Before you can digest the history of the Goulash soup, start making it yourself. Here comes the recipe for the national food of Hungary!
Goulash soup recipe
Recipe for four persons
Cooking time: 90 minutes
Ingredients:
500-600g shank of beef
1 large onion
1 large carrot
1 parsnip
1 small celery
2 middle sized potatoes
4-5 pieces of parsley
3 teaspoons sweet paprika (powder)
3 bay leafs
1 teaspoon caraway grains
1 teaspoons black pepper grains
salt after taste
3 spoons oil
1 small green paprika (not necessary)
1 small tomato (not necessary)
2,5L water
(If you use these ingredients you will be able to make a really tasty and good Goulash soup.)
You should start cutting the carrot, the celery and the potatoes into same size pieces.
Put the onion (cut into small pieces) into a pot together with the oil and let them fry together. As it gets golden brown take the pot of the heating and add the paprika and the meat that has been cut into small pieces.
Goulash soup
Taste the soup and if needed, add some more salt. Add some black pepper powder to the top of the soup and also the parsley cut into small pieces.
The Goulash soup should be served together with fresh white bread, and if you like strong stuff, add some strong paprika to the soup or maybe some Erős Pista (hot paprika on glass) to the soup as you are about to eat it.
Bon appetit!
Goulash soup history
The birth of the goulash soup origins in a time when the shepherds spent much time far away from home. Out on the open fields they made the goulash soup in the traditional cauldrons (kettles), or bogrács as we call it in Hungary. Today you can still see these cauldrons as Hungarians cook Goulash soup, fish soup and other traditional Hungarian food both in their gardens and at festivals around in Hungary.
The Goulash Soup is known as the national food of Hungary since the end of the 18th century. It was claimed that the unity of the Hungarians were helped forth by creating a local fashion (Hungarian clothes) and also by making the Goulash soup the national food of Hungary.
In reality the Goulash can not be called a traditional Hungarian course, since the paprika, which gives the special taste to the Goulash soup, only started to spread around in Europe in the 16th century as it was first found in America.
There are several types of Goulash soup available as you visit restaurants in all of Budapest and Hungary, but the best soups are normally the ones you get from a real Hungarian grandmother, giving her heart, soul and lots of ingredients into it.
The following recipe has been given to me by my mother-in-law, so if something goes wrong, she is the one to blame 
I just tried the recipe from my mother-in-law. It worked out very well! Took quite some time to get the food finished as it almost took two hours for the meet to get soft enough. I used 3 carrots to give some more ingredients to the food and skipped the parsley. Except from that I mostly followed the recipe carefully and the end result was delicious! I removed the paprika and the tomato from the soup after letting it boil together with the meat and the spices for 50-60 minutes, because that is what is normal to do (my mother-in-law and father-in-law told me)… Try it and let me hear what you think about the Goulash soup!
Ps: One small advice! The more meat, the "thicker" the soup, so do not be afraid to use more meat than described in the recipe!
I would like a vegetarian goulash. Have you the recipe?
Hi Linda, vegetarian Gulyas is basically the same, but without the meat, and with vegetable stock, marjoram and caraway seeds. The flavour of the gulash comes from the paprika spice! Some people put smoked tofu in it, but I am not a big tofu fan, I 've never done that. There is also a "bean gulash" (bab gulyas in Hungarian) which is made of big beans, red kidney and such.