Little Hungarian Recipe Book

The most well-known Hungarian dishes

Beef goulash

Ingredients: 60 dkg beef leg, 40 dkg potatoe, 1 carrot, 1 turnip, 1 smaller celery, 1 medium sized onion, 1 green pepper, 1 tomato, 1 bunch of parsley, 1 or 2 celery leaves, 1 box of pritamine pepper, 1 tablespoon cooking oil, 1 egg, 10 dkg flour, salt, ground paprika, pepper, caraway, thyme, 1 beef soup cube, 1 dl dry red wine.

Cut the meat into 2x2cm cubes and simmer on cooking oil with finely cut onion, green pepper, tomato, 1 tablespoon of paprika and a little water until it becomes soft. Then add 2 litres of water. Put the vegetables cut into small pieces, the soup cube, pritamine pepper, wine, one teaspoon of salt and a knife’s tip of spices into it. Cook it until the meat is tender. Then add the potatoes peeled and cut into cubes. From flour, a little salt, water and an egg, make pasta and pinch little bits of it by hand. Put them into the soup together with the potatoes. After ten minutes, put the finely cut parsley into it. If the soup’s colour is not red enough, put ground paprika and if necessary, also salt in it.
Serving: in a soup-plate, with fresh white bread and dry red wine.

Bean goulash

Ingredients (for 4 to 5 people):

• 30 dkg field beans
• 1 purple onion
• 8-10 dkg smoked bacon
• flour
• paprika
• ground pepper
  
• salt
  
• smoked knuckle of ham or spicy frankfurter

Preparation:
Cut the bacon into small cubes, fry out the fat and in it slowly sauté the onion cut into small pieces.
When the onion starts to turn brown, sieve one or two tablespoons of flour on it and sauté it for another 1 or 2 minutes while constantly stirring.
Put a teaspoon of paprika into it and mix it with the beans.
Add about 2.5 litres of water and put the frankfurter into it or the smoked knuckle of ham cut into pieces.
Pour pepper on it or salt (be careful, the ham is also salty) and cook it on low flame under a lid until it is soft.  

Beef stew

It is best with the edge of sirloin or the beef leg. Cut half an onion per person into pieces and ‘wither’ the onion in hot oil. Cut the meat into cubes, salt it and add to the onion. Fry it until it loses its raw red colour. Then add a teaspoon of paprika and a little hot water, then simmer it under a lid until it is tender. While it is getting soft, add some more water. In the meantime, if you have fresh tomatoes and green pepper, remove the seeds, cut them into slices and add some to the stew. In winter you can use tomato purée as well. Serve it with farfel or salted potatoes.

Paprika chicken

Ingredients:

• 4 legs of chicken
• 2 large purple onions
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 1 tablespoon paprika
• 2 dl sour cream

Preparation:
Put some oil in a larger bowl and put it on the stove. When it is hot enough, simmer the onion in it. Pour 1 spoonful of paprika into it, stir it for 3 to 5 seconds, then add 1 or 2 dl of water so that the paprika will not get bitter. Put salt and the chicken legs into it and cook it under a lid on slow or medium flame until it is ready. Remove the legs and mix the remaining oil and add sour cream to the thick sauce. Do not leave too much water on the dish because it will be too diluted.

Roasted pork chops Brashov style

Ingredients for 4 people: 40 dkg fatty pork (shoulder part), 80 dkg potatoes (always the double of the meat), 1 or 2 onions, garlic, ground pepper, salt, ground paprika, marjoram
Preparation: cut the meat and the potatoes into 3 cm large cubes. Pre-cook the potatoes in salted water (until the water starts boiling). Strain it and fry crispy in ample oil. This is necessary because the outer part of potatoes gets a bit soft during pre-cooking and then forms a crusty layer. This will prevent the potatoes to get soaked in the meat gravy. Prepare the meat as in case of any stew, however, this dish has a peppery character, so instead of paprika we use pepper. ‘Wither’ the finely cut onions with a little garlic in oil. Add water until it covers the meat, then add salt and pepper. You may add a little ground paprika and marjoram. When the meat is tender and its juice is boiled away (so that the potatoes will not be soaked), mix the two and serve them as such.

Transylvanian cabbage:

• 40 dkg lean pork
  
• 80 dkg sour cabbage
  
• 2 tablespoon cooking-oil
  
• 2 dl sour cream
  
• salt, pepper, purple onion

Prepare traditional stew from the pork (see ‘beef stew’ above). When it starts getting soft, add sour cabbage and cook them until ready.
When served, pour some sour cream on it if you like it.

Bean soup Jókai style

     
Bean soup Jókai style has been named after Mór Jókai who was a lover of this splendid dish.
By these days it has become a very popular meal: for example, a competition was organized in Balatonfüred in 2005 where the major task was to cook bean soup Jókai style, on the 180th anniversary of the birth of our great writer.

Ingredients: 1 smoked knuckle of ham, 10 dkg carrots, 10 dkg parsley root, 5 dkg celery, salt, 5 dkg lard, 15 dkg dried beans, 14 dkg flour, 5 dkg purple onions, 2 cloves of garlic, 1 dkg paprika, 2 dl sour cream, 2 pairs of frankfurter, 1 egg, half a bunch parsley.

Put the clean knuckle of ham and the dried beans (that you put into water beforehand) into cold water and start cooking it. When the ham and the beans start getting soft, put vegetables into the soup. When the ham and the vegetables are tender, take them out. Prepare a Hungarian style roux with purple onion, lard and paprika. Thicken the soup, cut the vegetables and the knuckle of ham into 1 cm cubes, put them back to the soup and add some sour cream. Cut a gash lengthwise on the frankfurter and make incisions on the untouched part of the frankfurter, then fry it in a little lard.

Serve the soup in a soup-plate, with sour cream, finely cut parsley and the frankfurter on the top.

Spit-roasted pork cutlets

Ingredients:
Bacon slices, pork chops, spice mixture for roasts, garlic, purple onion, fresh green pepper, tomato.

Preparation:
Fry the bacon slices, then fry the tenderized pork chops on the remaining lard. Pour spice mixture on the meat (you can also make your mixture from ground cumin, garlic, salt and paprika) and lard it with garlic. Add purple onion rings, green pepper rings and tomato slices, then sauté them. Sauté the boiled potatoes cut into pieces on the remaining bacon lard (or cooking-oil) and serve it with the meat.

Steak and onions

Ingredients:

• meat (60 dkg)
• salt
• flour
• cooking-oil
• onion

Preparation:

Cut the meat into pieces, tenderize them, incise the edges and salt them. Leave it untouched for half an hour. Roll it in flour, then fry it. Put onion rings fried crispy on hot oil on top. Serve with potatoes. It is excellent with leavened cucumber.

Chicken soup Újház style

Ingredients:
For 6 people: 1 chicken, 250 g carrot, 200 g turnip, 100 g celery, 1 purple onion, 2 cloves of garlic, 100 g mushroom, 1 green pepper, 1 tomato, parsley, 100 g cauliflower, 100 g green peas, 100 g vermicelli, whole pepper, salt.
Preparation:
Put the clean chicken into 2000 ml cold water and start cooking. When it starts boiling, remove the foam and cook it on low flames. Put the vegetables, celery, purple onion, garlic, mushrooms, cauliflower, green pepper, tomato and the parsley into it. Season it with salt and whole pepper. When the meat and the vegetables are soft, take the soup off from the stove and let it rest for a few minutes, then strain it through a fine strainer. Cut the vegetables and the mushrooms into slices of the same size. Cook the green peas in a little soup until it is soft. In a separate bowl, cook also the vermicelli in soup. Cut the chicken into pieces and put them into a tureen. Place the vegetables, cauliflower, green peas, mushrooms and the vermicelli onto the meat. Scoop boiling hot chicken soup on it and put finely cut parsley on top. (Usually we serve it with pickled horse-radish, cucumber sauce or tomato sauce in a separate bowl.)

Strudel

Strudel has a long history in Hungary. It is prepared on holidays and for family get-togethers. Today anybody can make strudel from ready made strudel dough, however, our grandmothers kneaded and rolled it out by hand. We indulge in nostalgia when we think of it. Due to the difficulty of its preparation, a kind of mysticism surrounds this dish. Anyway, it is extremely delicious. I remember my grandma’s and aunt’s home-made strudels. You can put a whole range of filling into the strudel, however, traditional Hungarian strudels are filled with sweet poppy-seed, sweet cottage cheese, apples, sour cherries or cabbage. Here comes the recipe of Ilona Horváth, the author of one of the most famous cookery books dealing with traditional dishes:

Put 50 dkg flour into a bowl, add a little grease to it and ‘carve’ a hole in the middle, then with 4 to 4.5 dl lukewarm salted water knead the dough. Work on it on a paste-board for about 15 minutes until it is smooth and flexible. Divide it into 2 loafs in a way that there will be wrinkles neither on top nor at the bottom of it. Spread lukewarm butter on the top and cover both with a pre-heated pot. Let it rest for 15 to 20 minutes.
Cover a table with a table-cloth, pour flour on it, put the dough in the middle and with the help of a rolling-pin roll it out to make it square or rectangular. Then spread butter on it and start rolling it out on all sides with the back of your hand. If you do it with your palm or fingers, it might get torn easily.
Do it around the table until you reach the edges of the table and the dough could be further rolled. Strudel dough must be thin as some membrane. Rolling it around your hands, remove the dough, knead it with a few drops of water, let it rest and roll it out again. Let the stretched dough dry a bit, then spread a little hot butter on it evenly. Turn up the edges hanging down with the help of the table-cloth. Spread butter also on the edges turned up.
Filling: spread breadcrumbs on one-third of the dough and add the filling. Do not add too much filling. Raising the edges of the table-cloth, roll up the dough, rather loosely and flat than tight. Cut it into parts in the length of the baking dish, spread butter on the top and place them into a greased baking dish. Bake it on medium flame until it is red.