This post contains affiliate links. If you buy through them, we may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. Read our disclosure. Tamás is a real head chef with 25 years in professional kitchens; Gerzsi is his cartoon beaver apprentice. The illustrations and kitchen stories are just for fun, the chef’s recipe and notes are real.
From the kitchen: Gerzsi asked Chef Tamás for “the goulash recipe”. The chef put down his spoon. “In Hungary, goulash is a soup. What you’re thinking of is pörkölt.” Gerzsi wrote that down, underlined it twice, and has been correcting customers ever since. Politely. Mostly.
What many Americans call “Hungarian goulash” is, in Hungary, pörkölt: a thick paprika stew of slow-cooked meat and onions. This is the beef version Chef Tamás cooks, the way he cooks it. It isn’t fast, and that’s the point.
From the real chef (Tamás, head chef, 25 years): “Build a rich, toasted base first: smoked bacon, onion, garlic, tomato paste. Sear the beef separately, then tip it into the base, so you get those browned bits that are a real flavor bomb, and the meat cubes hold together instead of falling apart. Add the paprika off the heat so it doesn’t burn. Then cook it slowly, never boiling. The slower it cooks, the more complex it tastes. And it’s even better the next day.”
The chef’s 5 rules for pörkölt
- Toast a proper base. Smoked bacon (any kind works: smoked slab bacon, regular bacon), onion cooked down slowly, garlic, and a little tomato paste toasted in the fat so it isn’t sour.
- Sear the beef separately. Browned in its own pan, then tipped into the base.
- Paprika goes in off the heat. Burnt paprika turns bitter.
- Slow, never boiling. About four hours on the lowest heat.
- Make it a day ahead if you can. It’s even better the next day.
Hungarian Beef Pörkölt
Chef Tamás's beef pörkölt: a toasted bacon and onion base, seared beef shank, sweet paprika and red wine, cooked low and slow.
Ingredients
- 1 kg (2.2 lb) beef shank, cut into bite-size cubes
- 100 g (3.5 oz) smoked bacon, diced (any smoked bacon works)
- 200 g (about 7 oz) onion, finely chopped
- 30 g (about 1 oz) garlic, chopped
- 1/2 tablespoon tomato paste
- 1 fresh pepper and 1 fresh tomato, chopped
- 50 g (about 1/2 cup) Hungarian sweet paprika
- Ground caraway, black pepper and salt, to taste
- 300 ml (about 1 1/4 cups) dry red wine
- Up to 100 ml (about 1/3 cup) beef stock, added a little at a time
- 1 to 2 tablespoons plain cream cheese, to finish
- To serve: nokedli (Hungarian egg dumplings) or boiled potatoes, and pickles or hot peppers
Directions
- In a heavy Dutch oven, cook the diced bacon over medium-low heat until the fat renders.
- Add the onion and cook it slowly until soft and golden. Add the garlic, then the tomato paste, and toast it in the fat for a minute so it loses its sourness. Add the chopped fresh pepper and tomato.
- Meanwhile, season the beef with salt and sear it in batches in a hot skillet until well browned on all sides.
- Pull the Dutch oven off the heat. Stir in the paprika, ground caraway and black pepper so the paprika doesn’t burn.
- Tip the seared beef into the base and stir to coat. Return to the heat, pour in the red wine and scrape up the browned bits.
- Cover and cook on the lowest heat for about 4 hours, barely simmering, never boiling. Stir now and then. Don’t drown it: add the stock gradually, just a splash whenever it starts to get dry, up to about 100 ml (1/3 cup) in total.
- When the beef is tender, stir in 1 to 2 tablespoons of plain cream cheese to make the sauce smoother and silkier. Taste and adjust the salt.
- Serve with nokedli or boiled potatoes and pickles or hot peppers on the side. Even better the next day.
The pot: a heavy Dutch oven
Chef Tamás cooks pörkölt in a cast-iron pot: it holds a low, steady heat for hours, which is exactly what this dish needs. For this recipe (1 kg of beef, 3 servings) a 5 to 6 quart pot is plenty. In America’s Test Kitchen’s tests, the Le Creuset 5.5 Quart Round Dutch Oven won its size class; its light interior and low sides made it easy to see what was happening inside (about $312 on sale, $455 regular). The Best Buy, the Cuisinart Chef’s Enameled Cast Iron 5 Quart Casserole (about $130), “aced nearly every test”, though it is almost a pound heavier (America’s Test Kitchen).
The rest of the kit
- Hungarian sweet paprika. Pörkölt uses a lot of it (50 g for 1 kg of beef), so buy a real Hungarian sweet paprika rather than a tiny jar. See Hungarian sweet paprika on Amazon
- A heavy skillet for searing. Cast iron or stainless; see the skillets a head chef uses every day.
- A nokedli (spätzle) maker for the dumplings: the simple kind that sits over the pot works fine. See spätzle makers on Amazon
- A sharp chef’s knife for cubing the beef: see the best chef’s knives under $100.
Read next
- 4 cheap tools a head chef uses every shift (including the big stockpot)
- How to keep a kitchen knife sharp
Chef-cooked. Beaver-approved.
Prices checked in October 2026; they change often.
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