The history of pörkölt is very closely related to the history of the traditional Hungarian goulash. Both of them were originally peasant dish and both have the use of much paprika powder in common.

Pörkölt derives from the Hungarian verb "pörkölni" which means "to roast" or "to singe". Any kinds of meat can be used when making pörkölt. Most common are beef, lamb, chicken and pork, but tripe can also be used or even fish. If thick sour cream added to pörkölt it will become what the Hungarians call a paprikás. When making paprikás, only light meat like chicken, veal or pork is used.

You can find many prökölt and paprikás variations on the Hungarian restaurant's menus. For example beef stew, chicken stew (csirkepörkölt or csirke paprikás, lamb pörkölt and tripe pörkölt (which we call it pacalpörkölt).
 

Ingredients:

(for 4 person)

80 dkg meat, 2 medium onion, 3 tbs oil, 1 tbs red paprika powder, 1 green pepper, 1 medium tomato, water, ground black pepper, salt and ground caraway seed to taste, and if you like you may add marjoram and 1 clove of garlic, too

Prepare:

1. Heat the oil in a large pot add to the chopped onions and garlic and sauté until they get a golden brown color.

2. Add the meat cube and sauté together until the meat begin to whiten.

3. Sprinkle them with paprika powder and sauté a bit more.

4. Add the tomato green pepper and spices.

5. Add water enough to cover the content of the pan and let it simmer on low heat until the meat is cooked.

6. Make a roux from 1 tbs flour and 2 dl sour cream.

Pörkölt is commonly served with home-made gnocchi (galuska or nokdeli), but we love to eat with potato and bread, or tarhonya (pasta grains) or other kind of pasta and with pickled apple-paprika or any other kind of pickles.

Actually if you are lazy to prepare gnocchi or you just simply don’t like washing up after gnocchi cooking, serve the pörkölt with pasta, like me :)

Source: hungarystartshere.com