Serving size: Serves 4
Cuisine type: Eastern European
Cooking time: Less than 60 minutes
Course: Main
Favourite flavours: Easy recipes, Saucy, Soup
Convenience recipes: four or less

Real Living recipe for quick goulash with spaetzle.

INGREDIENTS

Spaetzle
1 1/3 cups plain flour
2 eggs
20g butter, melted
Generous pinch of salt
½ cup water

Goulash
2 tbsp olive oil
40g butter
750g veal escalopes (or uncrumbed schnitzels), cut into 2.5cm strips
1 large brown onion, sliced into 1cm-thick wedges
2 celery stalks, sliced
300g green beans, trimmed & halved
2 bay leaves
1 tsp thyme leaves
2 garlic cloves, minced
1¼ tbsp Hungarian sweet paprika
3 cups beef stock
1 cup tomato passata
2 tsp sugar
2 tbsp light sour cream, plus extra to serve

Equipment
Sharp knife
2 medium mixing bowls
Spoon
High-sided large saucepan or stockpot (see Tips)
Colander
Silicone spatula
Handful flat-leaf parsley, chopped roughly

METHOD

Place flour, eggs, butter, salt and water in bowl. Stir to make a smooth dough. Set aside.

Heat half the oil and half the butter in saucepan over very high heat. Cook veal in 2 batches for about 1 min each, or until lightly golden but not cooked through. Transfer veal to bowl. Reduce heat to medium-high.

Heat remaining oil and butter in saucepan. Add onions, celery, beans, bay leaves and thyme. Cook for 6 mins. Add garlic and paprika. Cook for a further 2 mins.

Add stock, passata and sugar. Increase heat to high and bring to a boil. Put dough in colander and place colander on top of saucepan (see Tips). Use spatula to push dough through colander holes. Stir goulash twice to stop spaetzle from sticking together. When all dough is added, return veal to saucepan and cook for 1 min. Remove saucepan from heat. Stir through sour cream.

Serve Spoon goulash into serving bowls. Top with a dollop of sour cream and sprinkle with parsley.

Tips Use a high-sided saucepan for the goulash so when you place the colander (which contains the dough) on top of the saucepan, it won't touch the goulash below. Spaetzle are small dumplings or egg noodles that are poached in boiling water.