Paleo Hungarian Goulash

In response to a post of a few days ago about stews, one reader asked for a paleo friendly recipe.   This was not a dish I'd made myself yet, so a quick google search elicited the following recipe which is (nearly!) in keeping with the #PaleoDiet.

There are two ingredients that are NOT paleo- salt, and canned tomato paste.  I've left them in, italicized and underlined, as I wanted to show how I usually deconstruct, then reconstruct recipes that are not Paleo and modify them.  This one isn't too difficult as there are only two offenders.

1) Salt.  We all know that most American's get far too much sodium (largely due to excessive consumption of processed foods) and not enough potassium (available in abundance in fresh veg and fruit).  Adding salt to food is NOT part of The Paleo Diet EXCEPT if you are an endurance athlete, as we need to replenish what we sweat out.   Keeping this caveat in mind, omit the salt, or don't if you are an athlete as described above.

2) CANNED tomato paste.  As tomato paste almost always has added sugar, not to mention sometimes added sodium as a preservative, I'd change this by simply adding an appropriate amount of freshly chopped, ripe tomato.

Having gotten that out of the way- give the following a try:

1/3 cup olive oil

3 onions, sliced

2 tablespoons Hungarian sweet paprika

2 teaspoons salt

1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper

3 pounds beef stew meat, cut into 1 1/2 inch cubes

1 (6 ounce) can tomato paste

1 1/2 cups water

1 clove garlic, minced

1 teaspoon salt

-Heat oil in a large pot or Dutch oven over medium heat. Cook onions in oil until soft, stirring frequently. Remove onions and set aside.

-In a medium bowl, combine paprika, 2 teaspoons salt and pepper. Coat beef cubes in spice mixture, and cook in onion pot until brown on all sides. Return the onions to the pot, and pour in tomato paste, water, garlic and the remaining 1 teaspoon salt. Reduce heat to low, cover and simmer, stirring occasionally, 1 1/2 to 2 hours, or until meat is tender.