Pork goulash with vegetables

I’d had goulash on the brain for a while. I actually wanted to make it yesterday, but a bad case of Saturday laziness put paid to both cleaning the flat and cooking. There was entertainment instead. I went to see Smarzowski’s new film, The Mighty Angel. Give it a miss. I love Smarzowski’s films, but this one is so monotonous I really don’t think it’s worth it. Granted, it’s probably meant to be a gruelling study of alcoholism, true to the book it’s based on, but it belongs more in an alcohol treatment ward than a cinema. Especially on a Saturday night. Boring.

Luckily there was a FIFA tournament after the film, so good cheer was restored. Food-wise, by the way, that was probably my worst day of 2014. Breakfast was the only thing I made myself (a slice of bread with soft cheese and honey, hardly inspired). Then it was fast food: a burger from McDonald’s, half a baguette at Subway and pizza during the tournament. I’m dreading the scales tomorrow (especially with today’s goulash on top).

Still, yesterday I decided that since this goulash wouldn’t leave me alone, I’d have to make it today. I actually started on Saturday, buying the meat and marinating it. I chose a fairly lean piece of pork leg. Today I got down to it when I came back from ice skating. I stopped off at the shop for beer on the way home.

I’m not much of a beer drinker, and I prefer making goulash with red wine. But with the big game between Chelsea and Man United on today, I decided to cook the goulash with beer and have a taste of the beer myself with dinner and the match. I chose a beer from Racibórz, because it’s the only one I’ve really liked lately. The Mocne variety also has a pleasant sweetness that went perfectly with the other ingredients.

Ingredients that made it into the pot because they happened to be in my fridge. It wasn’t just a craving that had me thinking about goulash. I also had quite a few vegetables that probably wouldn’t have stayed edible for many more days.

So I started the goulash, and once everything was in the pot and all there was to do was wait (goulash is simple, but it takes time, the meat has to get tender), something dreadful happened. I haven’t mentioned yet that for me goulash has to come with groats. I had no groats.

Well, I did, but they were out of date. Six months out of date. Looking for them, I realised that as far as rice goes (jasmine rice especially), I’m stocked up for a nuclear war. Sometimes hoarding is a bad thing. I had to throw out a whole unopened packet of groats, half a year past its date. Poor show. The worst of it, though, was having to get up and trek back to the shop (at half-time). I bought both barley and buckwheat groats, but chose the barley for this dish. The goulash comes out tasty, slightly sweet (from the beer) and a little fiery (from the pepper and hot paprika). That’s how I like it. I recommend it. It tasted exceptionally good, probably also because Chelsea won 3:1 🙂

BTW, today I read this piece (I won’t call it an article) about a 15-year-old who passes judgement on various Polish food personalities with quite some confidence. Honestly, all I’ll say is that I foresee a rather more illustrious career in politics for him than in cooking. Reading the piece, incidentally, I’m glad I called this site “Primitive Kitchen”, although by his criteria I should probably swap “kitchen” for “cowshed”. Yuck.

At a glance: 

Prep time: 150 minutes

Marinating time: almost a day (you can skip it, or marinate for an hour or two)

Serves: 2–3

Calories: this’ll give you a belly, especially washed down with beer (and beer is the best thing to drink with goulash)

Ingredients for a tasty goulash:

• 400 grams of pork leg (trimmed weight. I bought nearly half a kilo, but quite a bit came off when I trimmed it)
• about 400 ml of Raciborskie Mocne beer (another beer will do, but choose a pale one with a hint of sweetness, like Raciborskie Mocne)
• 3 medium carrots
• half a fresh red pepper
• 1 red onion
• 4 large spring onions
• a 5 cm piece of leek (white part)
• 5 tablespoons of 12% fat cream (18% is fine too)
• dill
• a boil-in-the-bag sachet of barley groats
• salt
• ground black pepper
• dried rosemary
• dried hot red paprika
• 3 cloves of garlic
• olive oil
• 2 tablespoons of light soy sauce (optional, I used it in the marinade)

Method (easy, it’s basically chopping, frying and simmering):

Making goulash is remarkably easy. I marinated the meat the day before, but you don’t have to, although I do think it’s worth it even if it’s only for an hour or two.

I started by washing the meat and carefully trimming away any bits I didn’t want. I cut it into 2–3 centimetre cubes and put it in a plastic food container. I added a little salt, three chopped garlic cloves, two tablespoons of light soy sauce, a little pepper, hot paprika, a tablespoon of olive oil and a tablespoon of dried rosemary. I mixed everything thoroughly, put the lid on and left it in the fridge.

Today I heated olive oil in a medium-sized pot and started frying the meat. I fried it for a good ten to fifteen minutes, stirring quite often. Once all the liquid from the meat had evaporated, I poured in half a cup of beer. While the meat simmered in the beer I chopped all the vegetables (onion and spring onions fairly roughly, likewise the red pepper, carrots in small dice and leek in small pieces). Into the bubbling pot they went in this order: onions and leek first (and a good stir), then carrots (another stir) and finally red pepper (another stir).

Once all the beer had evaporated from the meat and vegetables, I added another cup of beer and a little water. I mixed everything thoroughly and simmered it over a low “flame” (4 on my scale of 1–10) for about another hour and a half. Then I cooked the groats (I chose barley, but buckwheat would be good too) and finely chopped the dill.

Next I added the cream to the simmering goulash (it shouldn’t be too thick, so I poured in a bit more beer. I first added a little of the cooking “water” to the cream in a glass, stirred it and only then poured the cream into the pot). I stirred well and turned down the “flame” (to 3 on a scale of 1–10). I cooked it for a few more minutes until the sauce was reasonably thick. Since this is a two-day meal for me, I added the cooked barley to the goulash and let it simmer a little longer. And there you have it. I served it with a fairly generous sprinkling of dill. Enjoy!