Bograch is a Hungarian gulyash/ goulash (meat soup) a la Carpathian style. This dish is one of the most widespread and favorite ones in the Carpathian Hutsul cuisine.
The recipe for bograch has a countless number of variations which Carpathian people adjusted to their personal taste. Yet the main ingredients of this dish are meat, vegetables and spices, especially paprika that gives the soup a unique zest.
Bograch will decorate your festive table and impress your guests. It’s a wonderful warming dish which can serve both as a main dish and second course.
Historians claim that bograch (shepherd’s soup) was started to being cooked three thousand years ago by pro-Hungarian nomadic tribes in their marching cauldrons on an open fire. This dish was cooked using food supplies of smoked meat; boiled, sun-dried, and ground-into-powder beef or horse meat; and picked mushrooms, forest herbs and roots.
Today this Hungarian dish is associated with the Transcarpathia. Almost every Carpathian restaurant has this amazing dish in its menu, which gives a wonderful possibility for both Ukrainians and foreigners to enjoy this hearty, rich, and piquant dish.
Ingredients:
- 1 kg (35 oz) beef
- 1 bulb onion
- 3 medium carrots
- 2 bell peppers
- 3 potatoes
- 500 ml dark beer
- 50 ml sunflower oil
- 300 ml tomato paste
- 2 loaves of bread
- 1/2 garlic bulb
- 1 egg
- 1 bay leaf
- 1 tsp paprika
- Fresh dill + parsley – for serving
- Ground black pepper – to taste
- Salt – to taste
Cooking
Wash beef under running water thoroughly. Cut the meat into medium pieces. Preheat sunflower oil in a frying pan and add the cut beef there. Adjust salt and start to cook the meat.
Meanwhile, peel a bulb onion and cut it finely. Peel, wash and chop carrots. Wash bell peppers. Remove the core and seeds. Then dice bell peppers.
Add the onion and carrot to the frying pan. Mix the ingredients and continue to fry the beef. In 10 minutes add the diced pepper to the mass. Stir-fry everything for 5 minutes and pour dark beer above. Stew the ingredients. Leave the lid open to let the alcohol evaporate.
If you don’t want to use beer, you can replace it with some meat broth.
Peel and wash garlic cloves. Put them in a blender bowl. Add an egg there. Whip the mass with a blender. Season it with salt.
Peel and wash potatoes. Dice them finely.
Cut off the top of the round loaf bread. Carefully remove the soft part of the bread with a spoon. Repeat the same with the second loaf of bread.
When the beer evaporates, add the diced potato to the frying pan. Season the dish with salt, ground black pepper, and paprika. Add a bay leaf. Stir everything thoroughly. Cook for a couple of minutes and then pour boiling water above to coat the ingredients.
Add the tomato paste to the frying pan and stir to combine. Cook for 10 minutes more.
Grease the inner part of bread with the garlic-egg mass using a rubber kitchen brush.
Place the loaves of bread in an oven preheated to 220°C (428°F) for 5-10 minutes to get a flavorful crispy crust.
Ladle the soup into bread bowls. Decorate them with fresh dill and parsley. Serve bograch at once.
Have you liked the recipe for the gulyash soup with beef?
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