Category — Side dishes

My mum used to make these amazing potato pancakes. She would come home during her lunch break and make lunch for us, so it would be waiting for us when we came home from school. She made sure there was some soup and a main course. By the time we would get home, Mum was back at work, but she always left a note about what she cooked and how much we can have — with three hungry boys she left nothing to chance. I still remember that we could have 5 pancakes each. [Read more →]

Valerian got a funny Slovak cookbook a few years ago, Z Kuchyne starého Prešporka (from the kitchen of old Pressburg) by Peter Ševčovič. Pressburg is the German name for Bratislava, and the book is full of quirky cooking advice from the Bratislava of yesterday, collected from average and not-so-average people, since there are some recipes for living on the street, including how to cook pigeons and alley cats. I’ve skipped right over those to a recipe for a Slovak favorite, even today: vianočka, a kind of sweet braided bread. [Read more →]

My mum used to make this pretty often when I was growing up, mostly because cauliflower is widely available here and it is cheap. The best way to eat cauliflower is to deep fry it and eat it with tartar sauce and fries.  But fake brains is second best thing. It is less caloric and in many ways it’s even good for you. It is also very easy to prepare. I would recommend this to all beginner chefs. [Read more →]

It happens early every summer. The tiny potatoes appear and I start to look for them at the local markets. [Read more →]

Lecsó (or letcho) is an important part of Hungarian cuisine. Summer in the village smells of people making letcho, as the gardens overflow with ripe tomatoes and peppers. Letcho is the basis for plenty of Hungarian meals, including goulash, paprikash, or porkolt. This time of year, people are starting to open the jars of letcho they put up during the summer to have a little taste of sunshine when the days are short. [Read more →]