Venison Goulash

Not a Hungarian dish! A Slovakian version, cooked over open fire, more of a soup, but with a bit of a twist. Comfort food for any season.

Great

% Daily Values based on a 2,000 calorie diet

Step 1

Do your prep first. I start the day before by cutting the meat into about 1 inch cubes. Mix all the meat with a fair bit of salt in a bowl and leave in the fridge over night. As for the prep: dice around 1kg of onion (6-7 medium sized onions) into smallest possible pieces. With that you can also dice at least 0.5 kg of red peppers. Instead of regular bell peppers I like to use the long ones (capia) as they are a bit sweeter and have deeper flavor. They are not necessary! I just like to add them for a bit of texture and color. Very important rule for this dish: the ratio is the same amount of meat, onion and potato. For 1kg of meat use 1kg of onion and 1kg of potato. It's always 1:1:1.

Step 2

Still prep phase: if you're adding garlic (which is also optional) I recommend to cut it in half and remove the middle part. This is usually better to do if you are using either raw garlic or are cooking it just slightly but to me this is just common practice and I just always do it.

Step 3

Start by searing the meat in animal fat. Beef tallow works well, I've used pork and goose fat as that's what I had in the fridge. Take out the meat, lower the heat, deglaze the bottom of the pot with a splash of dark beer and add the diced onion. If you want to imitate the flavor of the fire than you can fry the onion quickly over high heat. I still do recommend to do it very slowly over a long period of time. The flavour is just so much better and deeper. Fry it until brown on a very low heat for at least an hour. It really does make a difference in the final product. Salt your onion while frying, this helps it break down and adds depth to the dish, salt as you go, don't leave it to your last step.

Step 4

Once your onion smells through the whole house and is nice and brown (but not burned!) you can add the garlic, fry it with the onion for about a minute or two and finally you can add your diced paprika. Here, if you're still on the lowest heat you can easily keep frying everything together for another 5 to 10 minutes to make sure it's all nice and soft.

Step 5

Now you have your base done. Switch off the heat completely and add the paprika powder. I like to add half mild regular paprika powder and half smoked paprika powder. It's not necessary, I just prefer a bit of that smoky flavor. Make sure you don't burn the paprika. The powder burns fast and turns bitter so do it quickly. Stir the powder with the base for about a minute, make sure everything is coated in paprika. There is another optional step, if you want a bit more depth, you can add a spoon of tomato paste now.

Step 6

Finally you can add all the seared meat and stir everything properly. Now you can add a bit more salt and black pepper. Right after that you can add your dark beer and crank up the heat. Let it boil for at least 5 minutes to cook off the alcohol from the beer. (you can use red wine instead of dark beer, it's a different version of the same dish, I do this sometimes if I'm craving a bit of variety. This dish will still work very well with red wine, make sure to use a more robust one)

Step 7

Once the beer reduces, you can now add your beef broth. The more you have the better. I've made this dish into a 5 litre pot and only had about 1,5 litre of beef broth so I topped it up with just water. You can use half beef broth and half chicken broth. If I don't forget, instead of water I will let my dried mushrooms sit in hot water for 15 minutes to create a sort of quick mushroom stock. It adds just a bit of depth and is always better than just plain water. If you are adding dried mushrooms (optional) this is the time to do it.

Step 8

Let it cook. There are a couple of ways to do this. Your first option is to cook it uncovered, on a very slow simmer (just an ocassional bubble or two) and do that for a minimum of 5-7 hours. This literally depends on the size of the meat cubes you are using. Bigger pieces of meat = longer cooking. I like to cover my pot (this creates a bit of pressure) and cook it for about 3-4 hours. If you're covering the pot make sure to stir it regularly so it doesn't burn.

Step 9

Finishing: once your meat is nice and soft, you can add the potatoes cut in cubes and cook it for another 30 min until the potato is soft. Here, if you want it to be thicker, grate one or two potatoes into total mush and add it with the rest of the potatoes. The starch in the potatoes will thicken the soup almost instantly so you can keep added the potato mush until you have your desired consistency. Once everything is done and cooked, switch it off, get a handful of dried majoram and add it into the soup. I recommend crushing it with your hands so that it breaks into much smaller particles and releases more aroma. And that's it, you're done! Serve with bread.