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Hungarian Goulash

A hearty stew of steak, onions, peppers, potatoes, carrots, tomatoes, and spices simmered in water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and allspice 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

  1. Brown the chopped onions in 2 tablespoons of lard in a frying pan.

  2. Add a little flour to thicken the mixture.

  3. Stir in the round steak pieces and sear the meat.

  4. Add the diced potatoes, carrots, chopped tomatoes, bay leaf, cloves, allspice, and chopped peppers.

  5. Pour in 1 quart of water and cook until all ingredients are tender.

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. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  3. Potato + carrottop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,107 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  4. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Round steak
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender through long simmering in liquid.
Onions
Browned in lard to build a sweet, savory base for the stew.
Potatoes
Soften during simmering and thicken the stew slightly as their starch releases.
Tomatoes
Add acidity and body, giving the broth its tangy depth.
Carrots
Add natural sweetness and soften into the stew as it cooks.
Flour (in the method)
Thickens the mixture so the broth clings to the meat and vegetables.

The step that matters

Searing the round steak. Browning the meat creates deep, savory flavors through the Maillard reaction. Crowding the pan or stirring too early steams the meat instead, leaving it grey and less flavorful.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, potato, tomato, carrot, clove, allspice):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, potato, tomato, carrot, clove, allspice. 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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