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Hungarian Goulash

A hearty stew of beef, carrots, onions, and potatoes simmered with paprika, claret, and tomato sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Hungarian Goulash

Ingredients

Directions

Brown the beef

  1. In a saucepan, brown the beef in melted lard with salt and paprika.

  2. Add the sliced carrot and onions; stir and cook for several minutes.

  3. Stir in flour, then add hot water, claret, and tomato sauce.

Simmer and serve

  1. Place allspice, cloves, bay leaf, and thyme in a muslin bag and add to the pan.

  2. Add the diced potatoes, cover, and cook slowly for 30 minutes.

  3. Add minced garlic and chopped parsley, cover, and cook for another 20 minutes.

  4. Remove the spice bag, pour into a hot dish, and serve.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Carrot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Carrot + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,021 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Carrot + tomatotop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,606 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Beef rump
Provides the meat that becomes tender during slow cooking in the sauce.
Paprika
Gives the goulash its characteristic red colour and sweet, earthy flavour.
Onions
Add sweetness and body to the sauce as they soften and brown.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid into a richer sauce.
Potatoes
Absorb liquid and soften, adding starch that thickens the stew slightly.
Claret
Adds acidity and depth to the sauce as it simmers.

The step that matters

Browning the beef in lard with paprika. Searing the meat builds deep, savoury flavour through the Maillard reaction. Paprika added to hot fat can scorch and turn bitter, so the heat should be moderate and the paprika kept moving.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, carrot, flour, tomato, sauce, allspice, clove):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Parsnipfits better
  3. Turnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, carrot, flour, tomato, sauce, allspice, clove. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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