Vegetarian: Someone posted a request for goulash. Someone else posted a by Recipe Cottage

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	Someone posted a request for goulash. Someone else posted a

		savory-looking and complicated recipe (from Szeged), and yet a third person warned that this recipe was not Szeged related. So I thought I'd post my own recipe, much simpler and handed down to me from my mom, who got it from her mom, etc. Note the lack of ingredient amounts, which is how I learned it. A little trial and error should allow one to come up with correct amounts. This recipe is simpler than the other (although one might look at the other for ways to spice it up) and may even come from Szeged, since one of my grandparents' family is from there (but I don't remember which grandparent <-:). Ingredients: Meat Substitute (cubed - I use seitan, I've tried tofu but it came out bad; haven't tried TVP - original recipe used beef) Onions (chopped) Vegetable Oil (original recipe used lard - used to be very common in Hungarian cooking) Carrots (cubed, optional - my mother added after we immigrated to America) Potatoes (cubed) Paprika (pronounced PAPrika in Hungarian ;->) Cumin (optional - my mother says my grandmother put this in all the time but she hated it so she never made it with cumin when I was a kid - I tried it once and it wasn't bad but nothing special. Also be warned that the cumin you get in Hungary is different from what you get in America (according to my mother) - last summer while in Hungary I picked up some packages of cumin but believe it or not, I haven't even opened them yet so I can't confirm this) Salt to taste Directions: Heat up some vegetable oil in a big pot. Add the chopped onion, carrots, and meat substitute and fry for several minutes. Add the paprika and stir it around, getting it on everything (note, it's easy to add too much - start out light). Then immediately pour in some water (the frying for a few seconds brings out the flavor of the paprika, but letting it fry for too long will burn it). Add the potatoes, other spices, and more water as necessary. Cook (simmer) until everything is cooked through (soft). Serve and enjoy! This is how I make it, but I'd love to hear constructive suggestions on how it can be improved (and especially any Hungarian readers out there who can provide their own home-cooked versions of this staple).