Flavors of Friuli

For my Recipe-of-the-Month, I have chosen Goulasch (Hungarian-Style Beef Stew), a proper comfort dish during these cold months of winter. While researching Flavors of Friuli: A Culinary Journey through Northeastern Italy, one of my most puzzling conundrums was how to present the recipe for goulasch. My Friulian cookbooks showed recipes prepared with some form of tomato, either tomato sauce or paste. But in traveling around the region and ordering goulasch in restaurants whenever possible, I kept encountering the same traditional Hungarian version prepared with paprika but no tomatoes. Finally, one day in October 2005, at lunch in a tiny Triestine buffet called Re di Coppe, I sat down to a plate of goulasch that actually contained tomatoes. My dilemma was finally solved! It seems that, even among locals, there is still an endless debate as to which version is most authentically Friulian, with tomato or without. For my recipe, visit Flavors-of-Friuli.com.