Exploring our eastern European heritage

One of my ‘hobbies’ is compiling my own recipe books. I’m currently working on number six –World Vegan. As well as experimenting with new recipes, I can while away hours fiddling about with Word Styles applying different designs to the draft. It’s where vegan cook meets editor meets nerd. I use the books of clear plastic file pockets to assemble my creations, they’re wipe clean and it’s easy to update the recipes and change the pages.

Since New Year we’d been eating our way through the freezer, and also focusing on warming curries and chillies, so this week I decided that it was high time we tried something new. Still east, but a little closer to home, I decided to explore Mr Orange’s eastern European roots starting with a Hungarian Goulash. Bearing the status of the national dish of Hungary, Goulash dates back to the ninth century. Originally this was peasant food. Like many rural dishes it was simply a stew made from locally available ingredients. The word Goulash comes from the Hungarian gulya meaning herd of cattle, so it’s easy to guess where the meat content came from. Although nowadays goulash is associated with paprika, this was not added to the traditional recipe until the sixteenth century when pimento peppers arrived in Europe from South America. They were introduced into Hungary by the Ottomans and quickly became a national obsession. I tend to think of Hungary as a cold country, but in fact there is a record of paprika peppers growing in Buda (now Budapest) as early as 1529.

Traditional goulash is basically a soup, but given Mr Orange’s aversion to soups I was going to have to make something thicker, more akin to a casserole. Wikipedia lists eight different versions of Hungarian goulash, the three most popular being the basic Goulash soup version, Paprikas Krumpli, a potato and pork stew made with onion, peppers and spicy sausage, and Pörklöt, a meat stew often served with noodles, rice or potatoes. My version is probably closest to the Krumpli. Goulash is very easy to veganise. You can either substitute the meat content with mushrooms, a variation I used in my campervan cookbook recipe, or use of the some faux meat sausages that are starting to appear in the supermarkets, even here in rural France.

Although I try to cook from scratch as much as possible I do use some pre-prepared meat substitutes such as veggie hache (faux mince) and soya sausages. I’ve never really had much success in getting homemade vegan sausages to stick together. I’d spotted some vegan Knacki on offer in our local Intermarche – a triumph for the local veggie community. Admittedly they did look a bit like plasticky German currywurst, but the ingredients list wasn’t too scary and the taste was great. And so easy to prepare, just a few minutes in the microwave or drop in boiling water, so great for chopping up and adding to a stew. I checked out a few different vegan versions of goulash, some I thought were a bit heavy on the paprika, others a bit stingy on the garlic, so my concoction takes the middle ground. And I was asked to cook it two nights running, so it must have been a success.

Served with a radish and gherkin salad, which looks a bit more colourful than the goulash and mustard mash.

Hungarian goulash

3 Knacki vegan smoked soy sausages
1/3 red onion chopped
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 cup chopped mixed peppers (I used frozen)
1 cup diced carrots
1 tin of chopped tomatoes
200 ml red wine (fill half the tomato tin)
1 tbsp tomato puree
1 tbsp Hungarian paprika
½ tsp dried oregano
1 tbsp soya cream

In a large casserole, heat a tbsp. or so of vegetable oil and sauté onion, garlic and peppers until soft. Add the paprika and oregano, mix well and cook for another minute or two. Add the carrot, tomatoes, wine and sausages, mix well. Simmer for 30 to 45 minutes until carrots are cooked. Add tomato puree and soya cream. Check flavour and add salt and/or black pepper as required. Serve with mustard mash potatoes, rice or German noodles (spätzle).