Week 2 Day 1: Pörkölt beef even better than mama!

This week I decided I needed to improve my cooking skills, with a focus on family recipes that I've loved for years.

Here I am, getting sexy in my chef’s apron.



Tl;dr version: Pörkölt(roasted) beef & mashed potatoes turned out awesome, I learnt quite a bit, and the two women I live with drove me crazy.

Even though I only asked for one of them to help, it turned out both my mom and grandma had nothing better to do on Wednesday morning than harass me as I learnt how to cook a chunk of beef "Pörkölt" Hungarian-style, which is a kind of roasted beef using paprika for flavor.

Ingredients used for the braised beef:
- ½ kg of beef (the tastier part of the cow, the better, I can’t remember what kind I had bought)
- 2 small onions, chopped up just fine (this is the part I hate the most, onions always make me cry)
- 1 tsp. each of your preferred spices (for Hungarian-style, I used red paprika, ground black pepper, and salt in equal amounts, then tasted near the end and added more as appropriate. But 1 tsp of each is a good base to go off of).
- 3 tbsp. Corn oil (there was a big argument between the ladies over whether this is enough, my grandma prefers to speed up heart disease in the family)
- A couple of pinches of flour
- Water

That’s all you need! Here are the directions I followed:

Step the first: Chop up the onions and toss them into the pot to sizzle slowly on low heat
Step the second: Wash then cut up the beef. I sliced fairly thinly which reduces cooking time. Look:



Step the…3: Add your spices to the pot, stir a little, then dump the beef in. Stir some more, add a bit of water (like ¼ of a glass) and cover. Leave it on medium heat for a minute or two so the water is nice and boily, then reduce to low heat so the food doesn’t get burned.
4. Cook for around 2 hours (this would be a good time to work on the mashed potatoes, salad, or whatever side you’re into…in my case I worked on a school assignment), checking every 30 mins or so for tenderness and adding water if needed (and it will most likely be needed). Toward the end, taste to check tenderness and add spices if needed.
5. (Optional) Make the meat saucier: Now that it’s pretty much done, sprinkle a few pinches of flour, add a little more water, and stir. The sauciness is especially good with the starchy side you’re serving the beef with (potatoes, rice, bread, etc.).

I’m not going to go over the making of the mashed potatoes in too much detail, since it’s pretty simple: peel the potatoes, boil ‘em, drain ‘em, mash ‘em, then mix in my secret ingredients: milk, butter OR sour cream, and a tiny bit of paprika. I didn’t use paprika this time since it had gone to the main dish.





Served! Sup Ramy. He liked it and so would you.

Note that this is a pretty easy dish to make, and really it tastes awesome. You can make it your own by using different spices, and different meats, although cooking times will vary depending on what meat you use and how chunky it is. As a general rule, cooking time for beef > pork > lamb > chicken. Might I recommend chicken mixed with Montreal steak spice? One of my favorite combinations.

This weekend I will likely get my grandmother to guide me through preparing some kind of awesome home-made cake recipe.