Marha pörkölt tarhonyával
Beef pörkölt with tarhonya

By one definition of pörkölt and paprikás, pörkölt is made by putting only meat into a pot and letting it stew in its own juices first. Later, you add onions and then paprika.
Paprikás, then is made by sauteing onions, then adding paprika off heat and the meat, and then you stew it.

My personal, original definition is that pörkölt is what I just described and paprikás adds habarás (sour cream and flour).

Still, I've found that adding the meat first and letting it stew in its own juices seems to bring out more meat flavor. In fact, I think I'll use less paprika and let the paprika be an undertone.

In both cases, I let the water cook down, brown the meat, then add a small amount more water. Repeat that a few times until the meat is nicely caramelized then add a bit more water, cover and finish. This is why I believe you can only make pörkölt in a pot.
What I did in this case is saute the onions, using the same technique, alternating small amounts of water and browning until it cooks down and develops a light tan color - not dark and sweet like caramelized onions. Just with a bit of depth of flavor. It's like an onion risotto. Pörkölt is like a meat risotto! Then I add tomatoes and paprika, both peeled.

Finally I combined the lecsó base and the meat and let it stew, covered until the meat was tender. I added the paprika to the lecsó and then some to the meat during the final stew.
I made green bean főzelék for the leftovers the next day.