Goulash de Bœuf à la Hongroise

Goulash de Bœuf à la Hongroise (Hungarian-style beef goulash) teaches reduction, not abundance. The one true thing to know before touching the pan is this: the water is a timing device, not the finished sauce. It gives the beef and potatoes time to soften, then it must cook away until paprika-red liquor clings to every piece. Don't drown it.

The source assumed a brigade portion of three pounds of beef, a cook free to baste the potatoes often, and a timbale waiting for service. It called for neither a saucier's mother sauce nor stock kept perpetually hot, only water, because the meat, onions, tomatoes, paprika, and final reduction build the flavour themselves. For four people, two pounds of beef in a heavy home cocotte preserves the original ratios; two or three deliberate bastings replace the hovering cook, and a warmed deep serving bowl replaces the formal timbale. Those are service changes, not changes to the dish. One cook, one stove, one evening.

Keep what matters: beef and onions fried together in lard over moderate heat, paprika added before the tomatoes, potatoes introduced only after the first braise, and the final liquor reduced almost to nothing. The last reduction is the step that decides everything, so stay beside the pot for those final minutes.