© Zsófia Mautner 2015

Translation © Richard Robinson, 2015

Food styling © Panka Milutinovits

Photographs © Bálint Trunkó

Photographs © Áron Erdőháti

Author’s photo © Szilvia Csibi

© Libri Könyvkiadó, 2016, Budapest

All rights reserved.

Publisher Director of the Libri Publishing

Libri Publishing is a member of the LS Publishing Group

www.librikiado.hu

Translated by Richard Robinson

Edited by Éva Résch

Proofreader Huw Dangerfield

Cover design Péter Somogyi

Technical editor Gyöngyi Széplaki

E-book by eKönyv Magyarország Kft.

www.ekonyv.hu

ISBN 978-963-310-773-7

CONTENTS

Foreword

Hungarian Cuisine in Times Gone By

Hungarian Cuisine Today:

SNACKS & SPREADS

Körözött with beer and toasted caraway seeds

Jewish chopped egg with onion

Gypsy style cottage cheese spread

Potato crescent rolls with olive oil

Sour cream scones with pumpkin seeds

Lángos – fried flatbread with toppings

Green salad with sausage crumbles and poached egg

SOUPS

Grandma’s chicken soup with Matzo balls

Classic goulash soup

Traditional fish soup

Easy mushroom soup

Fresh green pea soup with paprika and vegetables

Parsley cream soup

Sweet & sour goose soup with quince

Lamb and green bean soup with dill and tarragon

Overnight bean soup

Ice-cold pickled cucumber soup with herbs

Cold sour-cherry soup

Cold yogurt and apple soup with thyme and lime

VEGETABLE DISHES & SAVORY PASTA

Lecsó – Hungarian pepper stew

Lecsó variations:

New potatoes with pickled cucumber and rye crumbs

Dill and sour cream cabbage

Curried cabbage in tomato sauce

Creamed spinach with French toast

PAPRIKASH – PAPRIKA-BASED DISHES

Goulash, Paprikash, Pörkölt

Secrets of the perfect goulash

The best veal pörkölt

Chicken pörkölt with galuska

Crêpes stuffed with chicken paprikash

About paprika

New style potato goulash

Spicy fish goulash

Mushroom paprikash with tarragon

Pork & egg barley

Chicken liver with caramelized onions and paprika

Paprika – sauerkraut stew

Pan fried pork chops with spicy paprika sauce

Cottage cheese pasta with caramelized bacon

Galuska with creamy eggs and wild garlic

MEAT /MAIN COURSES

Classic fried chicken

Roasted chicken legs with sausage stuffing

Oven-baked goose pilaf

Braised rabbit with sweet & sour creamy vegetable sauce

Stuffed peppers

Stuffed cabbage with light tomato sauce

Stuffed cabbage with gooseberries

Layered potatoes with spicy sausage

Layered Savoy cabbage with spicy bulgur

8-hour crispy pork roast with “Budapest spice rub”

SALADS & PICKLES

Pickled cucumber

Cucumber salad with sour cream, Tomato salad with pickled red onions, Mixed pickles

Sweet & sour, spiced pickled plums

Green salad with bacon vinaigrette

DESSERTS

Basic pancakes

Stacked pancakes with plum jam and toasted walnuts

Cottage cheese dumplings with crispy crumbs

Classic plum dumplings with toasted poppy seeds

Poppy seed bread & butter pudding with orange vanilla sauce

Pan-fried semolina crumbs with roasted vanilla-apricot puree

Cottage cheese mousse with apricots and crispy meringue

Sour cream panna cotta with caramelized vanilla strawberries

Twisted doughnut

CAKES, COOKIES

Ischler cookies with blackcurrant jam and olive oil chocolate glaze

Rustic apricot pie with thyme

Strudel – Walnut and apricot, dill and cottage cheese, caramelized cabbage

Flourless poppy-seed cake

Ferdinánd: Grandma’s sticky raisin rolls

Gerbeaud slices

Flódni – Very rich walnut – poppy-seed – apple pastry

Bejgli – traditional Christmas roll

About some of the basic ingredients

Acknowledgements

Zsófia Mautner is a leading Hungarian foodblogger and food writer. She also hosts a daily TV cooking show on the most watched commercial television channel.  Zsófia is one of the most popular food presenters in Hungary today. Besides her professional qualities, she is also famous for her spectacular career change: she became a fulltime culinary expert after a successful career in diplomacy in Brussels. She started her food blog Chili & Vanilia documenting her passion for cooking and all things gastronomy while living in Brussels. The great success of the blog lead her to leave the world of diplomacy for the love of all things culinary. To date she has written six cookbooks. She lives in Budapest.

FOREWORD

Did you know that Hungarian cooks began using paprika only centuries after the Turkish occupation in the 16th and 17th century?  Can you imagine a Hungarian cookbook without a goulash recipe? You don’t need to. Budapest Bites contains the best one.

In this book my aim is to introduce our contemporary home cooking slightly different from the traditional Hungarian cuisine. Not only have I spent many years in various countries of the world, where I fell in love with the foods and spices of many nations, but I’m also passionately devoted to the amazingly rich culinary heritage of Hungary. Transylvanian and Jewish cuisine, the Turkish influence, the folk recipes of the Great Plain, the traditions that came down to us from the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, the fin-de-siècle middle class and French cooking – they are all part of this inheritance. As you will see, Hungarian cuisine is a genuine multicultural food cavalcade that will offer many surprises far and beyond a dish of goulash. This book is devoted to these surprises. Still, make no mistake – there is nothing but brilliance in a well-made stew.

Among the recipes you’ll find some that are fully traditional, such as the pörkölt or almost old-school such as the crépes stuffed with chicken paprikash, while others show a bit more refinement. For example, the popular Hungarian spread, körözött, is here prepared with the addition of beer, and the dough for plum dumplings has roasted poppy seeds for that extra zap!

Jó Étvágyat!

Zsófia Mautner

HUNGARIAN CUISINE IN TIMES GONE BY

Only a few extant sources document old medieval Hungarian cuisine, and many old cookbooks have been destroyed. Everything we know about Hungarian cooking of this era has been gleaned from a few notes and archaeological findings. In the fifteenth century King Matthias’s Renaissance court was renown throughout Europe. The chefs there came from Italy, bringing with them a few new basic foodstuffs, cheeses and especially a tendency to use more spices.  The Renaissance culture (and dishes) adopted by the legendary King Matthias lived on in the courts of the aristocracy. At the time the use of herbs was common: sage, marjoram, thyme, dill, and rosemary. In the 16th and 17th centuries ginger pepper and saffron were indispensible flavors in Hungarian cuisine. Thanks to the Jesuits, the cultivation and trade of saffron has a long history in Hungary, and even in 1919 a document showed that every housewife grew it in the kitchen garden.

During the 150-year Turkish occupation rice, corn and paprika arrived in Hungary, the latter having until then been used only as a decorative plant. Many foods became common at that time: stuffed cabbage, stuffed peppers and rice dishes. After the Turkish occupation Hungary fell under the rule of the Habsburg Empire and Germanic influences began to be felt in certain cooking techniques. The melting-pot of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy also influenced the diversity of Hungarian cuisine.

In the 18th and 19th centuries, after much persuasion, potatoes became popular among peasants, and tomatoes and white peppers also appeared as new foodstuffs. All three have an important role in everyday Hungarian cooking. It happened at this time that instead of thickening stews with blood or bread, people started to use a mix of sour cream and flour or fried onion and paprika. Nor was Hungarian cuisine untouched by the influences of the increasingly open modern world: Hungarian gastronomy was enriched by German patisserie, French butter and cream dishes, and coffee-house culture. 

A large number of Jews started to arrive in Hungary at the beginning of the 18th century, and they borrowed and mixed the cuisine of the various regions and combined it their own religious rules. Jewish cuisine too became an important part of Hungarian culinary heritage and identity.

During the socialist era Hungarian cuisine became much simplified, with cooks using fewer basic foodstuffs. The range of cooked dishes was significantly limited, and the ‘holy trinity’ of paprika–fat–onion became prevalent. Hungarian cuisine today tries to revive the era prior to this, with its rich culinary heritage; after all, the past is always the best inspiration.

HUNGARIAN CUISINE TODAY:

The Hungarian Culinary Revolution & the Budapest Food Boom

JJust like many other countries, a couple of years ago Hungary also joined the food revolution which has brought dramatic results in the way we think about and prepare food for the table. The avalanche that began in 2007, when hundreds of restaurant owners, chefs, wine makers, producers and food critics signed the Culinary Charter, and which began in luxury restaurants, has now changed the way we make our meals in our own kitchens. Never before have there been as many exciting food events as there are now, or so many new restaurants, bistros, delicatessen shops, farmers’ markets, exceptional bakeries, cafés and butcher shops as there are today.

But you know what? Just come to Budapest and spend a frenzied and inspiring culinary weekend with me. We’ll start with Lajos Bíró, the celebrated Hungarian chef who, with his épater le bourgeois attitude and sense of humor, loves to modernize Hungarian cuisine. (Incidentally, he will serve us the best traditional fish soup.) Next day, at the impressive Great Market Hall (Vásárcsarnok), I’ll introduce you to our typical ingredients, filling our shopping cart with summer squash, parsley root, pickled cucumbers, ewe cheese, cracklings, bacon, cottage cheese, sour cherry and poppy seeds. We’ll have lunch at Rosenstein’s: goose soup with matzo balls, stuffed peppers, and flódni (an apple, walnut, and poppy seed pastry). A glass of pálinka, a classic Hungarian spirit will complement our meal afterwards. In the afternoon we’ll sit down in a good pastry shop or visit one of the popular cafés, where instead of facing hype, we’ll be greeted with a warm welcome of local regulars and a cup of good, aromatic coffee. Summer is all about fröccs (spritzer: a drink consisting of wine and soda water) and lecsó (Hungarian ratatouille). To round off the day, we’ll visit a popular wine bar in the heart of the city. On Sunday morning, we’ll head for the Szimplakert Market, the place that operates as a ruin pub by night, but becomes one of the city’s coziest urban farmers’ markets by the morning. And afterwards we’ll start cooking, making all sorts of things: körözött spread, ice cold pickled cucumber soup, the perfect chicken paprikash, stuffed cabbage with gooseberries, and strudel (we call it rétes) – all of which you can find in this cookbook.

KÖRÖZÖTT WITH BEER AND TOASTED CARAWAY SEEDS

JEWISH CHOPPED EGG WITH ONION

GYPSY STYLE COTTAGE CHEESE SPREAD

POTATO CRESCENT ROLLS WITH OLIVE OIL

SOUR CREAM SCONES WITH PUMPKIN SEEDS

LÁNGOS – FRIED FLATBREAD WITH TOPPINGS

GREEN SALAD WITH SAUSAGE CRUMBLES AND POACHED EGG

KÖRÖZÖTT WITH BEER AND TOASTED CARAWAY SEEDS

Körözött, the emblematic cheese spread of Hungarian cuisine, is known elsewhere as Liptauer. We usually spread it on bread or salty croissants and eat it with green peppers, tomatoes, and spring onions. Some people use it to stuff peppers. Every region, even every family has its own recipe. The basic ingredients are a mixture of soft, creamy sheep’s cheese and cottage cheese. My own version differs from others in three respects – it contains beer, which gives it a fantastic flavor (beer is in almost all the recipes from the 1930s), and I add ground cumin, which is alien to Hungarian cuisine. I also mix in some freshly roasted caraway seeds to give the körözött a fantastic smell and taste. It’s possibly the best körözött in the whole world.

Ingredients

(4-6 servings)

• 250 g soft sheep’s cheese (or sheep’s milk farmer’s cheese)

• 250 g cottage cheese (or farmer’s cheese)

• 2 teaspoons ground paprika

• 1 teaspoon ground cumin

• 1 teaspoon caraway seeds, freshly roasted

• 50 ml beer

• 4 spring onions, cut into rings

• 1 large red onion, finely chopped

• salt, pepper

• For serving: toasted bread

1. Mix the sheep’s cheese and cottage cheese until smooth. (Make sure to squeeze out very gently any extra water from the cottage cheese). If they are at room temperature they are easier to work with.

2. Toast the caraway seeds in a dry pan. Add the seasoning, namely the paprika, the ground cumin and the lightly toasted whole caraway seeds. Loosen up the mixture with the beer, which will give it a fantastic, creamy texture. Mix in the ringed spring onions and the finely chopped red onion. Add salt and pepper to taste.

3. For maximum effect, let the mixture stand for a couple of hours so that the ingredients blend into a mouth-watering spread.

JEWISH CHOPPED EGG WITH ONION

This egg spread is often known as ‘Polish egg’, probably because Hungarian Jews got the recipe from Poland. The secret ingredient which gives the seal of authenticity is goose fat: something which may not be trendy, but which gives the spread a more rounded flavor. Each family has its own recipe, and these often include chicken or even goose liver. Sometimes ground paprika is used, as in our family. The best in Budapest is made in the Rosenstein restaurant, an absolute must – both the restaurant and this spread!

Ingredients

(serves 4–6)

• 6 hard-boiled eggs

• 1 large onion, finely chopped

• 1 teaspoon mustard

• 50 g goose fat

• salt, pepper

• 1 teaspoon paprika

1. Boil the eggs for 8 minutes, until they are hard. Let them cool, and peel off the shells.

2  Grate them into a large bowl, using the large holes of the grater. You could even use a fork, but don’t use a food processor, as this would make eggs too creamy.

3. Add the finely chopped onions, the mustard, the goose fat (which at room temperature will be a bit runny) and the ground paprika. Season with salt and pepper.

4. Refrigerate for a few hours. This is necessary for the flavors to mature.

GYPSY STYLE COTTAGE CHEESE SPREAD

I came across this spread at an event where snacks were made by a team from a Gypsy home restaurant. Naturally there was the iconic flatbread of Gypsy cuisine, known variously in Hungarian as bodag, vakaró or punya, served with pepper stew (lecsó) and this spread. In the original version they sweated the vegetables before mixing them into the cottage cheese but I add them raw. Instead of regular cottage cheese I use a half and half mix with sheep’s cheese. A simple fresh dish just right for spring. Scrumptious on toast.

Ingredients

(serves 4–6)

• 250 g ewe’s cottage cheese

• 250 g cow’s cottage cheese

• 200 ml sour cream

• 4 dessert spoons olive oil

• 2 hard-boiled eggs, finely diced

• 1 Hungarian white or banana pepper, finely diced

• 1 red onion (or spring onion), finely diced

• 1 tomato, finely diced

• salt, pepper

• dill, chives

1. With the ingredients at room temperature, mix together the ewe’s cheese, cow’s cheese, sour cream and olive oil.

2. Add the diced hard-boiled egg, Hungarian white pepper, onion, and tomato. Season with salt and pepper.

3. Finely chop the dill and chives, and mix them in. Refrigerate the mixture for at least 30 minutes. Serve as a spread on bread or toast, or as a dip.