Transylvanian Goulash

Lately in Romania, the entrepreneurial spirit has woken up to the realisation that food can be an incredible incentive to join a festival or event, especially since they come with free samples.

Ștefan Baciu, 01.02.2015, 13:50

Lately in Romania, the entrepreneurial spirit has woken up to the realisation that food can be an incredible incentive to join a festival or event, especially since they come with free samples.

A recent festival dedicated to pork preparations brought together in the Transylvanian city of Oradea both Romanian and Hungarian cooks and food aficionados. This was the cue for this week’s recipe, which is one of the few Eastern European dishes that are easily recognised by many Westerners, we are talking about goulash. As a typical Hungarian dish, it is very popular in Transylvania, which was part of Hungary for hundreds of years and still has a sizable Hungarian population.

Transylvanian goulash is a pork dish, using fattier pork cuts, as the cuisine in that entire area tends to be rather heavy. You obviously may opt to use lean meat, but bear in mind that it loses flavour. You also need onion, carrot, celery root, potatoes, hot pepper, garlic, thyme, dill, black pepper and salt. Fry the sliced onion in oil, then add the cubed meat. After a few minutes add the chopped carrot and celery root, along with a few crushed garlic cloves. Cook for a few minutes, then cover with water and leave to simmer, under cover. When the meat is nearly ready, add the cubed potatoes and leave to cook.

When everything is almost ready, add finely chopped dill, thyme, crushed black pepper, along with the optional hot pepper, depending on your tolerance. Add salt to taste. Serve hot with pickles of your choice. It goes well with a red wine, preferably drier. Enjoy!