Bograč (Slovenian Goulash Soup), An Extra-tasty Tenth Anniversary Update

 

Yes, it has been a long time since my last post. And an even longer time since I have shared one of my Tenth Anniversary Updates, although I have continued to revisit my Year of Slovenian Cooking (which by now is eleven years ago!)

I'll skip the excuses and move on to my newest version of an old favorite: Bograč, sometimes known as Slovenian goulash soup. It was the featured dish for my Week 32 dinner in September of 2012. I wanted to make something special, since our younger son, who was working as a journalist in Kosovo, would be home for a family visit. We all liked the dish so much that I made it again four weeks later, with a few variations. 

Two days ago, my brother was scheduled to join us for a belated birthday dinner. I wanted to make something good but a little unusual, so I thought about bograč. I hadn't made it in awhile so i was eager to revisit it.

I had a busy day ahead of me and was feeling some time pressure. I knew bograč could be prepared in advance, or at least early in the day, so there would be no last minute rushing. That got me wondering about another way to make preparation easier: What if I put it in the oven to finish cooking? 

I turned to the Internet and got some surprises. A number of cooking authorities believe oven-cooking is always preferred for stews and similar dishes, because the flavor is better and the cooking time is shorter. In fact, that was the method used in one of the bograč recipes I had consulted (and cited) in my earlier post. I had completely forgotten about that detail. So I was on solid ground with the oven method.

I made just a few other other changes to my original recipe, as you'll see below.  I used all beef stew meat, instead of the traditional mix of meats. I added a pinch of cayenne and a couple of carrots--and on the second day, some sauteed mushrooms. And we added quite a bit of red wine.  (I say "we" because my husband had a hand in that part!) 

The result:  This was the best version of bograč I have made. The beef was tender and the sauce was particularly rich and luscious. And it required an easy and relatively fast one-day preparation to get to that point, instead of waiting till the second day, when stews and similar dishes always seem to taste their best. 

We served the bograč (which was more like a stew than a soup) with polenta and a green salad. And for dessert, my latest experiment:  sourdough potica! Watch for an upcoming post about that. 

Bograč (Slovenian Goulash Soup), A Tasty Update


1.5 pounds beef stew meat, cubed
1 large onion, sliced
2 large cloves garlic, chopped
1 green or yellow pepper, sliced  
1 t. caraway seed
1 T. paprika (half hot, half smoked)
½ t. marjoram
salt and pepper to taste

pinch of cayenne pepper 
½ c. crushed tomatoes
1 lb. potatoes, cut in chunks

2 carrots, sliced 

mushrooms, sliced and sauteed before adding (optional)
water to cover

red wine (1/2 cup or so, optional)

olive oil 

If you plan to use the oven method (which I now recommend): Preheat oven to 350 degrees F before you begin the first part of the preparation on the stove, as described below. 

Brown onion in olive oil, using a large pot or Dutch oven. Add garlic and continue to brown. Remove to another bowl. Add meat to oil left in pot and brown. Add green pepper and spices and continue to brown. Return onion and garlic to the pot. Add crushed tomatoes and enough water (with some red wine if using) to cover and bring to a simmer. 

If you are using the oven method, cover the pot and place in the oven. If you are continuing on the stove, cover the pot and adjust heat so the mixture continues to simmer. 

Simmer until meat is tender and almost done. If you are using the oven method, start checking after an hour of cooking, although it may take longer. Add potatoes and mushrooms if using and simmer another hour. 

Note that the oven method may be faster. For me, it took about 3 hours.

Taste and adjust seasonings. Serve garnished with parsley, accompanied by polenta (my favorite) or noodles. Enjoy! 

                                                                             

Slovenian DInner Week 36: Bograč II, or Perfect Make Ahead Goulash Soup

Menu
Bograč II (Slovenian Goulash Soup)
Cabbage-Beet Slaw
Cooked Greens
Crostini


I had made my first version of bograč, or Slovenian goulash soup, just four weeks earlier. Normally, I wouldn't be so quick to repeat a dish.  But that Week 32 Dinner had been a success and I had discovered that bograč could be made in advance. If anything, it had improved with reheating.

I needed a make-ahead dish today, because I had to go to my office in the afternoon, instead of working  from home.  So I started the goulash soup in the morning, cooked it for about an hour, and then refrigerated it.  When I returned home, I cooked it for another hour.

There are many approaches to making bograč.   So now I had the chance to experiment with a few variations.

Bograč II (Slovenian Goulash Soup, all beef, with some flavor additions)

The basic recipe is here.  This time, I made the following changes :

I used all beef stew meat, instead of half pork.
I used 2 peppers (1 green and 1 red) instead of just 1.
I added part of a small hot red pepper, minced.
I skipped the tomatoes. Instead,
I added 2/3 c. dried mushrooms, soaked and sliced, along with their liquid.

And this time, I remembered to add two important seasoning boosts:

1 t. fresh rosemary, minced
1/4 cup of red wine

For the verdict, scroll down.

preparing the vegetables

fresh rosemary from the garden

bograč, starting to cook

ready to serve!

So how did Bograč II compare to the first version?  I did like the seasoning additions. Next time, I might go back to using some tomatoes.   I do think the dish is better with two different kinds of meat.  And pork is more tender than beef, I am coming to realize, so I will probably go back to the beef-pork mix.

The bottom line is that you can't go wrong with bograč!

Slovenian Dinner Week 32: Bograč, Goulash Soup to Revive a Weary Traveller

Menu

Bograč (Slovenian Goulash Soup)

Crostini

Green Salad (dandelion greens with cabbage, tomatoes, and zucchini)

Goulash soup was the very first thing I tasted on my trip to Eastern Europe.

My husband and I, along with my in-laws, had just arrived in Vienna, after seventeen hours of flying. Our guide pointed us in the direction of an airport café, where we had an hour to pass while she waited for a few more members of the tour group to arrive.

We had departed from San Francisco at seven in the morning, changed planes in New York and Paris, and arrived in Vienna at what felt like midnight. It was just past ten in the morning, local time. I was excited, disoriented, exhausted. And hungry. But what to eat?

The waiter was a young guy with a shaved head and a forbidding stare. He took one look at us, slapped an English language menu down on the table, and stalked off.

It turned out we were in a genuine little bistro, a sort of all-hours workingman's haunt that opened onto the street. There were plenty of traditional food choices.  Still, when I spotted the listing for goulash soup, I suspected it might be a tourist special. A sort of watered-down version of the real thing. But it did sound appealing, especially in my weakened state.

That goulash soup was delicious, with plenty of heat. Along with the apple strudel and coffee that followed, it was a perfect meal to revive a weary traveller.

Six years later, as I was planning my Tuesday night Slovenian dinner, I was anticipating the arrival of another traveller: our journalist son, coming home for a visit. He would be arriving at San Francisco's airport on Friday, late in the evening. So I wanted a dish that would do double duty, a meal for us and then, a few days later, a late night snack for him.

Goulash immediately came to mind. Perhaps I was even thinking of my own first meal in Vienna.

I had already made a couple of successful versions of goulash with sauerkraut, but I wanted to try something different. As a starting point, I found a recipe in Woman's Glory, one my vintage cookbooks. It was a simple beef/pork goulash with tomatoes, onions, and potatoes, along with paprika.

I continued to search. That's how I discovered that goulash soup is actually a distinctive dish called bograč. And there is nothing mild about it.

Bograč (“boh-gratch”) is named for the special Hungarian cooking pot in which it is traditionally prepared, a cast iron kettle that is suspended over an outdoor fire. The origins of this dish may be Hungarian, but the Slovenians have raised it to an art form. It is especially popular in Prekmurje, the northeast part of the country that borders Hungary, where there is an annual Bograč Festival, complete with cooking teams who compete.  (Here is a nice report of the festival, by a British traveller.)

Recipes vary. It is common for two or three types of meat to be combined, including game. The distinctive elements seem to be large quantities of onions, potatoes (but no sauerkraut), and the addition of hot chili peppers along with paprika. So bograč is both hotter and more soupy than the typical goulash.

To come up with the recipe below, I drew on a few sources, starting with the simple Slovenian goulash recipe in Woman's Glory.  My mid-1980s find, The Yugoslav Cookbook, also had a recipe for Bograč, or Goulash Soup.

Then I found a quirky but charming blog called Food for Hunters, by a young California couple. They had a long, funny entry about their attempts to make a dish they called Slovenian Stew: Prekmurksi Bograč. I wasn't about to shoot my own game, but I liked their seasoning choices. And it was nice to have someone else do the metric conversions!

Bograč (Slovenian Goulash Soup)

¾ lb. beef stew meat, cubed

¾ lb. pork stew meat, cubed

1 large onion, sliced

2 large cloves garlic, chopped

1 green pepper, sliced

1 t. caraway seed

1 T. paprika (half hot, half smoked)

½ t. marjoram

salt and pepper to taste

½ c. crushed tomatoes

1 lb. potatoes, cut in chunks

water to cover

olive oil

(other options: rosemary; red or white wine)

Brown onion in olive oil, using a large pot or Dutch oven. Add garlic and continue to brown. Remove to another bowl. Add meats to oil left in pot and brown. Add green pepper and spices and continue to brown. Return onion and garlic to the pot. Add crushed tomatoes and enough water to cover. Simmer until meat is tender and almost done. Add potatoes and simmer another hour. Taste and adjust seasonings. Serve garnished with parsley.

The verdict: This was delicious, even though I forgot to add a couple of seasoning options, rosemary and wine, that might have enhanced the dish. As I had hoped, the bograč improved with re-heating. The following night, my husband and I thought the meat was more tender and the flavor was even better.

And by Friday, it was a welcome midnight dinner for our son, who is something of a foodie. In college, he spent a semester studying in Hungary and travelled all over the Balkans. He currently lives and works in Kosovo. Slovenian food, in his view, is a little bland, compared to his usual fare.  So it was most gratifying to see him surprised by the assertive flavor of my bograč!

Update:  A month later, I made bograč again.  This time it was all beef, and I remembered to add the rosemary and a little wine!  There were a few other additions, too.  To take a look at Bograc II,  go here.

End of Summer Marathon: Two Weeks in my New Old-Fashioned Slovenian-American Kitchen

"Girl in Native Costume, Carniola, Austro-Hungary"

B. Lergetporer, Photographer, 1897; Bled, Slovenia

National Archives, USA

I never planned to spend the last two weeks of summer in an ethnic cooking marathon. But that is exactly what happened.

It began on Tuesday, August 21st.  I had reached Week 32 of my year-long Slovenian cooking journey.  But I was already looking ahead to Friday night, when we would pick up our journalist son at the airport. He had visited his brother in New York and then his grandfather in Florida.  Now he would be spending a week in California with us, before he returned to Kosovo.  I was excited.  My husband and I hadn't seen him since Christmas.

Our cat, inspecting Kosovo 2.0 magazine

For that Week 32 dinner,  I needed to find an entree that would leave us with something to offer our son on Friday, when we would be returning from the airport late at night. Bograč, a variant of goulash,  seemed like the perfect choice: one of those spicy dishes that improves with time and takes kindly to reheating.  Or so I hoped.

Bograč, or Slovenian Goulash Soup

After that Tuesday dinner, I kept cooking.  On Friday, I made a new favorite for the early dinner my husband and I shared: kasha mediterranean, the salad created by a Slovenian-American friend.  Our stock of leftovers was growing.

Kasha Mediterranean

Before we left for the airport, I made up a batch of baked flancati, or angel wings, so I would have something sweet to offer later that night, when we all returned from the airport.

Baked Flancati, or Angel Wings

Our travel-weary son liked the goulash soup, but he couldn't resist a playful dig: "This could be the world's spiciest Slovenian dish."  He finds Slovenian food to be a little mild, compared to the Ottoman-influenced cuisine in his part of the Balkans.

Bograč, or  Slovenian Goulash Soup

The following Tuesday, our son joined us for Slovenian Dinner Week 33.  I made a tarragon-flavored version of  buckwheat struklji, one of the recipes I had included in my Slovenian cooking article for Kosovo 2.0.    To round things out, I added another dish I had just discovered: smoked paprika chicken breasts, this time with rosemary.

Buckwheat Struklji

Smoked Paprika Chicken Breasts

The following night, when our son was off with friends, my husband and I shared an unlikely but traditional dessert combination:  vanilla-ginger ice cream, topped with homemade pumpkin seed syrup and a drizzle of pumpkin seed oil.  It was surprisingly good, even if  I did cook the syrup so long that it turned into nut brittle!

On Saturday, we said good-bye to our son.  I sent him off to Kosovo with homemade chocolate-rosemary biscotti, using a Slovenian-inspired recipe I had concocted. Biscotti always travel well. I hoped our son would, too.  We wouldn't see him again until December.

Chocolate Rosemary Biscotti

The next morning, my husband had to go to work for part of the day, even though it was Sunday. I had a melancholy feeling.  In search of comfort food, I put together a new brunch treat: apple šmoren with brandied cranberries.

Apple Šmoren with Brandied Cranberries

Finally, summer came to an end. It was Monday, September 3. Labor Day. We were hosting the annual neighborhood party.

For the potluck, I made my first-ever Slovenian apple strudel to share with our neighbors. I don't think my mother ever attempted strudel.  But my grandmother made it often. I kept thinking about her, as I walked around my cloth-covered kitchen table, pulling and stretching, until I could almost see through the translucent dough.  She always filled her strudel with apples, so I did the same.  I added just one creative touch: a sprinkle of dried cranberries.  I don't think my grandmother would have objected.

My Slovenian Grandparents, Cleveland, about 1920

The strudel was  a success! 

Now, at summer's end, one thing had become clear: Slovenian cooking was no longer just a once-a-week challenge.  It was more than a quirky writing project.  My ethnic kitchen had been a refuge during a summer filled with too many good-byes, too much sadness and loss.

The food of my immigrant ancestors, almost lost and now found,  had helped to sustain me.  It had become a part of my life.

Note: Most of these recipes have already been posted.  For the rest, read on!