Hungarian cuisine
What is different about Hungarian cooking?
Soups
Gulyásleves (Gulyás Soup)
Hungary is known for its exotic, tasty and spicy food and delicious wine.
What is different about Hungarian cooking? In general, the preference is for rich andspicy sauces, stews and sweets over rather "drier" dishes. In particular, the liberal use of a few special ingredients which give it its own inimitable and original flavour. These are first of all red
pepper, fresh green peppers and tomatoes, sour cream and lard. The use of lard or goose-fat instead of other forms of fat for cooking is traditional and certainly typical but nowadays more and more Hungarians are worried about the cholesterol content of lard, so often other fats are substituted The most well-known specialities of the Hungarian cuisine such as goulash soup, or "Gulyásleves", the different varieties of stew or "pörkölt" etc. are red with paprika. It should be noted that dishes flavoured with paprika need not be hot. In fact, some of the finest brands of paprika are not strong at all. Fresh green peppers and tomatoes are also frequently used to flavour these dishes, the essence of which is the same: braise any kind of meat in lard/oil with onions, and season it richly with red pepper.
Sour Cream is an essential ingredient in many Hungarian dishes too. It is a basic ingredient of "paprikash" (any kind of meat. or just plain potatoes prepared in paprika sauce, to which sour cream has been added). as well as in many Hungarian vegetable dishes and casserole stews.
The use of pastas for desserts like noodles with cottage-cheese, or "túróscsusza", egg squares with fried cabbage, or "káposztáskocka" etc. — especially as sweets with sugared nuts, poppy seeds, fruit jellies or jam — is probably peculiar to Hungary.
A real Hungarian speciality, strudel, or "rétes" is a firm favourite even with people who don't like pastry or sweets as a rule. It is no wonder, because its dominant flavour is given by the various fillings, savoury or sweet, while the pastry itself — light and crispy — only underlines their delicacy. For filling there are used fresh fruits such as apples and cherries, cottage cheese, cabbage, rice as well as poppy seeds.
Soups
GIngredients: 1 1/2 oz. lard · 2 medium-sized onions · 1 tbs. paprika · 2 lb. beef
(thick flank and fillet ends) · 1/2 raw grated potato · 1 tbs. tomato purée · 4 1/2
pints bone and vegetable stock ·1/2 tsp. caraway seeds · 1 lb. potatoes · 1
green pepper.
For csipetke: 6 oz. flour ·1 egg · pinch of salt.
Fry finely chopped onions in lard to a golden color, add paprika. the beef cut
into walnut-sized cubes, caraway seeds and the grated raw potato. Cover and
simmer for about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add tomato purée. half
cupful of stock: simmer till meat is nearly done. Then add the remainder of
stock, bring to the boil, add potatoes cut in small cubes. If available add some sliced green pepper to the gulyás; in my opinion
it gives the finishing touch to an excellent dish.
Csipetke. Genuine Hungarian Gulyás Soup is garnished with csipetke. Make them as follows: sift flour into a bowl, add egg
and salt. Knead ingredients into a stiff dough. Flatten between your palms and pinch into small, bean-sized pieces, add to the
gulyás and boil slowly for 10 minutes before serving.
Tiszai halászlé (Tisza Style Fish Soup)
Ingredients: 1 lb. fresh-water small fish · 2-2 1/2 lb. carp (or sheat-fish or pike-perch) ·1 large onion · 1 tbs. paprika · 1 green papper · 1 tomato
Hungarian style fish soup, or "halászlé", prepared in various ways from region to region.
Wherever it is made the basic secret is said to be the same: a stock is cooked from many
small bodied fish of different flavor, which is then strained and in which the meat of "nobler"
fish (carp, sheat-fish etc.) is cooked.
Clean fishes. Cut carp into even, finger-thick slices. Salt and put slices aside in a porcelain
dish. Put the fishes with the head and tail of carp into a bowl and add finely chopped
onions. Cover these with water and cook slowly about 1 hour. Strain liquid through a fine
strainer and add 2 pints cold water. Bring it to the boil and add red pepper, peeled and
chopped tomatoes and green paprika, salted carp slices. Cook slowly under lid for 10-15
minutes, shaking the saucepan every now and then. Do not stir.
Meggyleves (Morello Cherry Soup)
Ingredients: 1 1/2 lb. morello cherries · 3 pints water · 2 gills sour cream · 1/2 pint dry red wine · 1 egg yolk · 6 oz. sugar · the peel of half a lemon ·1 inch-sized piece of cinnamon · 2 tsp. flour · pinch of salt.
Stone the morello cherries, then put them to cook together with sugar, salt, lemon peel, and cinnamon. Allow to simmer. Meantime, mix in a bowl the flour. egg yolk and 1 gill of sour cream. Mix with a ladleful of soup, then add to the boiling soup stirring constantly. Finally, mix wine and other half of sour cream. and add this to the soup as well. After 10 minutes of simmering put soup aside and let it cool. Take lemon peel and cinnamon out before cooling. This soup is excellent when chilled. It can be made from gooseberries, black-berries, raspberries or red currants as well.
Meat dishes
Borjúpörkölt (Veal Stew)
Ingredients: 2 lb. boned knuckle of veal · 2 large onions · 4 oz. lard · 1 tbs. paprika ·1 green pepper ·1 tomato · 1 tsp. salt.
Cut meat into 2-inch cubes. Chop onions finely. Heat the lard in a saucepan. add chopped onions, fry till golden. Add paprika, meat and salt. Cover and allow to simmer slowly, adding a little water every now and then. After 1/2 hour add tomato and green pepper cut in four. When meat is tender, remove pepper and tomato skins from the gravy. Serve pörkölt in a deep round dish, garnished with boiled potatoes or galushka (midget dumplings)
Töltöttkáposzta (Stuffed Cabbage)
Ingredients:
For the stuffing: 1 1/2 lb. shoulder or best end of pork. ·2 oz. streaky bacon. ·
1 egg. · 2 oz. cooked rice. ·1 oz. lard ·1 small onion. · pinch of salt · pinch of
ground black pepper.
For the stew: 1 lb. sauerkraut · 6 large sour or fresh cabbage leaves · 2 oz.
lard · 2 tbs. flour ·1 tsp. paprika · 1 gill sour cream
Cut cabbage leaves in two, trimming of the thick vein in the middle. Mince the
meat together with the bacon. Heat lard in small saucepan, add finely
chopped onion and fry till golden-yellow. Pour it over the minced meat. then add cooked rice, 1 egg, salt and pepper. Knead
mixture well together. spoon even heaps onto the cabbage leaves. Roll them up. push the edges of leaves in at both ends. Put
the sauerkraut into a large saucepan, add 1/2 pint water, bring to the boil. Arrange the stuffed cabbage leaves on top, cover
and simmer slowly for 1 hour. Remove stuffed cabbage leaves from top into a deep dish but keep them hot under cover. Heat
2 oz. lard in a small saucepan. add flour and fry till golden- brown, then add this roux into the sauerkraut. Stir well, bring to the
boil, add sour cream and boil briskly for 5 minutes. Spoon sauerkraut and gravy over stuffed cabbage leaves and serve hot. In
Hungary garnish is not served with stuffed cabbage.
Pasta & Sweets
Túróscsusza (Noodles with Cottage-cheese)
Ingredients:1/2 lb. noodles · 7 oz. cottage-cheese ·1 tsp. finely chopped fresh or dried dill · 2 oz. fat bacon ·1 1/2 gills sour cream
Cook noodles in plenty of salt water. Cut bacon into small cubes meantime, and fry on low heat till crisp. Lift out bacon, put aside. Drain the cooked noodle. then put into the bacon-fat in the saucepan. Lower heat under saucepan then add sour cream. Stir, pull aside and add the crumbled cottage-cheese and chopped dill. Put immediately into a hot dish. sprinkle the chopped, fried bacon on top and serve.
Diós bukta (Walnut Roll)
Ingredients: l lb. flour ·1/2 lb. butter ·2 egg yolks · l whole egg · 4 oz. castor sugar
· 1/4 cup milk ·1 oz. yeast · about l/2 gill sour cream · pinch of salt
For the filling:1 lb. ground walnuts · 3/4 lb. granulated sugar ·7 oz. sultanas · a
good pinch of ground cinnamon · 1/2 stick of vanilla
Put in a cup a spoonful of sugar. crumbled yeast and 1/4 cup milk. Leave to rise.
Put the flour in a bowl, rub butter lightly into the flour till mixture is crumbly. Add
egg yolks, sugar, the risen yeast and enough sour cream to make a not too soft
dough. Knead thoroughly, then cover with cloth and let dough stand for at lest 3 hours. After this time turn out onto a floured
pastry-board: divide in two, shaping a ball of each part. Roll dough-balls out to 1/3-inch thickness, spread generously with the
filling and roll up neatly. Place rolls into a very lightly greased oblong baking tin, brush top with egg, leave to rise 1/2 hour
longer. Then brush the top of the again with egg, and bake in a medium oven for 20-30 minutes.
Filling: Put the sugar into a saucepan together with 2 tbs. water. Stirring constantly. add ground walnuts as soon as sugar is
melted. After 5 minutes add flavourings, put aside to cool. then stir till creamy, and use.
Hungarian Wine 
Hungary is a land of delicious wine. The most famous Hungarian wine is the world renowned Tokaji Aszú, known as the "King of wines and the wine of kings". Tokaji (Tokay) is undoubtedly the most splendid drink produced in Hungary but the red wines which comes from vicinity of Eger are no less reputable: Egri Bikavér and Medoc Noir. Hungary also produces lovely muscatels, rieslings such as the white wines of the Balaton region: Badacsony Riesling, Kéknyelû, Szürkebarát.