Goulash

An old Funk family recipe....

provided by Mary Ann Funk, August 1999

1/2 lb bacon....cut in cubes and brown
4 onions (large) or 6 (small)..chop..add to bacon and brown
3 lbs veal and
3 lbs beef

(click to enlarge)

Cut veal and beef in small pieces (definitely smaller than you would for stew, maybe 1/2 " squares. Add these to onion and bacon and brown.

Then add:

tomatoes (cut up), with juice (one 14.5 oz can)
corn corn, with juice (one 14.5 oz can)
mushrooms, 2 small (7 oz) or 1 large can

Cook for about 1/2 hr (until meat is tender). Drain off liquid from goulash. Set aside.

Melt 1/2 cup butter in pan.
Add 1/2 cup flour, mix well but don't burn.
Then add liquid gradually while stirring and cook as cream sauce.

Put sauce back on goulash and cook 1/2 hour. BE CAREFUL IT DOES NOT SCORCH.

Serves 12.

Hints:

It would help if you could get a slab of bacon or, at least thick cut slices, because you should end up with dices or little rectangles, triangles or even parallelograms.
Prepare to weep profusely when you do the onions. If all you can get is stew-size veal/beef, then you have to cut it up smaller. Schubert's Meat Market used to deliver it cut to size...in the good old days.
Draining the liquid off the goulash. Here you are lifting an 8-10 lb kettle with your left hand while holding the lid with your right....and tipping the kettle besides. Unless, of course, you are wise like your mother and, with a slotted spoon, ladle it into a colander below which you have placed a pan to catch the precious liquid as it drips through. You can then drain off any that might be left in the kettle. SAVE ALL THE LIQUID!
When your goulash is done, you can keep it warm on a burner (don't burn!) or you put it in a casserole in the oven.

I remember this used to be served every Christmas eve, at the big party at Nana's house, among a few other special occasions. We kids had interesting names for it, which I will not repeat here, but I really liked this recipe and always ate my serving, as I recall. --FF