Pork Brauhaus Goulash

For dinner, last night, we needed some good ol' fashioned comfort food. I'm not really into the stuff that quite a few Americans think of as being comfort food. To me, comfort embodies European peasant food. It's filling. It's hearty. It utilizes few ingredients while maximizing on flavor. This goulash recipe checks off all of the boxes.

I used a pork tenderloin to make this dish. It was tender. It was succulent. Bob was, easily, able to eat it.

I cut the pork tenderloin into bite sized pieces. It gets browned in a few tablespoons of butter. While that is going on, you'll want to...

grate up a large carrot (or 2 small ones), dice up an onion and mince a clove or two of garlic. Just put it onto a plate and set it aside for a few minutes until you need it. 

Do you see that liquid in the bottom of the pan? You want to cook the pork until that all disappears. 

It will look like this once that happens. This is when you add the vegetables and garlic, mustard, tomato paste,  along with the salt, pepper and smoked paprika. 

Cook that all for around 3-4 minutes. Then add...

a cup of German beer. I used a nice German stout. If you don't have a German beer available to you, try a Black Butte Porter or a Guinness would work really well, too.  Don't use a domestic American beer. That would not taste good at all. It actually wouldn't taste.
Cook until the beer evaporates.

It will go from this to...

this. What you are doing is concentrating the beer flavor. That's why I do not recommend using an domestic American beer. They do not taste good and they wouldn't have enough flavor to hold up to this recipe. You really need to use a stout.

After the beer cooks down, you add in vegetable broth and bring it all to a boil. Cover, put on low heat and simmer for an hour.
Five minutes before it's done, add...

the sour cream. Combine thoroughly. If you need to thicken it up, use a cornstarch slurry. That's simple to make. Mix 1 tablespoon of cornstarch with a few tablespoons of cold water. Pour it in, stir until it's as thick as you'd like it to be. 

Serve over mashed potatoes and enjoy!

Pork Brauhaus Goulash

1 pork tenderloin, between 1.25-1.5 pounds, cut into bite sized cubes
2 tablespoons butter
2 teaspoons dijon mustard
1 tablespoon tomato paste
1 medium onion, diced
1 clove garlic, minced
1 large carrot, grated
1 cup stout beer
3 cups vegetable broth
2 teaspoons smoked paprika
Salt & pepper, to taste
1 tablespoon sour cream

Brown pork in butter, in large skillet, over medium heat. Cook until all the liquid that is released from the pork has evaporated. Add onion, garlic, carrots, mustard, tomato paste, salt, pepper and paprika. Cook for 4-5 minutes, stirring constantly. Add beer. Cook until beer has evaporated from pan. Add broth. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat, cover, and simmer for 1 hour. At the 55 minute mark, stir in the sour cream until combined. At that time, if you feel it's necessary, thicken with a cornstarch slurry (1 tablespoon cornstarch mixed with 2 tablespoons water). Serve over mashed potatoes.

Chicken & Dumplings

 I had Bob buy that rotisserie chicken yesterday. I made enchiladas with half of the meat. To view that  recipe, click here. Tonight's Chicken & Dumplings utilizes the other half of the meat and the carcass. This recipe took me all afternoon to complete and was worth every minute.

I boiled the carcass with all the vegetables that I had that were starting to dry out or look tired. I love that this is a great way to clear out the crisper drawers of stuff that I had just hanging around. I didn't bother to peel anything. I threw in bendy carrots, celery (that was way past its prime), half of a sweet potato. I let it cook down for about 3 hours. 

I strained it out and I was left with some fantastic looking broth. 

This is only the first part of this recipe. Congrats, you're advancing to level 2.

I wanted to do these two recipes to show how economical it can be to buy a rotisserie chicken, especially if you are feeding just 2 people. My sister always jokes with me because I'm not usually one who takes all this time to do things. I usually have several things going on at once. Anyhow, I was watching a YouTube video last night on how to make your food budget stretch and I got to thinking about just how much food is simply thrown away. It's appalling, if you think about it. So, I was determined to get every cent's worth from that rotisserie chicken. 

We just so happened to get our first storm of the year today. I don't think I'd really call it much of a storm, though. There was a bit of thunder and lightening and it did pour down rain a few times. I have to admire the grit of these two fishermen. They were dedicated there on the opposite bank of the river.

I salute them!

The next half of this recipe starts out by boiling the reserved chicken meat and whatever veg you like in the chicken stock that you just made.
There's no right or wrong way to do this because taste is subjective.
I used onion, garlic, celery, carrots and a parsnip. I thought I had another sweet potato, but it was purple and I didn't think that would look so nice. I wouldn't care but I knew I was going to take photos of this for this blog post and purple...not so much.

I let this come up to a boil with everything in it and cook until everything was soft enough to mush against the roof of your mouth with your tongue. 

This is sure comforting on a rainy day, I do have to say!

Chicken & Dumplings


1/2 of the meat from a rotisserie chicken from the supermarket
The carcass of the chicken
Any vegetables that you want to sacrifice to the stock pot
Enough water to cover
Salt and pepper, to taste

Boil all this together in a large pot and strain the solids out and throw those away. Put the rest back into a pot. Add the chopped meat, chopped vegetables, like celery, carrot, onion, garlic and parsnips. Add as many or as little vegetables as you like.
To that, add salt and pepper, to taste, 1-1/2 teaspoons Penzey's Bouquet Garni spice blend, 1 teaspoon dried parsley and some chopped fresh rosemary, optional. I grow it, so I always have it on hand.  Bring all to a rolling boil, lower heat to low and simmer until the vegetables are very soft. Add 3/4 cup of heavy cream to the soup.
Make dumpling dough.

Dumpling dough:

1 cup flour
1/2 cup heavy cream
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon dried parsley

Mix all ingredients together until a dough forms. Drop by spoonfuls into liquid. Cover, cook about 20 minutes or until dough is cooked through.

*Please not that I am not compensated by Penzey's Spices. I just really like their products and use a ton of them.