Hunter Style Beef with Bread Dumplings

Game-style beef ("vadas") is a festive classic of Hungarian cooking: meltingly tender beef in a silky, mustard-and-sour-cream vegetable sauce, with soft bread dumplings.

The vadas

1. Cut the beef shin into larger pieces. Clean the carrots, parsley root and onion, and cut them up.

2. Put the meat with the vegetables, the bay leaf and the whole peppercorns into a pot, pour in water, salt it, and cook it tender over a low heat (about 2-2.5 hours).

3. Take out the cooked meat, and blend the vegetables with part of the cooking liquid into a smooth, thick sauce.

4. Season the sauce with the mustard and the sugar, then thicken it with the sour cream mixed with the flour, and boil it together, so it becomes a silky, thick sauce.

The bread dumplings

5. Cut the bread rolls into small cubes, and mix them with the flour, the egg, the water and a pinch of salt; knead it together, and let it stand for a few minutes.

6. With wet hands shape dumplings from it, and cook them in plenty of salted water at a gentle simmer (about 15-20 minutes), until they rise to the surface.

7. Slice the beef, serve it drenched in the game sauce, with the sliced bread dumplings alongside.

Tip: The game sauce turns even finer and more harmonious after a night's resting.