Vegetarian Goulash Soup

'as exotic as you get in Europe I guess'

This adapted from an age old Hungarian recipe that I was taught by an artist in a small mountain town an hour out from Budapest. It was a chaotic lesson taught through a friend whose English couldn’t quite capture his father’s speech. One piece of advice that did translate (although I admit it is quite cryptic) was to cook it like it was a stew but eat it like a soup which i have interpreted into this vegetarian version although I’m sure the carrots don't care. Cooking this for the first time was a frantic affair but I will always remember it as the first time I made a joke (not a great one) in a foreign language. I discovered something else that night the only thing as satisfying as getting that first laugh is a big old bowl of goulash.

The goulash
2 onions (finely chopped)
At least 8 Hungarian white peppers (it’s light green. if you can't find any use a couple of red ones then balance the soup out with lemon juice and extra salt cos it'll be sweet)
3 tomatoes (roughly chopped)
A bunch of celery (finely chopped)
5 cloves of garlic (minced)
3 Carrot (sliced)
½ Suede (sliced)
½ Celeriac (sliced)
Kidney beans (a tin)
Paprika (some combination of hot and smoked, to taste but remember that this is the main flavoring you don’t need to choose hot paprika)
Marjoram
Caraway seeds
Gulyaskrem (Goulash cream you can get it online)
Vegetable stock (preferably home made and unsalted)

1. Soften onion and celery
2. Add garlic and saute until fragrant then add the vegetables and fry on low heat
3. Add about two teaspoons of caraway seed and marjoram stir until fragrant
4. Add goulash cream and plenty of paprika cook until fragrant be careful not to burn the spices keep them moving keep the heat moderate.
5. Add enough vegetable stock to cover the vegetables and cook on low for half an hour before adding the tomatoes topping up with stock back to just covering and cooking the tomatoes for another 30.
6. Let the stew out with enough stock to make it a kind of rich soup.

To serve: pickled gherkins, soured cream and good white bread.

This is a very flexible meal I have seen this served with potatoes boiled in the soup, pasta or even rice. My preference is to serve it with bread and butter but I’m not willing to be a dictator on this point I do however insist that you serve this with soured cream and a side plate of pickles. eat half then try with soured cream two for the price of one.