Category: Main Dishes

Pörkelt: Pork Goulash with Caraway and Lemon

Our family ate a lot of pork when I was a boy. We feasted on hams for Sunday dinners, and breakfast was bacon, eggs and homemade bread at least a couple of times a week. Mom used smoked pork hocks for making soup, and she made pork pot roasts with vegetables, pork chops smothered in gravy and shoulder roasts done slowly in the oven.

She did not, however, introduce her son to pörkelt. That honor belongs to an anonymous cook in the cafeteria of the dormitory where I lived when I was a student for a year in Germany. The dorm fee included dinner, which was served at noon. At that time in Germany, this was the main meal of the day, and the cafeteria cooks did their best to see that students got enough to fill them up.

Most of the meals were pretty good, but I did learn quickly that if a lot of tables were empty, chances were good that boiled liver over noodles was the main course that day. If students on very limited budgets skip a meal they have paid for, you know that something is wrong.

Pörkelt was one of the most popular dishes. A couple of us would go to the serving window and fetch back bowls of the fragrant meat, steaming noodles and lovely red cabbage. Bread and butter were already on the table. Once everyone was served, someone would say “Greif zu!” and we would do as ordered: “Dig in!”

Pörkelt is actually a kind of Hungarian goulash, a meat stew seasoned with paprika and other spices served with noodles or dumplings. It is made with pork rather than beef and is a mild dish with a delightful taste of lemon and caraway.

There are dozens if not hundreds of recipes for pörkelt. I tinkered with several until I got a version that we really liked. It reminds me of the dish I first had in Germany long ago, and we have been enjoying it for many years. Here’s how to make it.

INGREDIENTS:

3 lbs. pork
3 cups chopped onion
2 T oil
2 T butter
1 tsp. caraway
3 tsp. marjoram
1 lemon rind
2 small or 1 large clove garlic
2 T paprika
2 cups chicken broth
1/2 tsp. salt
1 T flour
1/4 cup water

PROCEDURE

Cut the meat into one-inch cubes, discarding the excess fat. Put the oil and butter into a large heavy pot with a tight-fitting lid. Peel and chop the onions into about a half inch dice, put them into the pot and cook them over low heat until they are soft and translucent. Do not brown them.

Crush the caraway seeds in a mortar or with a wooden spoon in a sturdy cup. Peel and mince the garlic. Wash a lemon and use a grater to remove the zest (the bright yellow outer layer of the rind) from it. Stir the caraway, marjoram, garlic, lemon zest, paprika and salt into the onions. Add the meat and the chicken broth. Add water if necessary to cover the meat.

Simmer the goulash for about 3 hours, stirring occasionally. Mix the flour into the quarter cup of water and add it to the goulash to thicken the gravy slightly. Simmer for another five minutes, then taste and correct the seasoning.

Serve your goulash over noodles with a good crusty bread. If you want to add a vegetable, red cabbage is a good choice.

NOTES: Most paprika sold in U. S. supermarkets is the mild or sweet paprika. This is the kind I use for pörkelt. There are hot paprikas, however, that you can get in some food stores if you prefer a spicier dish.

Julia Child’s Cream of Mushroom Soup

I don’t remember how we ended up with two copies of Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking, but it’s good that we did. The first one came as a wedding gift from one of Jerri’s friends at Maine South High School, but the second copy is a mystery. We now think that it was a bonus book from a book club that we chose because we thought it would make a good gift for someone.

Fortunately, we did not follow through with our generous intention. With one copy at home and another at the cabin, we can make “Potage Velouté Aux Champignons” (Cream of Mushroom Soup) at both locations without carrying the book with us.

I have been making this soup for at least twenty years. Though Jerri has tackled a few recipes from Julia’s book, she finds many a bit intimidating: “If I have to turn the page, I don’t make it,” says she. This is not as extreme as her cousin who wrote me one time that “I don’t make anything that has more than five ingredients.” Both women exaggerate, but not always by a lot.

Julia’s recipe for this soup takes a little more than a page, but it explains exactly how to make the finest tasting Cream of Mushroom Soup you will ever find.

I have tried to condense (oops–a horrible word in this context–makes me think of gooey stuff in cans) and clarify the instructions and explain how I make Julia’s Cream of Mushroom Soup. It’s very easy to make. It takes a few more minutes for the simmering than some recipes, but you can finish the soup in an hour and the results justify the extra time..

INGREDIENTS:

1/4 cup minced yellow onion
8 T unsalted butter
3 T flour
Parsley
6 cups chicken broth seasoned with 1/3 bay leaf, 2 medium sprigs parsley and 1/8 tsp. thyme
Salt and pepper
3/4 – 1 lb. fresh mushrooms
1 tsp. lemon juice
2 egg yolks
1/2-3/4 cup whipping cream

PROCEDURE:

Peel a yellow onion and mince a quarter cup of it. Wash the mushrooms and remove the stems from the caps. Chop the stems fine. Wash the parsley.

Put six cups of chicken broth, 1/3 bay leaf, two medium sprigs of parsley and 1/8 teaspoon thyme in a two quart saucepan and bring it to a simmer.

While the broth is heating, melt three tablespoons of the butter in a Dutch oven or large saucepan (at least 2 1/2 quarts) over low heat. Add the onions and cook them slowly for about 10 minutes. Stir in the flour, raise the heat a little and continue cooking the onions for three or four more minutes. Stir continuously, being careful not to brown the flour and onions.

Remove the onions and flour from the heat and stir in the hot broth. Make sure that the onion and flour mixture is well blended with the liquid. Add 1/8 teaspoon salt, 1/8 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper and the chopped mushroom stems. Cover and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer the broth partially covered for 20 or 30 minutes.

While the broth simmers, thinly slice the mushroom caps and set them aside in a bowl.

After 20 minutes or so, strain the broth through a sieve or colander with fine holes into a large bowl to remove the solids. Press the juice from the chopped mushroom stems, onions and parsley and return the broth to the large pan. Discard the solids.

In a two quart saucepan, melt two tablespoons of the butter over moderate heat until it is foaming and toss in the sliced mushrooms with 1/4 teaspoon salt and a teaspoon of lemon juice. Stir, reduce the heat, cover and cook slowly for five minutes.

Pour the mushrooms and their cooking liquid into the large pan with the strained broth and simmer for ten minutes. Remove the pan from the heat.*

To finish the soup, beat two egg yolks until smooth with a whisk, and then whisk them thoroughly into a half to three-quarter cup of heavy cream in a mixing bowl. While beating continuously, very slowly add one to two cups of the hot broth to the eggs and cream mixture.

Heat the broth in the large pan until it starts to steam. While whisking continuously, gradually add the cream and egg mixture to the broth. Stir the soup over moderate heat for three or four minutes to poach the eggs. Stir continuously and do not let the soup come to a simmer.

Taste and adjust the seasoning if necessary. Remove the soup from the heat and stir in two or three tablespoons of softened butter. Ladle into bowls decorated with sprigs of parsley.

*If you’re not serving the soup immediately, you can set it aside after you have simmered the sliced mushrooms in the broth but before you add the cream and eggs. Remove it from the heat, leave it uncovered and film the surface with a spoonful of cream. Reheat it to a simmer before finishing the soup. This means that if you allow ten minutes to bring the broth to a simmer, you can have bowls of soup on the table in less than 20 minutes.

NOTES: You can make this soup with half and half, but it will not taste as good. If you use salted butter, reduce the amount of salt you add to the mushrooms.

When I can find them at a reasonable price, I like to use baby bella mushrooms for this soup.  I think that they give it a more intense mushroom flavor, but white button mushrooms make a great soup too.

When adding the hot broth to the cream and egg mixture, I use a quarter cup measuring cup to dribble the broth very slowly into the cream while stirring quickly with a whisk. If you add the broth too quickly or don’t stir fast enough you can curdle the eggs.

The same thing can happen when you combine the cream, egg and broth mixture with the hot broth or if you boil the soup. Speaking from experience, I can say that the soup will taste fine anyway, but it won’t have the wonderful silky texture of a perfect cream of mushroom soup.