( and in Hungarian), is a Hungarian

soup Soup is a primarily liquid food, generally served warm or hot – though it is sometimes served chilled – made by cooking or otherwise combining meat or vegetables with Stock (food), stock, milk, or water. According to ''The Oxford Compan ...

, made of

beef Beef is the culinary name for meat from cattle (''Bos taurus''). Beef can be prepared in various ways; Cut of beef, cuts are often used for steak, which can be cooked to varying degrees of doneness, while trimmings are often Ground beef, grou ...

vegetable Vegetables are edible parts of plants that are consumed by humans or other animals as food. This original meaning is still commonly used, and is applied to plants collectively to refer to all edible plant matter, including edible flower, flo ...

s, ground

paprika Paprika is a spice made from dried and ground red peppers, traditionally ''capsicum annuum''. It can have varying levels of Pungency, heat, but the peppers used for hot paprika tend to be milder and have thinner flesh than those used to produce ...

and other

spice In the culinary arts, a spice is any seed, fruit, root, Bark (botany), bark, or other plant substance in a form primarily used for flavoring or coloring food. Spices are distinguished from herbs, which are the leaves, flowers, or stems of pl ...

s. It originates from a dish cooked by the cattlemen ( , ), who tended their herds in the

Great Hungarian Plain The Great Hungarian Plain (also known as Alföld or Great Alföld, or ) is a plain occupying the majority of the modern territory of Hungary. It is the largest part of the wider Pannonian Plain (however, the Great Hungarian Plain was not par ...

(known as the or in Hungarian). These Hungarian cowboys often camped out with their cattle days away from populated areas, so they had to make their food from ingredients they could carry with themselves, and this food had to be cooked in the one available portable cauldron (called ) over an open fire. The word is a loanword from Ottoman Turkish (spelled in modern Turkish), meaning a cauldron made of copper; from the word "copper" in Old Turkish language (spelled in modern Turkish). The original dish called was a stew, not a soup. Traditional Hungarian is often still cooked outdoors over an open fire in a cauldron, giving the appearance of a

barbecue Barbecue or barbeque (often shortened to BBQ worldwide; barbie or barby in Australia and New Zealand) is a term used with significant regional and national variations to describe various cooking methods that employ live fire and smoke to coo ...

. Later on when the dish left the peasant cuisines and became popular even in the town, it started to be cooked more like a soup. Nowadays the dish served in the majority of Hungarian restaurants is a soup, but the locals cook the dish called as a stew and like a soup. They should differ only in the amount of water used in preparation. The official vocational cookbook for Hungarian restaurant trainees still contains recipes for both and lists the core ingredients as finely diced onions, peppers, tomatoes, meat, garlic, salt, caraway seeds, potatoes and homemade noodles called . Goulash Soup4 - 2024-02-06 19

There are different variations of the recipe. The meat is beef, but often mixed meats are used (e.g. beef, pork and mutton or lamb). Tomatoes, carrots and fresh peppers (often hot chilies) are also added. Onions, paprika and caraway seeds provide its flavour. Cubed potatoes or pasta squares are typically added to this spicy soup. This dish is not to be confused with other dishes, like or .

References

See also