Goulash (Felicity Cloake's "Perfect" Stovetop Version)

Tempo

Picante

Dificuldade

Médio

Rende

4porções

Ingredientes

600g shin of beef (músculo), cut into large chunks *(or chuck — acém — if shin unavailable, but shin is dramatically better here)*

3 tbsp

sweet Hungarian paprika *(or middle-path: 3 tbsp best-quality paprika doce you can find — Spanish or Hungarian if available; Mundo Verde sells decent ones; the dish lives or dies by this)*

1 tbsp

plain flour

1 tsp

salt

1 tsp

caraway seeds

2 tbsp

lard (banha de porco) *(or middle-path: 1 tbsp lard + 1 tbsp neutral oil; or 2 tbsp neutral oil with a pinch more salt — lard is traditional and gives best flavor)*

onions, thinly sliced

green pepper (pimentão verde), cut into rounds

Juice of 1 lemon

Water (just to cover)

To finish (optional but signature)

150ml sour cream (creme azedo)

Chives (cebolinha), snipped, for garnish

To serve

Crushed boiled potatoes (boil whole, drain, smash with butter and salt) OR egg noodles (talharim wide noodles)

Modo de preparo

01**Heat oven to 140°C / gas mark 1.** (Yes, this is a stovetop dish that finishes in the oven — Cloake's method. If you don't want to use the oven, see "Stovetop-only variant" below.)
02**Coat the beef.** Mix paprika + flour + salt + caraway seeds in a bowl. Add the chunks of beef and toss to coat thoroughly. Each piece should be deeply red.
03**Brown the beef HARD.** Melt the lard in a heavy-based casserole dish (Le Creuset or similar) over **medium-high heat**. Brown the beef in batches — **be very careful not to crowd the pan** (paprika burns fast; crowding traps moisture). Each batch should turn deep golden-crusted before flipping. Remove pieces to a plate as they're done. About 3-4 min per batch, ~3 batches.
04**Sweat onions and pepper.** Scrape the bottom of the pan to lift the brown fond. Add the sliced onions and green pepper, with a little more lard if needed. Cook 8-10 minutes until **soft and starting to brown**. Pick out the peppers and set aside (they go back in later).
05**Add the remaining flour-spice dust** that fell off the beef into the onions. Stir 2 minutes — toasts the paprika further.
06**Return beef.** Tip in the browned beef and any resting juices. Add water just to cover (about 600ml). Scrape the bottom hard.
07**Oven braise.** Cover the casserole, transfer to the oven. **2.5 hours at 140°C.** Don't peek too often.
08**Add peppers and lemon.** Stir in the reserved peppers and the lemon juice. Cook another **30 minutes** uncovered (oven still on) to reduce slightly. Meat should be very tender; sauce should be glossy and thick.
09**Plate.** Mounded over crushed potatoes or buttered egg noodles. **Dollop sour cream** on top of each portion (don't stir it in — let each diner combine). Snip chives over.

Goulash — Cloake's Stovetop "Perfect" Version

Felicity Cloake's distillation of the goulash tradition into a stew — paprika-forward, no tomato (deliberately), no wine (deliberately), no garlic. The key insight: shin of beef gives the gelatinous melt that chuck can't match. Slow simmer, finished with sour cream that turns the dish from technically pörkölt into paprikás.

This is the stovetop version. For the pressure-cooker variation, see Pressure Cooker/acem_hungarian-goulash.md — more substantial, more vegetables, faster.

Heat: 0/5. No chile. Distinctive paprika-only character.

Stovetop-only variant (no oven)

If you'd rather not use the oven:

After step 6, reduce heat to lowest possible (use a heat diffuser if you have one)
Cover, simmer 2.5-3 hours, stirring every 30 minutes to prevent sticking
Add peppers + lemon at the end as above, simmer 20-30 min uncovered

PCC20 pressure variation

For pressure cooker version of the same recipe:

Steps 1-6 in the cooker on P5 (Refogar)
Then P14 (Carne), 45 minutes high pressure, natural release
Add peppers + lemon, sauté mode 10 min uncovered
Result is similar but faster; some texture difference

(Or just use our existing more-elaborate Pressure Cooker/acem_hungarian-goulash.md for the pressure cooker take — different recipe, also excellent.)

Tame it

No chile heat to tame. The paprika is sweet, not hot.

Sub: bottled chiles only

Doesn't apply — there's no chile in this dish.

Serving

Crushed boiled potatoes are the canonical Cloake finish. Buttered egg noodles or fresh tagliatelle also work. A glass of crisp white (Riesling) or a soft Hungarian red (Egri Bikavér / Bull's Blood). Eat with bread.

Notes

Shin of beef is non-negotiable for this version. Chuck (acém) is what Hungarian-stew recipes typically call for, but Cloake's testing concluded shin gives a far better result — gelatinous, falling-apart tender. Modern chuck is often too lean. If you can get músculo, use it.
Paprika quality. Open the jar; you should smell sweet, fruity, almost-tomato. If it smells like sawdust, replace it. Hungarian "édesnemes" (sweet noble) is the best; otherwise a good Spanish or Portuguese pimentón doce. Cheap supermarket paprika is dust.
Don't crowd when browning. Paprika-coated meat goes from golden to burnt in seconds if crowded. Three small batches beats two crowded ones.
No tomato, no wine, no garlic — by design. Cloake's case: paprika should be the dominant flavor; tomato, wine, and garlic compete with it. Other goulash recipes add these; Cloake (and George Lang) deliberately leave them out. Try it the lean way at least once before deciding.
Sour cream optional. Without it, this is technically pörkölt; with it, paprikás. Both are right. Cloake recommends WITH; most Hungarians serve sour cream as a side.
Make ahead. Day 2 is better. Reheat gently — boiling sour cream will split.
Freezes 3 months. Freeze without sour cream; add fresh on reheat.
Why this is in Stovetop and not Pressure Cooker: the slow oven braise (140°C for 3 hours) is the Cloake method's whole point — gentle heat, gradual breakdown of the shin's connective tissue, paprika that has time to bloom into the sauce. Pressure cooker shortcuts give a different (also good) result. We have both versions in the cookbook now.