The ingredient list is short and straight forward, but the joy of this dish lies in the quality of its ingredients. We prefer rather fatty meat parts, the ones that show a bit “marble”. The fat is melting in the long cooking process, separating the fibres of the meat and make it very soft and tender. We also use sweeter onion types to add a bit of fruit/vegetable sugar to the dish, which makes it very round and rich in flavour together with the vinegar.

1. Start by chopping the onions in small pieces and the meat in bite sized cube portions. Add oil or clarified butter to the pot and roast the onions on a very low temperature while stirring them constantly until they are glassy but not taking golden or brown colour. the longer you heat the onions this way, the softer they will get and build a juicy vegetable and spice component for the goulash sauce later.

2. Then place the meat cubes on top of the onions and do not roast them at all! This is the main difference of the Wiener Saftgulasch to many other goulash variants. The meat will still get very tender and juicy, it is basically just slowly cooked for the first part of the cooking process.

3. Now add the vinegar, the paprika powder and the herbs and fill the pot with broth until the meat is fully covered. If there is not enough broth to coever everything, simply use water.

4. The processing heat is now one of they keys for the softness of the meal. The lower you can adjust it, the better. The ideal temperature is between 70 and 80 degrees of Celsius and not boiling at all. If your oven is not giving you these low temperatures, you can also place the pot a bit on the side of the field to heat the goulash less.

5. Now just let it heat like this for a few hours. Just at the end of the cooking process, heat the pot to full temperature and boil the goulash for a few minutes. This should completely solve the onions into the sauce part and make it very creamy.