This year, autumn made a belated appearance in Sydney town. The seasonal distinction is always hard living in a coastal Meditteranean climate, but this time we seem to have had a prolonged spring, with the hot weather only setting in after the calender change at the beginning of March. Last night we had spitting rain and a distinctively cool kick in the pants come through on the wind. Today the bones in my feet are chilly (oh, woe is my aged body!) - perhaps the best indicator that summer is over (or that I'm going to end up a crazy old lady with a hundred rescue dogs gnawing on my corpse, either or).
Being Good Friday (good for the world's Christians as it's an imminent sign that Jebus is coming back, good for the rest of us as we get a public holiday) TheBloke was home from work and we spent the day tackling the masses of boxes that we've carted around through four houses, three years and two storage units. We had a house inspection earlier in the week which was a deciding factor in whether we'd be able to renew our lease for another year (ha, can't escape real estate talk in Sydney even when you're reading a tummy-blog!) - and regardless of the outcome, cutting the crap was something that we desperately needed to do. The idea of living in cardboard shanty town for another year was pretty repugnant, as was the thought of having to cart aforementioned crap through another move.
We worked up quite an appetite unpacking, repacking, garbaging and recycling the contents of TheBloke's music studio, and decided to reward ourselves with a movie (Dr Seuss' Horton Hears a Who - 7/10 if you're interested, the CGI is great in parts and almost claymationish in others) and udon noodles at a Japanese restaurant upstairs in Broadway shopping centre. We were sadly disappointed to find that Jebus' demise had resulted in the closure of the food court, and with an hour and a bit to kill and rapidly increasing hunger, we lamented the lack of other decent options for food in the area. Even the Landsdowne's $5 steak couldn't be had on account of Jebus' drinking all the wine in the city at his Last Supper.
And that's when we remembered Unas. Unas, for those of you who don't know, is a continental restaurant which started as a cafe in the 'Cross, and has, since 2000, grown to two other locations in Double Bay and Broadway. We'd eaten at the Cross restaurant before and come away rotund, jolly and full of praise for their massive Austro-Hungarian (plus a liberal sprinkling of Deutsch and Swiss) meals. Driving past the Broadway restaurant I've always been interested in their lunch specials, but have never actually ventured in there. Given the biting weather and lack of other viable options (sorry crepe cafe also serving Japanese ramen, Chinese dumplings and bubble tea) the only thing standing in our way was the possibility that they might not be able to serve us in time for our movie.
We needn't have worried. The service was fantastic, our meals (schnitzels, a fast decision is a good decision!) arrived within ten minutes of ordering, and TheBloke drank half a litre of beer. Life could only be better if we'd had big enough bellies to fit in everything else on the menu. I've not tried the Unas goulash, but I made an executive decision to carry the Euro cuisine along with the weather to tonight, and make a hearty homebound attempt at the famous traditional beef stew.
I'm not making any promises about Hungarian authenticity: this recipe is based on doing a bit of reading (thanks, Wikipedia), a need for warming spice (hence the distinctively Bitchlike addition of chillies) and memories of how my Oma used to make this when I was a kid. I'm pretty certain she used tomatoes (a no-no amongst purists, apparently) and it was definitely more of a stew than a soup. TheBloke and I are hitting Hungary in late October this year so I'll definitely give the national dish a once (twice, thrice, tenth) over to see if there is such a thing as a textbook version. Until then, this rib-sticker will keep you warm.
500g casserole beef, cubed
1 onion, sliced
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1/4 red capsicum, roughly diced
1/4 green capsicum, rougly diced
1/2 tin tomatoes, crushed
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 tablespoons paprika
1/2 teaspoon caraway seeds
2 bay leaves
2-3 dried chillies, split lengthways
2 cups beef stock
Salt and pepper to taste
Method
1. Heat olive oil in a large saucepan, add onion and cook until it begins to soften. Add paprika and caraway seeds, stir, add garlic and capsicum, stir.
2. Add beef and cook until well browned.
3. Add bay leaves, chillies, beef stock and tomatoes, stir well and bring to the boil. Reduce heat and simmer for 1 1/2 to 2 hours, until beef is very tender.
4. Season with salt and pepper and serve with buttered noodles, dumplings, mashed potato or potato rosti and steamed veggies.
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