I wanted something different today. Something non Italian, not pasta, not rice. I’ve been binge watching Robert Maklowicz’s youtube channel for the last couple of weeks and having watched him travelling and eating his way through Croatia and Balkans I developed a taste for goulash. The recipe I went with is from kwestiasmaku.pl. I enjoyed making it, enjoyed eating it even more, as did the other two Bankses.

I started with roughly 500 g of pork shoulder, chopped in small pieces, seasoned and browned off. In another pan I had some guanciale sizzling happily ( the recipe called for bacon or pancetta), to which chopped red onion went in, carrot and a red pepper too. A few fresh tomatoes. The pork went into the veggies when browned off, to this I added a glass of red wine and left to cook for a few minutes. Then 2 tsps of sweet, red paprika and 1 tsp of hot paprika. A tbsp of soy sauce, a good squeeze of tomato puree. A bay leaf. 0,5 litre of beef stock, covered and cooked for about an hour. When the meat was beautifully tender and the flat smelled like Dinner Tiiiiimeeee, I added some fried cup mushrooms and a bit of roux to thicken things up. Very nice indeed.

Placki ziemniaczane were the next thing. I started off traditionally- intending to grate 6-7 medium potatoes on the thin grater. Half way through the first potato I decided to f**k it and deployed my mini food processor, which did the amazing job of making a lovely mash of the raw spuds and 2 shallots. In about 3 minutes. After a minute or so the spuds gave out some water, I got rid of it, added roughly 2 tbsps of plain flour, an egg, seasoned generously with salt and pepper and I could fry them.

The whole thing was very much enjoyed, now a mug of peppermint tea, as not exactly light! 🙂