székelygulyás

i just love all the influences of various ethnicities in austrian cuisine! my country used to be a multiethnic monarchy under habsburg rule until 1918, i believe you all know that from history class (or, maybe not). it expanded eastwards starting out from the teeny tiny austria i live in today and included parts of the czech republic, slovakia, poland, hungary, italy, slovenia, croatia, serbia, romania and the ukraine.

up to the present day we have so many diverse dishes, so many flavours and textures and so many regional specialities still influenced by eastern europe and the former duchies, counties and kingdoms of the austrian empire. history around the globe teaches us that it's not exactly easy to manage a large empire with diverse ethnicities and austria inarguably has had a large share of a very dark moment in history.

still, i grew up to not only tolerate but embrace diversity in beliefs, religions, traditions and above all food! i value that highly.

when i was little it never really occured to me that i was so incredibly influenced by eastern european cuisine. i always believed that the dishes i grew up with where typically austrian and only found out about their history when i grew up to be a food loving teenager. bohemian pastry, mediterranean and balkan meat dishes, and not to forget the comforting eastern european stews are all a staple in my diet.

i just adore topfengolatschen (bohemian) with a nice cup of coffee in the afternoon.

minced meat ćevapčići (balkan) where my favorite fast food snack as a child and still are our traditional family christmas dish today. forget the turkey, my family has eaten ćevapčići for at least 20 years on christmas eve. i often get a "what?!? where is the roast pork?!?" when i describe our luscious feast with ćevapčići and a wide range of side dishes, sauces and various breads.

when i think of comfort food from my childhood - cheap, easy, quick, filling and delicious - i always think of the hungarian goulash. it still is the most comforting food i could ever eat.


this will also be my contribution to the brandnew foodblog event waiter, there's something in my ... stew, because goulash really has always been comfort food for me. my mama makes like a gazillion versions of this hungarian speciality and szegedin goulash (or as we call it: szegediner gulasch) has always been my favorite. when we have regular goulash i usually push the meat aside and drown white bread in the sauce, but when szegedin goulash is on the menu is finish off the whole plate, i request seconds (and often more) and i always feel the urge to lick the plate when i'm done eating ... oh yes, and then my pants pop :) ... when i've eaten too much i can always sip a little slivovitz (eastern european) ... indeed, sweet relief!

400 g diced goulash meat (pork)
500 g sauerkraut
vegetable oil
1 onion
3 tsp paprika powder (you can take as much as you like, even up to 2 tsp)
1 clove of garlic
about 150 ml water
salt
bay leaf
2 tbsp flour
150 ml milk

1. in a pot, gently fry diced onion and diced garlic in a little vegetable oil
   
2. add pork and continue to cook until the meat is turning brown
3. add the sauerkraut. some people like to drain or even rinse it, but i prefer putting it into the pot with all the juicy liquid. i also like to rinse the package with a little water (about 150 ml), so there's enough liquid in the goulash later
   
4. bring to a boil
5. now add the paprika and the bay leaf
6. reduce heat, cover and let simmer for 30 minutes
7. mix flour and milk and add to the goulash to thicken it
8. bring to a boil again
   
9. serve with plain bread or cooked potatoes
   

i have never made this goulash myself, so danke für das rezept, mama :)

my siblings and i gave my parents "the internet" and a laptop for christmas and my mother is slowly losing her fear of technology. she can even skype me now, she can check and send emails and she is also beginning to discover those mysterious things called "weblogs" ...

technorati tags: wtsim, waiter theres something

so i kick back with my goulash and listen to the strong wind outside ... a storm warning has been issued yesterday for central europe, and i am kind of worried about that. though i have always been fascinated by thunder and lightning i have never witnessed something like that before. it's really a very unusual weather situation and the storm is expected to hit the northern part of the alps (where i live) in two to three hours with 150 km/h. i honestly don't know if i should be afraid or excited.


i am just watching the news where they have live coverage of various locations in austria preparing for the storm - everyone is on red alert. that really is a weird situation right now ... i better prepare a few candles and matches, i don't want to be surprised by a power blackout ...

update

it is 23:30 now and various things, odds and ends are tumbling around on my neighbours terrace ... why didn't he put that stuff in the shed? he'll probably find his patio furniture and his plants in the danube tomorrow, a few kilometers downstream ...

now the light starts quivering, that definitely feels weird. thank good i am in a solidly built house and i don't have to be afraid that the roof gets blown off ... but the loud wind and the noise from all the stuff that gets blown away outside is definitely giving me the creeps!

another update

so how did you other europeans survive this stormy night? the hurricane was gone when i woke up and though there still are rather strong winds, neither myself nor anybody i know was harmed during the night. my sister could not get to work in time this morning and there still is a blackout in the remote village where my grandfather lives, but my mama is taking care of him and bringing coffee and warm food until the broken wires are repaired.

apparently upper austria was hit very hard (137 km/h in linz-hörsching) and with lower austria and salzburg the most damage was done along the northern side of the alps. we had a peak of 216 km/h in the alpine upland in salzburg. that sounds really scary!

i will skip university today and i'll take a walk around my neighbourhood later to see if anything is heavily damaged. but it looks totally quiet outside right now, there might be some damage on the current building site near the danube (they are errecting a protective wall to prevent flooding of my neighbourhood). there are no warnings about flooding in linz right now, but its raining heavily and we might have to expect something over the next few days ...

pirogi, pierogi, perogi, perogy, piroghi, piroshki, pirozhki, pyragai, piroghi, pirogi, pyrohy, пирог and пирожок

while the classic pierogi are of eastern european origin these semi-circular dumplings are no strangers to the regional cuisine here in the bohemian forest in upper austria. there are some well known regional varieties in austria like the schlutzkrapfen in tirol or the kasnudeln in carinthia. in germany, or more specific in swabia, they have the famous maultaschen. that's what we call them too. pierogi are really big north america where immigrants added them to the cuisine. i did not know that either.

i don't make them that often and i never made them totally from scratch, but i mostly make them savory and stuff them with minced meat or cabbage. i also like to drown the pierogis in tomato sauce ... mmmmmmh ...

the other day i came across another interesting variation of the pierogi, the karjalanpiirakka from finland and i decided to give it a try. so here we go!

(makes 6 pierogi)

75 ml water
50 g rice (originally puuroriisi or grötris, i used risotto rice)
salt
150 ml milk

50 ml cold water
1/2 tsp salt
50 g flour (wheat)
25 g flour (rye)
12 g melted butter

butter
water

1/2 egg
25 g butter

1. boil the rice in water and a dash of salt until all the water has been absorbed
2. add milk and cook for another 30 minutes on low heat
3. mix water, salt, flour and butter until well blended
4. roll out the dough into circles on a lightly floured surface. make sure it is thin enough
5. place a spoon full of the rice on each circle and fold the edges up
6. bake 5-10 minutes at 275-300°c
7. melt a knob of butter in some water and brush the freshly baked perogies with the mixture
8. serve warm with an egg-butter mixture (dice one hard boiled egg and mix with butter)

actually, i have no idea how the karjalanpiirakka are supposed to taste and i can only imagine how they should look like ... well, my version seems to be totally bent out of shape *ggg*. making a dish you don't even know can be some sort of a blind flight, but this recipe just sounded too cool not to try. it tastes pretty good and bearing the fact in mind that i really have no idea about the real taste of this dish, i think i did a good job with this version of the pierogi.


ps: i have seen this picto broswer in a few blogs lately. i thought i'll try it too. if you want to know more just click here.

is it goulash?

there are two methods of cooking i frequently use when i am out of ideas: frying and stewing.

i once even had a little stewing-phase when i cooked nothing but stews for a few weeks. that phase is fortunately over but even today if i can not come up with a decent recipe or i can't decide what i am craving for dinner i'll stew something up.

i especially like all kinds of goulash, my favorite of all time being the szegedin goulash with pork and sauerkraut (my mama makes the best szegedin goulash, by the way!). every food that only resembles goulash and has lots of paprika powder in it is very comforting for me! we had it pretty often when i grew up and i could not get enough of the gazillion variations my mama is able to create.

i even invented some of my own. stews that taste a lot like goulash but use vegetables instead of meat. though i am not a vegetarian i hardly ever crave meat and i could easily live without it. actually, i often do live without meat for weeks without even noticing! when i was a child i used to push the goulash meat to the side of the plate and i only ate the paprika-sauce with lots and lots and lots of white bread. i still love to dunk a slice of bread in the sauce and i'd probably lick off the plate if you guys wheren't watching ...

i actually wanted to make hummus today and soaked some chickpeas overnight, but when i came home from work (very wet and very cold!) i was suddenly craving something else ... something goulashy ... and so i quickly added lots of paprika powder to a plain and simple chickpeas and tomato stew

1 onion
1 clove of garlic
1 large hand full of dried chickpeas
(how much could that be in gramms? i have no idea!)
3 tomatos
olive oil
salt
1 tsp freshly ground pepper
2 tbsp of paprika powder

1. soak dried chickpeas in water overnight and cook them in water until they are soft enough. you can also use canned chickpeas.
2. in a pot, fry onion and garlic in plenty of olive oil
3. add the spices and keep stirring
   
4. dice and add tomatoes
5. let simmer over medium heat for 15 minutes
6. add chickpeas
7. cover the pot and continue to simmer for about 30 minutes

the rich thickness of a gulash usually comes from the meat, so i thought i'd throw in some tomatos to give the dish some hearty flavour. eat it with bread! i think that could be a side dish as well but for a single gal like me it's more of a quick fix - well, not so quick after all, stewing still takes some time!