A friend of mine used to make a really good goulash, though I can’t remember most of the details. All I remember for sure was beef, potatoes (which disintegrated in the cooking into thickener), and lots of paprika. I’m sure there were other vegetables involved too, but I don’t remember which ones. I think it was supposed to be a Hungarian version.
Well, if it had paprika in it, it probably was.
My mother made something similar to this. Because she used onion, garlic, and whatever pasta she had on hand, my father called it “ongarlimacaghetti”. 
Goulash has been a staple meal my whole life. My mother’s father is from Hungary, so mom’s goulash was pretty authentic - beef cubes in a thick paprika-ish stew, with either some kind of pasta or nokedli. Mmm . . .
The best goulash I ever had was when I was a kid. We were visiting a friend of mine and her family right outside Budapest - my friend and I made fresh nokedli from some kind of doughy bread, and her grandfather made the whole thing in a giant cauldron over a wood fire. It was seriously out of this world.
—Turnips in goulash? Catastroph!
—It’s good old Irish stew! I tell you it isn’t goulash!
—Paprika. That will fix it! Now it’s goulash!
Just dump a canister of paprika into Irish stew, huh? It isn’t quite that simple. I learned to add the paprika to the onions and fat in the early stages. If you can find Szeged sweet paprika imported from Hungary, that’s what you really need for gulyásleves. The flavor difference it makes vs. American paprika is like night and day.
I make vegetarian gulyásleves and pörkölt using tofu and, yes, olive oil. I figure you just can’t go wrong with olive oil, come what may. But if I wanted to replace lard with the most similar possible vegetarian equivalent, I’d use ghee. For gulyás I love to build it up with potatoes, carrots, red bells, a dash of red wine, a tomato or two, and a fistful of whole garlic cloves. Gulyás can be adapted to such elaboration. But the beauty of pörkölt is in its primitive simplicity. Just onions, paprika, browned cubes of meat (or tofu in my case), and water.
My (Irish) mom made goulash sometimes, but she did it the right way, with potatoes and cubed meat. If she ever made ground beef with elbow macaroni, it was Hamburger Helper, not goulash. Although Mom’s goulash tbh was essentially good old Irish stew with a little sprinkling of paprika (No turnips, though! Catastroph!). She served it over egg noodles. Ever since I left Cleveland for DC, I no longer have access to all the varieties of Eastern European dumplings (halushky being notably popular in Cleveland). So I serve it over my homemade pasta all’uovo.
Paprika…
You’ve just used a spice called paprika…
The trick to a good goulash is a shed load of paprika, my mum used to put nearly a cups worth! She wasn’t hungarian but finnish and there seems to be a bit of a crossover not only in language but food. (well easter finland karelia)
We make the beefaroni version: elbows, ground beef, peppers, onions, celery and tomato soup. We call it “stuff” Never put paprika in it though. When my kids came home from college they called it goulash.
I’ve always liked paprika on potato salad and deviled eggs. My ancestry is mostly Irish. (My Mom saw me sprinkling paprika on my potato salad and asked me "are you Hungarian? " I said, “You tell ME!”)
We had it when I was a kid. My Dad called it Hungarian goulash, which confused me, because of my older brother’s name–Gary.
I used to make mine with 1 lb hamburger, 2 cans of kidney beans, 2 cans of whole tomatoes, 1 can of corn, 1 whole diced onion, and small elbow macaroni. Salt, pepper and some butter.
I have since replaced the hamburger with mild Italian sausage and will never go back to burger. It turns bland into better.
We substituted sweet Italian sausage for hamburger, in spaghetti, for the same reason. 
We had the burger/tomatoes/mac dish growing up, but we called it either “slumgullion” (if my mother was cooking or “American Chop Suey” (if my father was cooking.)
Anyone else know it by either name?
Yes, I remember my mom made a similar dish with ground beef and chili powder and onions - sometimes with scalloped pasta, sometimes with cubed potato - and called it slumgullion. It was delicious, especially the next day when the leftovers were spooned over a slice of buttered bread. Yum!
Been over 35 years now since I’ve had any, and now that I have been reminded of it, I am craving it SO bad.
You really don’t need that much (but feel to free to use as much as you’d like). A typical Hungarian recipe will have about 1 tablespoon of paprika for a pound or two of meat.
+1
George Lang’s Cuisine of Hungary is far and away the best cookbook of Hungarian/Transylvanian food.
Used copies abound.
It is indeed one of the iconic Hungarian cookbooks. (I actually met George Lang and photographed him about fifteen years ago at the Gundel.) I use that cookbook as one of my references. I also like the standard Karoly Gundel cookbook, as well as Culinaria Hungary, although I believe that one is out of print and a little difficult to find sometimes. (Last year I tried ordering it for a friend from four different sellers that said they had it in stock, and only the last one did.)
I just used some last night on my potato bake, really brought out the flavor. It is now my go to spice since my son can no longer have garlic or onion.
Again—if you can find imported Szeged paprika, which comes in varieties including sweet or hot—it makes a world of difference in flavor impact. Try it and you will feel you are truly tasting paprika for the first time.
+1. The importance of using good paprika cannot be overstated. That “Pride of Szeged” brand is the one that is most common around here in grocery stores (besides the generic and imported paprikas.) It’s a good baseline paprika. Like I said above, if you have a Penzey’s or Spice House near you or if you mail order from them, both their Hungarian sweet paprika and California paprika are also excellent.