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33 recipes

Húsvéti kalácsBraided Easter milk loaf

In Hungary the Easter table on Sunday morning centres on smoked ham, hard-boiled eggs, fresh horseradish and húsvéti kalács, a soft, braided milk bread enriched with butter and egg yolks. It is lightly sweet, so it suits the salty ham perfectly, and the leftovers make excellent French toast on Easter Monday. Many families braid it with three or four strands and bake it into a ring. Chef's tip: braid loosely and tuck the ends under, because a tight braid splits along the sides as it rises in the oven.

75 min

Hungarian Baking

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Húsvéti sonkaSmoked ham with eggs and horseradish

On Easter Sunday morning in Hungary the table is laid with húsvéti sonka, a whole smoked pork ham simmered slowly the day before, sliced cold and served with eggs hard-boiled in the ham's cooking water, freshly grated horseradish, spring onions and braided kalács. The cooking water then becomes the base of a bean or lentil soup the next day. Use a raw-smoked (uncooked) ham from a Hungarian or Polish butcher. Chef's tip: soak the ham overnight to draw out salt, and cool it in its cooking water so it stays juicy.

195 min

Hungarian Meat

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Meggyes piteSour cherry slice

Hungarian grandmothers bake meggyes pite in a big rectangular tin in June, when sour cherries hang from every garden tree, and the rest of the year with jarred ones from the pantry. Two layers of soft, almost cakey pastry made with sour cream hold a tart, juicy cherry layer, and the top disappears under a snowfall of icing sugar. Squares of it turn up at Sunday lunch, in school lunch boxes and on the plate next to an afternoon coffee. Skipping the semolina is the mistake that gives a soggy middle: it soaks up the cherry juice as it bakes. Chef's tip: drain jarred or thawed cherries in a sieve for a good 30 minutes and keep the juice for a drink or a sauce.

90 min

Hungarian Baking

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Túrós lepénySweet curd cheese sheet cake

Hungarians use túró, a dry, crumbly fresh curd cheese, the way other cooks use cream, and túrós lepény is one of its homeliest outings: a thin short pastry base, a deep layer of lemony sweetened curd with raisins, baked in a tray and cut into squares for afternoon coffee, a picnic at Lake Balaton or the school lunch box. The filling is light and tangy rather than dense like a cheesecake, because the egg whites are whipped and folded in. Wet curd is the classic mistake; it weeps and the base goes soggy, so press the cheese through a sieve and use farmer's cheese or well-drained quark if you can't find túró. Chef's tip: take the lepény out while the very centre still has a slight wobble; it sets as it cools and stays creamy instead of cracking.

80 min

Hungarian Baking

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LacipecsenyeGrilled pork neck

At village fairs (búcsú), wine festivals and the roadside stalls known as lacikonyha, 'Laci's kitchen', the smell of lacipecsenye pulls in the crowds: pork neck steaks rubbed with garlic, grilled on a griddle and heaped with fried onions. It is eaten standing up from a paper plate with a hunk of white bread, mustard and pickled cucumbers, and it is just as good from a home barbecue or a heavy pan. Marinate the pork in the fridge for at least 2 hours, or overnight. Chef's tip: pork neck is marbled, so it stays juicy; the mistake is pressing it with the spatula, which squeezes out the juices.

40 min

Hungarian Meat

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Májas hurkaLiver and rice sausage

In Hungarian villages the winter pig-killing (disznótor) ends with a feast, and hurka is the star: soft sausages of pork, pork liver and rice seasoned with marjoram and black pepper, roasted until the skins crackle. Today you buy them at market stalls in Budapest's Great Market Hall and at country butchers, eaten hot with mustard, bread and pickled cabbage. Blood sausage (véres hurka) is the other version; this is the liver one. Ask your butcher for natural pork casings. Chef's tip: roast the sausages in a little fat with a splash of water and don't prick them, or they burst and dry out.

150 min

Hungarian Meat

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PacalpörköltTripe stew

The upstairs food stalls of Budapest's Great Market Hall and the old market halls of Szeged serve pacalpörkölt from late morning, and regulars eat it with boiled potatoes and a pile of pickles. Tripe takes patience: hours of slow simmering in a deep red paprika and onion sauce turn it tender, with a gentle chew and a rich, savoury flavour. Buy beef tripe that is already cleaned and blanched (white or bleached) from a butcher. Chef's tip: boil and rinse the tripe once before you start the stew; skipping this is the mistake that leaves a strong farmyard smell in the sauce.

240 min

Hungarian Meat

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DebreceniPaprika pork sausage

Debreceni are long, thin pork sausages seasoned with sweet paprika, garlic and caraway, and they are the standing snack of Budapest's büfé counters: at the Nagyvásárcsarnok, at Christmas markets on Vörösmarty tér and outside the Keleti railway station. The stand heats them on a griddle (or simmers them), then hands them over on a paper plate with a slice of rye bread, a big spoon of mustard and a pile of pickled peppers or gherkins. This home version uses bought debreceni and adds a quick paprika glaze. Chef's tip: simmer them gently before grilling; a hard boil splits the skins and dries the pork.

20 min

Hungarian Meat

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Kakaós csigaCocoa yeast snails

Walk into any Hungarian bakery at seven in the morning and the window will hold trays of kakaós csiga, cocoa snails, glossy on top and dark-striped inside. Children eat them on the way to school with a carton of chocolate milk, and office workers grab one with a coffee. The dough is soft and milky, rolled up with butter, cocoa and sugar so the swirl turns fudgy and slightly sticky; a brush of syrup after baking keeps them shiny and moist for a day. Where most people go wrong is spreading the filling on too-warm dough, which tears; let the risen dough rest for a few minutes after rolling. Chef's tip: roll the dough up from the long side quite tightly and cut with dental floss or a very sharp knife, so the snails keep their round shape.

120 min

Hungarian Baking

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Lekváros buktaPlum jam yeast buns

Grandmothers across Hungary bake a tray of bukta on a Sunday afternoon, and school bakeries sell them for the walk home: soft, milky yeast buns, each folded around a spoon of thick plum butter and baked so close together that they rise into one another. Pulled apart, the sides stay tender and pale while the tops shine golden, and the dark, tart plum filling balances the sweet dough. Serve them warm with a glass of cold milk or cocoa. The usual slip is using runny jam, which bubbles out and burns on the tray; it must be a thick lekvár that holds its shape on a spoon. Chef's tip: brush each bun with melted butter before it goes into the tin, so the buns rise together but still pull apart neatly.

120 min

Hungarian Baking

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Lucskos káposztaPork, cabbage and rice stew

Lucskos means sloppy or juicy, and this stew from the north-east, from Szabolcs to Borsod and the Zemplén hills, is exactly that: a pot of pork, shredded fresh cabbage and a little rice, cooked loose and soupy, soured with sauerkraut juice and enriched with sour cream and dill. Think of it as the everyday, unrolled cousin of stuffed cabbage, cooked on weekday evenings and at village pig-killing feasts. It is a pork dish, tangy, warming and filling, eaten from deep bowls with bread. A common mistake is putting the rice in too early, so it swells and thickens the pot into porridge; add it for the last 20 minutes only. Chef's tip: if you can't get sauerkraut juice, a spoon of vinegar and a pinch of sugar gives a similar sour edge.

90 min

Hungarian Meat

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MarhapörköltBeef paprika stew

Pörkölt is the stew most Hungarians actually cook at home, more often than gulyás, and on the Great Plain beef pörkölt simmers in a cauldron at every village festival and harvest gathering. Unlike soup, it has almost no added liquid: a big pile of onions melts slowly in fat, paprika goes in off the heat, then the beef stews in its own juices with a little tomato and pale green pepper until the sauce is thick, glossy and brick red. It is deep, sweet and gently peppery, and it belongs next to nokedli (small dumplings) or boiled potatoes and a pickled cucumber. The usual slip is adding paprika to a hot pan, which scorches it bitter in seconds; always pull the pot off the heat first. Chef's tip: add water only a few spoons at a time, just enough to stop it catching, so the sauce stays concentrated.

150 min

Hungarian Meat

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ZserbóWalnut and apricot layered pastry

At Christmas and at every family name day, a Hungarian grandmother cuts zserbó into neat diamonds: three layers of walnut and apricot jam between four thin sheets of rich yeast pastry, crowned with dark chocolate. It was created at the Gerbeaud café on Vörösmarty tér in Budapest, and the name is simply the café's French name spelled the Hungarian way. The pastry bakes short and tender, the jam stays sharp and fruity, and the chocolate adds a firm, glossy snap. A common mistake is rolling the sheets unevenly, so the slices come out lopsided; weigh the dough into four equal parts and roll each to the size of the tin on baking paper. It tastes even better the next day, once the jam has soaked in. Chef's tip: use a tart apricot jam and stir a squeeze of lemon into it if it seems very sweet.

120 min

Hungarian Baking

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Bakonyi sertésszeletPork in mushroom paprika sauce

The Bakony hills north of Lake Balaton are known for their beech forests and mushrooms, and any Hungarian dish called bakonyi comes with a creamy paprika and mushroom sauce. Here it covers seared pork loin steaks, a favourite of roadside inns and Sunday lunches across Transdanubia. The sauce starts like a pörkölt with onion, paprika, pepper and tomato, then takes on sliced mushrooms and is finished with sour cream, so it is earthy, tangy and rich. Serve it with nokedli or rice to soak it up. Where most people go wrong is boiling the sauce after the sour cream goes in, which makes it split; keep it just below a simmer. Chef's tip: use a mix of wild and chestnut mushrooms if you can, and fry them hard first so they brown instead of stewing.

60 min

Hungarian Meat

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Balatoni fogasButter-fried pikeperch

Fogas, the pikeperch of Lake Balaton, has been the pride of the lakeside restaurants of Tihany, Keszthely and Balatonfüred for over a century, and a fillet on a plate with parsley potatoes is the classic order on a summer evening with a view of the water. The flesh is white, lean and delicate, with a clean, slightly sweet flavour, and the simplest treatment is best: skin side down in foaming butter until the skin turns crisp, with lemon at the end. Zander from any good fishmonger works the same way. Where most people go wrong is moving the fillets too soon, which tears the skin; leave them until they release by themselves. Chef's tip: score the skin lightly twice so the fillets stay flat in the pan.

30 min

Hungarian Fish

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Balatoni hekkFried hake

Hake never swam in Lake Balaton, yet fried hekk is the taste of a Hungarian summer at the lake: a paper tray of hot, crisp fish bought from a beach kiosk in Siófok or Balatonboglár, eaten in a swimsuit with lemon squeezed over and a slice of white bread. Cleaned, headless hake pieces are rolled in seasoned flour with a little paprika and fried until the outside crackles and the white flesh inside is soft and juicy. Serve with lemon, bread and a sharp cucumber salad. The usual slip is not drying the fish, so the flour turns pasty; pat it well with paper first. If the fish is frozen, thaw it in the fridge overnight, never on the counter. Chef's tip: flour the fish only at the last moment, just before it goes into the oil, so the coating stays dry and crisp.

25 min

Hungarian Fish

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Brassói aprópecsenyeFried pork with potato cubes

Despite the name, which points to Brassó (Brașov) in Transylvania, this is a Budapest invention, and it is still one of the most ordered plates in the city's small family restaurants. Small cubes of pork neck or shoulder are fried hard with onion, lots of garlic, marjoram and a little paprika until they are browned and juicy, then tossed with golden, crunchy fried potato cubes. It is a quick, salty, garlicky dish, best with a bowl of pickles or a crisp cucumber salad and a glass of cold mineral water. The usual slip is crowding the pan, so the pork steams grey instead of browning; fry it in two batches. Chef's tip: add half the garlic at the start and the rest in the last minute, so you get both the mellow and the sharp flavour.

45 min

Hungarian Meat

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Csabai kolbászPaprika pork sausage

Every October the town of Békéscsaba holds a sausage festival where teams grind, season and stuff pork by hand, and the town's name is on Hungary's most famous paprika sausage. The real csabai is smoked over beech and then air-dried for weeks; curing like that needs curing salt, careful temperature and humidity control and a lot of experience, so this recipe makes the same spicy pork mixture as a fresh sausage that is cooked through to 71 °C and never eaten raw. It is fiery, garlicky and deep red from sweet and hot paprika with a warm hint of caraway, and is excellent grilled or pan-fried, with mustard, fresh bread, pickled peppers and raw onion. The usual slip is letting the meat get warm while you work, which smears the fat and gives a dry, crumbly sausage; keep everything ice cold. Chef's tip: fry a small test patty before stuffing to check the salt and heat.

240 min

Hungarian Meat

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FlódniFour-layer poppy seed and fruit pastry

Four stripes of filling, black poppy seed, golden apple, nutty walnut and dark plum jam, stacked between thin sheets of shortcrust: that is flódni, the Hungarian-Jewish pastry of Budapest's old Jewish quarter around Kazinczy and Dob streets. Jewish families bake it for Purim and Hanukkah, and the bakeries of the seventh district sell it by the slab all year. Each cut slice should be moist, dense and not too sweet, best with a glass of tea or black coffee. Many families make the dough with a little sweet white wine and use margarine so it can follow a meat meal; this version keeps it alcohol-free with grape juice, and you can swap the butter for a firm baking margarine to make it dairy-free. The usual slip is rolling the sheets too thick, so the pastry swamps the fillings; each one should be barely 3 mm. Chef's tip: bake it a day ahead and slice it cold with a hot, wet knife, because the layers settle overnight and cut cleanly.

150 min

Hungarian Baking

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HarcsapaprikásCatfish in paprika sour cream

Along the Tisza at Szeged, the fish restaurants on the riverbank serve harcsapaprikás to families at long Sunday tables: thick chunks of firm, sweet catfish poached in a paprika and onion sauce, then finished with sour cream until it is a rich, coral-pink colour. Catfish has no small bones and holds together well, so it suits a sauce dish; the flavour is mild, creamy and gently smoky from the paprika. Traditionally it comes with túrós csusza (noodles with curd cheese and crisp bacon) or plain nokedli. A common mistake is stirring the fish too much, which breaks it into flakes; shake the pan instead. Chef's tip: salt the fish chunks 15 minutes ahead in the fridge, which firms them up and seasons them all the way through.

45 min

Hungarian Fish

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SzékelykáposztaPork and sauerkraut stew

The story goes that in 1846 the county archivist József Székely came late to a Budapest restaurant, found only pork stew and sauerkraut left, and asked for them mixed in one pot; the poet Sándor Petőfi, at the next table, liked it so much he ordered the same, and the dish took Székely's name. It is a pork dish, and a rich one: cubes of pork shoulder stewed with onion and paprika, then layered into rinsed sauerkraut and finished with plenty of sour cream and dill, so it turns pink, tangy and comforting. It is winter food, served with fresh bread, and many say it is even better reheated the next day. The usual slip is not rinsing the sauerkraut, which makes the stew harsh and salty; taste it first and rinse once or twice. Chef's tip: keep back a few spoons of sour cream to dollop on top just before serving.

120 min

Hungarian Meat

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Túrós táskaSweet cheese puff pastry pockets

Every Hungarian bakery chain and village shop has a túrós táska in the case, a flaky square folded corner to corner over a fat cushion of sweet curd cheese. The filling is fresh túró beaten with egg yolk, vanilla, lemon zest and raisins, and it bakes soft and slightly tangy inside crisp, buttery puff pastry. It is a mid-morning snack with coffee, or breakfast on the go. Túró is usually made without animal rennet, but check the label if that matters to you. The usual slip is a runny filling that leaks onto the tray, so press the túró through a sieve and add a spoon of semolina to bind it. Chef's tip: chill the filled pockets for 10 minutes before baking; the cold pastry puffs higher and the corners stay folded.

60 min

Hungarian Baking

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VadasBraised beef in mustard cream sauce

The word vadas means in the manner of game, and the dish once was a way of treating venison; in Budapest it is now made with beef and is one of the great canteen and Sunday dishes. A joint of beef is browned and braised with carrots, parsley root and celeriac, then the vegetables are blended into a velvety orange sauce, sharpened with mustard, a little caramelised sugar, vinegar and lemon, and enriched with cream. Thick slices of beef sit in the sauce next to fluffy bread dumplings (zsemlegombóc) and a spoon of cranberry sauce. Some cooks marinate the beef in red wine; this version uses stock and vinegar, so it is alcohol-free. Where most people go wrong is serving the meat before it is truly tender; it should yield to a fork. Chef's tip: if you marinate the beef in the vinegar and spices overnight, always do it in the fridge, covered.

150 min

Hungarian Meat

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Pozsonyi kifliWalnut or poppy seed crescents

These little crescents take their name from Pozsony, the Hungarian name for Bratislava, where bakers made them famous in the nineteenth century, and today they fill Christmas cookie tins across Hungary alongside bejgli. A short, buttery yeast dough is wrapped around a walnut or poppy seed filling, then glazed first with yolk and then with white, which gives the shiny, crackled, marbled top that marks a good batch. They are rich but not too sweet: eat them with coffee or tea through the holidays. Where most people go wrong is letting the dough rise in a warm spot; this is a cold dough, and if it gets warm the butter melts and the kifli split open. Chef's tip: let the yolk glaze dry fully before the white goes on, or you will not get the crackle.

120 min

Hungarian Baking

by KrazyBadal 0 views

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