The Nitro Express Venison Goulash Recipe Mark I

Ingredients:
Feeds: lots of persons! - will still have to estimate

Olive oil
approx 1.2 kg of venison cut into cubes
500 gms of Bratwurst sausages cut into chunks
6 - 7 onions, chopped
6 cloves of garlic, grated
4 carrots, diced
3 parsnip, diced
6 stalks of celery, sliced
4 medium tomatoes, peeled and chopped
5 capsicum, in this case 3 green, 2 red
6 - 7 potatoes, sliced into chunks
15 - 20 field or button mushrooms, sliced
20 gms Hot paprika
20 gms sweet paprika
4 teaspoons of caraway seeds, I ground these partially
4 bayleaf
1 litre beef stock
salt
black pepper
water
3 desert spoons of cornflour

This recipe has some of my own modifications.

Instructions:

1. Heat up oil in a pot and braise chopped onions until they brown.

2. Remove from heat and sprinkle with the paprika powder while stirring them. Leaving the onions on the heat while adding the paprika may result in bitterness.

3. In a separate fry pan or pot, add more oil and slightly brown the venison cubes, and also the sausage chunks. Many goulash recipes do not brown the meat but add it with the stock direct to the pot at this point. This allows the dish to be cooked in a single pot eg on a fire, but browning will improve the flavour and retain more juices.

You may have to brown them in lots, just add the browned meat to the onions and do another lot.

4. The meat and residual heat in the pot (if browning the meat and onions at the same time) will keep it hot and the meat will give off its juices. Add the grated or sliced garlic, the caraway seed, the bayleaves, some salt and black pepper, and pour the litre of beef stock in. Some extra water or stock may be needed to cover the contents in the pot and then let it simmer. I left it simmer for 50 minutes when I tested the venison and sausages and they were already cooked. A lesser period may be OK. The meat should be about 50% cooked.

5. Add the diced carrots, parsnip, celery stalks, and potatoes. Add more water if needed, I added another 3 cups.

6. After aboout 30 minutes, add the tomatoes and capsicum for another 15 to 20 minutes until the carrots and potatoes are well cooked.

7. I added 3x desert spoons of cornflour, pre mixed with water to thicken the goulash a bit. This dish was still very soup like.

Like many spicy dishes goulash can be prepared and re-heated the following day and the flavour may be stronger and improved as well.

I'm eating this goulash in soup bowls with a spoon, and with fresh crusty bread and some cheese.

Perfect for a re-heated hunters lunch around a campfire to warm the belly and fire the soul.