IN THE KITCHEN WITH: Eve Kommel

Longboat Key resident Eve Kommel was born in Berlin in 1930 and learned how to cook from her Hungarian grandmother. She loves to prepare traditional dishes for company, and her favorite to serve is a simple Hungarian Goulash. It is traditionally a beef and pork stew with onions, green peppers and dumplings. But she likes to make it with only beef. She serves it with a cucumber salad and fruit-filled crepes, or palenchinta, for dessert. She gets her paprika from Hungary and swears that normal paprika won’t do the trick. One must also make this dish using an aluminum cast-iron pot. She doesn’t work from a recipe, but the Observer has tried to capture it.

Hungarian Goulash

Ingredients:
Dollop of Paprika paste (Best if from Hungary)
Dash of Paprika powder (Best if from Hungary)
Two onions
2 to 2 ½ sticks of butter
Salt
3 lbs beef chuck – trim most of fat but leave some on for flavor
14.5 ounces Tomato Sauce
One green pepper
One tomato
Half lb flour
Two eggs
Water

For Meat Stew:
1. Heat at least 3 to 4 tablespoons of butter on medium heat in Aluminum pot. While butter heats up, cut meat into large cubes.
2. Add another 3 to 4 tablespoons of butter and heat while cutting onion.
3. Brown the onion, and remove from pan to add later.
4. Turn heat to high and drop in meat to brown. Cut pepper and tomato into small pieces.
5. Once meat is browned, add salt, onion, pepper, tomato, tomato sauce and paprika.
6. Put the lid on, turn heat to low heat and let it cook until the meat is fork ready. It usually takes around two hours. Taste the stew and add more paprika or salt if necessary.

For Dumplings:
1. Mix half pound of flour with two eggs, add water until consistency is thick but thin enough to drop off of spoon.
2. Boil water.
3. Drop slivers of dough off of spoon into boiling water and boil for about ten minutes.