of a drinking straw (*see note).  Put the dough in the bag and squeeze a stream of noodles into the boiling water, cutting the noodles to a length of 1 inch with kitchen shears as they drop into the water.  Boil 6-7 minutes.  Remove noodles with a slotted spoon and place in a strainer.

Add “eggs” , “milk” and additional water

In a separate bowl, combine flour, baking powder, salt and grated nutmeg.

Add flour mixture to the wet ingredients and stir well.

Test a small amount of dough to check that it’s light enough.  If it floats it’s good.

Prepare freezer bag by clipping the corner of the bag and inserting the pastry tip.  Spoon dough into the bag.

Boil the noodles 6 – 7 minutes.  They rise to the top as they cook.

Remove noodles with a slotted spoon, drain and serve.

Delicious!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Notes:

• Paprika is the key to a really good flavorful goulash here.  The original recipe called for 2 TBS Hungarian Sweet Paprika but  I combined 1 TBS Smoked Paprika (mmm…if you haven’t tried this one you should) and 1 TBS Sweet Paprika.

• I know I’ve said this before but I’ll say it again, Costco’s brand of roast beef is the brand to buy unless, of course,  you’re canning your own roast beef.  Of the many brands I’ve tried this is the best I know of for quality.  If Sam’s Club has a similar product then I’ve not tried that — let me know what you think if they do and if you’ve tried it.  Also, the original goulash recipe calls for 3 lbs. beef stew meat.  I’ve cut it way back to just a little more than 2 lbs. because I can’t afford to store more than that for this meal.

• I have this listed as a Sun Oven recipe because if I had to I could make it using my Sun Oven.  It would take much longer (we’re talking 2 – 3 hours just to boil the water) but if I was out of fuel and without electricity it could be done.  I’d transfer the goulash into two bread pans to simmer.  After that I’d boil the water and cook the noodles.  (It’s becoming apparent that I think I’d use a second sun oven!)

• As a 3 month meal I pretty much use the same ingredients all except for the onions  and frozen roast beef. I sautee the onions in a little bit of oil and then brown the meat — everything else is the same.  As far as the Spaetzle goes, this recipe is such an easy one to use my egg powder and dry milk in that it’s not worth my time (or my freezer space) to store eggs or milk in the freezer.  I do store eggs in the freezer (I’ll post showing how to do that one of these days) but it’s not worth it for this.

• In case you’re interested, here is the original Hungarian Goulash recipe from Allrecipes that I built on here.  Besides adding in the smoked paprika, I decreased the amount of salt it called for and liked it better adding beef broth in place of water.

• The pastry tip I use is a #12.  After I posted this recipe I called up my sister (who teaches classes as a pastry chef) and asked her what the #12 meant.  Apparently it’s the largest round tip available.  A #10 would be closer to the size of a drinking straw as the recipe requests.  She suggested to me that the best thing to use for piping (to keep from having the bag break) is a gallon sized freezer bag.  Just snip the corner of the bag and fit your pastry tip inside and you’re ready to go.  It works great and  I’m excited because freezer bags are something I keep on hand anyway.

In my book this recipe is used as a:

*Long Term Recipe

*3 month meal

*Sun Oven meal