Christmas Dishes (Part III) - Sült Libacomb burgonyával és párolt káposztával (Roasted Legs of Geese with Potato and Stewed Red Cabbage)

Dear Readers, 

I continue posting the Hungarian Christmas dishes. The following dish takes a long time to prepare, but it is worth to try it. I hope you'll like it. 

Ingredients:
6 pieces of leg of goose (libacomb)

2 teaspoon yellow mustard (mustár)

3-4 dl (10-13 fl oz) cooking oil (főzőolaj)

2 piece of onion (vöröshagyma)

2-3 broth cubes (húsleves kocka)

pepper (bors)

salt (só)

How to become master of the Hungarian kitchen #19

Wash and then salt the legs of goose. After this put them in a bowl and cover it with aluminum foil. Keep the bowl in the fridge for 5 hours. Then marinate the legs with a sauce, which you have already prepared from mustard, cooking oil, and onion. When you are ready with this step pepper them and put the covered bowl to the fridge for a night. Grab a pressure cooker and put the legs of geese in it, then cover them with water. In order to get a more tasteful dish, use 2 or 3 broth cubes. When it boils, cook it for an hour on stage 3. Then let out the steap from the pressure cooker and check if the meat if tender enough. Now separate the legs from its liquor. The legs get in a roast pan and salt them and add the liquor from the pressure cooker to the pan. Roast the geese for one and a half hours. It is important that you should smear the legs with the liquor in every 15 minutes, so they won’t dry. Serve it with potato and stewed red cabbage (see the recipe below). Jó étvágyat!

Ingredients for the Stewed Red Cabbage:

1 red cabbage (piroskáposzta)

black pepper (fekete bors)

cooking oil (főzőolaj)

sugar (cukor)

salt (só)

How to become master of the Hungarian kitchen #20

Wash and then cut the red cabbage. Salt it a little bit and leave it for 10 minutes. During this time caramelize 2-3 tablespoon sugar on cooking oil and when the sugar is melt, add the cabbage (you need to squeeze out the water from the cabbage first). The final step is to add pepper and salt to it, and fry it until it gets a light brown color. 

Christmas Dishes (Part II) - Borsos tokány (Pepperpot)

Dear Readers,

here is the second part of the Christmas dishes. What will be the menu at your house on Christmas Eve? Tell us here or our Facebook page:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/A-Sprinkle-of-Hungary/109330032486033

Ingredients:

1 kg (2,2 lb) sliced leg of pork (csíkokra vágott sertéscomb) 

150 ml (5 fl oz) cooking oil (főzőolaj)

1 big onion (vöröshagyma)

25 dkg (8,8 oz) fresh green pea (zöldborsó)

6 pieces of pickling cucumber cut in four (ecetes csemege uborka)

4 pair of frankfurt sausage (virsli)

2 dl (6,7 fl oz) sour cream (tejföl)

2 tablespoon flour (liszt)

parsley (petrezselyem)

pepper (bors)

salt (só)

How to become master of the Hungarian kitchen #18

As usually a Hungarian cooking process starts cut the onion into little pieces and fry it in cooking oil. When the onion is nice light brown add the sliced leg of pork to it. Stir the pork for two or three minutes and then cover the meat with water. Add a little pepper and salt to it. I suggest you not to use too much of them. When the pork’s color is pinkish-brownish, it means that it is half cooked. Now add the green peas and the pickling cucumber which you have cut in four pieces. Before the leg of the pork is fully cooked, put the frankfurter in the pot and stir them together. In another bowl mix the sour cream, the flour, the parsley, and a little wate, so the dollop won’t be lumpy. Add this dollop to the pork and cook it for two more minutes. The ingredients always have to be covered by water, but you don’t need to use too much water. Serve this meal with pasta or rice. Jó étvágyat!

Notes from the writer:

The ingredients always have to be covered by water, so the meat won't dry out. Also, you can put a few real hot Hungarian paprika in it, so your meal will be more delicious. You can use hot dog sausages for this dish if you would like to. 

Christmas Dishes (Part I) - Hagymás rostélyos (Roasted Beef with Onion)

Dear Readers,

it's time to think about your Christmas menu. In my family it is usually not a question what kind of dishes we will prepare for Christmas Eve. In the next few weeks I would like to show you a few of our favorites, and I hope that maybe you will try one of them and send me a picture about it! I will show you easier and more difficult specialties that are time consuming but it is worth to taste. Also, I would like to try a foreign country's Christmas specialty, so if you have  a good recipe, please share it. The first on the list will be 'Roasted Beef with Onion'. Here comes the recipe:

Ingredients

80 dkg (1,76 lb) leg of beef (marharostélyos) 

3 big onions (hagyma)

cooking oil (főzőolaj)
flour (liszt)

1 clove of garlic (fokhagyma)
ground cumin (őrölt kömény)
yellow mustard  (mustár)

marjoram (majoránna)

salt (só)

How to become master of the Hungarian kitchen #17

Our first step is to souse the leg of beef slices with crushed garlic, yellow mustard, and cooking oil the day before the cooking. Then put one chopped up onion, ground cumin, and marjoram in frying pan. Now roast the pork until it does not get tender and nice red. 

If this is ready, cut 2 onions into pieces and mix it with a little flour after fry it in cooking oil. Please poor off the onion when it is already nice brown. Put the roasted beef on a plate and then the fried onion on it. Serve this amazing dish with mashed potato and pickles. Jó étvágyat!

Stuffed Pepper

Ingredients

1 egg (tojás)

1 onion (hagyma)

8 dkg (3 oz) rice (rizs)

3 tablespoon of flour (liszt)

1 teaspoon of sugar (kristálycukor)

1 tablespoon of cooking oil (főzőolaj)

ground red pepper (pirospaprika por)

8 medium sized yellow pepper 

40 dkg (14,1 oz) ground pork or turkey (darálthús)

1 l (33,8 fl oz) tomato juice (paradicsomlé)

How to become master of the Hungarian kitchen #16

Cut the onion into little pieces. Put a little cooking oil in a frying pan and fry the onion. When the onion is soft enough, put the ground meat, rice, egg, and the fried onion in a bowl. Add a little bit of salt and pepper to them. Now, mix the ingredients in the bowl together. Take out the seeds from the medium sized yellow peppers, and fill the middle of the peppers with the dollop, but don’t use too much of the dollop, only a little. In the middle of the dollop stick the haft of a wooden spoon, so the rice will have enough space to get bigger. Boil the tomato juice with the salt and the sugar; put the peppers in a pan, and cook it till the peppers get soft. Heat up one tablespoon of cooking oil, and put the flour in it, then caramelize it. When this step is ready, add the ground red pepper to the flour and slowly start adding this mixture to the pepper while you are stirring it.  The last thing to do is to boil the stuffed peppers before you serve them with a slice of bread or mashed potato. Jó étvágyat!

Palacsinta (Hungarian pancake)

Dear Readers, 

After a really hard school year I needed to relax a bit, so I haven't been writing my blog for a while. For those of you, who looked for new recipes every week, I am sorry! But now I am back and I'll continue my blog. I was in the United States at my relatives for a couple of weeks, where I was surprised at the Hungarian ingredients they have there. I'm glad that you are able to find everything you need for the Hungarian specialities in most of the cases.

Just before I left to the airport I was invited to an amazing American style breakfast. What does American style mean? For me it consists of the traditional American pancake and monkey bread. Well, today's recipe was inspired by this breakfast. As most of you probably know the Hungarian pancake is very thin, and there is almost nothing in common with its American sibling. Here is the recipe for the Hungarian pancake, which is very easy to prepare: 

Ingredients (for 12 pieces)

15 dkg (5,3 oz/0,5 cup) flour (liszt)

1 egg (tojás)

3 dl (14,14 fl oz) milk (tej)

1 dl (0,4 fl oz) mineral water (szódavíz) 

a pinch salt (egy csipet só)

cooking oil (főzőolaj)

How to become a master of the Hungarian kitchen #15

In a big bowl put the half of the milk, a pinch of salt, flour, and the eggs. Now please mix them together. After this step, slowly add the mineral water to the ingredients and stir them until it doesn't become smooth. If you think that the mixture is not smooth enough, add more mineral water or milk to it. The next step is to warm a frying pan up and put a little cooking oil on the surface. Here is how we prepare our pancake at home:

As you can see the Hungarian pancake is very thin. You can put many things in the middle then roll the pancake. Jó étvágyat!

Notes from the writer:

Here are some tips what you can put in a Hungarian pancake: curd cheese with sugar and raisin, jelly, sliced banana or strawberry, even ice cream, etc. In my next blog post, I will write the traditional pancake from the Hortobágy, which contains meat and is a very filling meal. 

Lángos

Dear Readers,

Today's recipe was inspired by this nice weather we have in Hungary right now. Okay, it's not as warm as it should be but the sun reminds me of the summer which is coming. If summer then Lángos. If Lángos then beach and Lake Balaton. It is a typical Hungarian dish that we eat during summer time. It's very easy to prepare, so you won't need to go to the beach in order to taste this amazing food. Here comes the recipe:

Ingredients

50 dkg (17,64 oz) flour (liszt)  

3 dkg (1,06 oz) yeast (élesztő)

2 dl (6,77 fl oz) milk (tej)

2 tablespoon of cooking oil (olaj)

a pinch sugar (cukor)

1,5 dl (5,07 fl oz) water (víz)

salt (só)

How to become master of the Hungarian kitchen #14

Please chill the milk and the water a little bit. Put a pinch of sugar in a bowl and then add the crushed yeast to it with 1 dl (3,4 fl oz) milk. Cover the bowl with a lid and wait till the milk does not run up. 

Mix the flour with a little salt (add salt to taste) in a bowl. In the middle of the flour please create a little hole and then put the two tablespoon of cooking oil, the ran up yeast, 1 dl (3,4 gl oz) milk, and a smack of warmish water. Start to slowly mix up these ingredients and then add the warmish water to it bit by bit in order not to get thin pasta. When the pasta is meanly thin, put it into a big bowl, and leaven it for half an hour. Now, please smear a tray with a little cooking oil, then with oil on your hands tear 7-8 cm (2,76 - 3,15 inch) big pieces from the pasta and put them on the tray. Cover them with a kitchen-cloth and leaven it for a while. When your pieces are big enough, you can start baking them.

Put a little cooking oil in a frying pan, and then chill it. Please shape nice pieces (as big as you would like to) with oily hands and put them to the warm cooking oil. Bake both sides (they should have a nice brown color), then drip it. Serve it on a plate with a pinch of salt on the top; smear it with sour cream and then grate cheese on the top. Jó étvágyat!  

Notes from the writer:

In my opinion, lángos is the most tasty when you smear it with garlic, too. In Hungarian beaches, you can choose what flavoring you would like on you lángos. Attention: you can't stop eating it! :)

Tejfölös gombapaprikás (Mushroom with Sour Cream and Pepper)

Dear Readers,

Maybe you've recognized that I haven't posted our next recipe on Sunday which I usually do. The reason for this is that in Hungary we have the so called "school leaving ceremony" on the last weekend of April and I was invited to attend a ceremony. As we are Hungarians and we like to celebrate every special event with food, I was able to visit two different restaurants with very different dishes. Both of them were great, I have to say. Among others I ate lecsó which was put on chicken breast and tejölös gombapaprikás with pork. I thought that I'm going to share the recipe for the tejfölös gombapaprikás with you. Here we go:

Ingredients

50 dkg (17,64 oz) mushroom (gomba)

1 onion (hagyma)

cooking oil (főzőolaj)

ground red pepper  (pirospaprika por)

a half of a green pepper (zöldpaprika)

1 tomato (paradicsom)

0,5 dl (1,7 fl oz) sour cream (tejföl)

flour (liszt)

salt (só)

How to become master of the Hungarian kitchen # 13

First of all, cut the onion and the mushroom into pieces (it should be medium sized). Put 0,5 dl (1,7 fl oz) cooking oil in a pan and fry the onion. When the onion looks soft, add the mushroom and one coffee-spoon ground red pepper to it. Now add 0,5 dl (1,7 fl oz) water and a little salt. Cover the pan with a lid and stew the mushroom until it gets soft. If you feel that this step is ready then add 1 coffee-spoon flour and mix it with the mushroom. The next step is the sour cream (0,5dl - 1,7 fl oz), which you mix with the gravy. Our last, but not least, job is to add 1,5 dl (5,07 fl oz) water to the mushroom, but it depends on you how thick you like it to be. Boil the ingredients together while you are stirring the gravy. How do you now that your first tejfölös gombaparikás is ready? When the surface turns clear then you can start eating it. Jó étvágyat!

Notes from the writer

Most of the Hungarians I have met so far served this dish with noodles (see the recipe at Paprikás csirke), but it's also tasty with rice. It is important to notice that this dish can't be stored in a fridge for days, because it deteriorates very easily.