This is the kind of thing you throw together when your fruit trees are producing more than you can manage, or if you’ve gone a little crazy at the farmers’ market. Back in Slovakia we have an orchard of nearly 30 little fruit trees, but here in California we have just one rather bedraggled nectarine tree. It miraculously produced about 8 or 10 nectarines,

but then something took a single bite out of most of them, leaving only  a few untouched. Sigh. It’s  funny that here in the suburbs we have more trouble with wildlife than we did in the wide open spaces of Central Europe.

ANYWAY. Pair a not-too-sweet cake with your favorite fruit and you’ve got bublanina, a Czechoslovak summer classic (although I’ve been known to make it with canned fruit for a taste of sunshine any time). This is a very simple recipe, and infinitely flexible – try adding a little lemon zest, or a swirl of jam, or anything that takes your fancy.

Print recipe

Bublanina – fruity snack cake

Almost any kind of soft fruit works here; we usually stick with stone fruit such as plums, peaches, or cherries; berries also work, although they will kind of melt into the cake. Apples and pears may not cook through in the short time it takes to bake the cake itself. I like to sprinkle a couple teaspoons of demerara or other coarse sugar over the top before baking for a little crunch.

Ingredients

Makes one 9×13″ rectangular cake, or two 8″ rounds

• 6 Tbs/85 g butter
• 1 rounded cup sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 2½ C flour
• ¾ tsp baking soda
• ½ tsp salt
• 1 cup buttermilk
• About 1 cup fruit, cut into chunks

Method

• Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F/180 C. Grease and flour a 9×13″ pan and set it aside.
• Cream the butter and sugar in a large bowl until light. Add the eggs one at a time, then the vanilla, and beat until fluffly, about 2 minutes.
• Stir together the flour, baking soda, and salt in a small bowl. Add the flour mixture alternately with the buttermilk, mixing gently until just combined. Don’t overmix or the cake will be tough – the batter will be quite stiff and doughy.
• Gently spread the batter into the prepared pan, and then press the fruit into the surface. Be generous, the batter expands quite a lot so you can use more fruit than you think.
• Bake for 30 minutes or until golden brown and the top springs back when touched. Slice and serve.

I had a great day in Sonoma tasting some wine. I specifically went to try out the Cline cellars, since I was very excited about trying their wine; I had it for the first time on the way to California on the BA flight. I love the idea of grapes grown on 100 year-old vines. The yield is low but very mature and sophisticated. I am a big fan of Cline and their Ancient Wines line. With a little luck you can get these wines from under $10, which is my comfortable price limit for a bottle of wine. After the tasting at their cellars, I could not come home empty handed, and I decided to share this gem with my family. Since good wine must be accompanied by good food, I decided to make a Czech classic: roasted duck with red cabbage and Czech dumplings.

This Czech meal consist of three separate segments. You have to roast the duck, make the cabbage and the dumplings. It is a bit more labor intensive, but again remember that a good wine must be accompanied by a good meal.  I’ll post them as separate segments because the cabbage and the dumplings are often used with other meals and later I might refer to these recipes.

Print recipe

Roasted Duck

For this recipe I used duck legs. For bigger parties or hungry individuals, you can count on 2 legs per person, for a lighter meal go with 1 duck leg per person. You can use other parts of the duck if you wish. The amount of apples and pears depends on the amount of duck you are going to roast. I use fruit in order to achieve light fruity tones and preventing the meat from drying out.

Ingredients

• firm apples, such as Braeburns
• pears, any variety
• red wine
• salt
• water
• duck legs
• caraway seeds

Method

• Slice the apple and pear and lay them directly on the roasting pan. Add few cups of red wine or water. The liquid should barely cover the fruit.
• Salt the duck legs on both side, place the legs on the fruit bed and sprinkle them generously with caraway seeds.
• Preheat the oven to 340F, cover the roasting pan with foil and bake until the meat is soft (2 -2.5 hours).
• When the meat can be easily pierced with a fork, remove the foil and broil until the skin is nice and crispy.

Red Cabbage

While the duck roasts you can do the red cabbage. This is a special cabbage used with few Czech recipes and you can use the leftovers in many good ways, as a side dish, in sandwiches.

Ingredients

• 1 medium red cabbage (1.5-2pounds)
• 1 big onion
• 1 bay leaf
• 3tbs vegetable oil
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 1 orange
• 3 cups of red wine
• 1tsp caraway seeds
• 1/2 tsp salt

Method

• Slice the cabbage into thin ribbons, removing the hard bits and nibbling on them while you salt the cabbage and let it rest for 30 minutes.
• Chop the onions.
• Heat the oil in large pot and add the onions together with the bay leaf. When onions become translucent, add the sugar and caramelize it.
• Add the caraway seeds and 10 seconds later add the red wine and the juice of one orange.
• Bring the mixture to boil and add the cabbage. Cook the cabbage on medium temperature until soft.
• When cabbage is soft add the vinegar and season with extra salt (1/2tsp maybe).

Steamed dumplings – knedliky

The Czech knedliky or “steamed bread” is a real Czech classic. It is served with variety of foods, especially with sauce. This is a simple knedliky recipe; unfortunatelly they are great only on the first day. After that they lose their freshness rapidly, so try to use them right away. You will need a steamer to make these (obviously), one with a flat bottom is the best.

Ingredients

• 1tsp sugar
• 1tsp yeast
• 3½ cups flour
• 2 eggs
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 1 cup of milk
• ½ cup lukewarm water

Method

• Make a sponge: mix the lukewarm water, sugar and yeast and leave until bubbly, about ten minutes.
• Mix the flour with salt, add the sponge, eggs, and 2/3 cup of milk (if necessary keep adding more milk).
• Let it raise for 30 min, then punch it down.
• Let it raise again until doubled.
• Prepare the steamer: put a few inches of water in a large pot, and lightly oil the steamer basket. Bring the water to a boil.
• Shape little oval loafs and put them in the steamer basket. Steam them for 10-12 minutes until they are resilient and have a firm outer skin.
• Let them cool and cut them into slices just before you serve them.

It’s Carnival season around these parts – before Lent the shops are decorated, kids’ costumes are on the racks, and doughnuts – sišky, fánk, or vdolky, depending on where you are – seem to be frying up everywhere you turn. I’m not complaining, or maybe I am, because it’s hard to get enough exercise in the winter to work off those deep-fried treats; anyway, a warm sugary puff is a pretty delicious way to beat the snowbound blues.

While I was researching recipes, I found most of them call for filling the doughnuts with jam after you fry them, using a piping tool. That was definitely more trouble than I’m willing to go to these days, but I remembered seeing a method for filling doughnuts before frying. It was an unlikely source – a Martha Stewart recipe for Hanukkah sufganiyot – but it was effective.

A couple of the doughnuts puffed up around the seal, but none of them leaked any of their fillings of jam or nougat (like Nutella). Success!

Print recipe

Filled doughnuts

Ingredients

Makes about 12 doughnuts

• 1 cup/240 ml milk
• 2 oz/28 grams butter
• 3½ –3¾ cups/400-420 grams flour
• 1 packet instant yeast
• 1/3 cup/60 grams sugar
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 2 eggs, separated
• ½ cup jam and/or nougat (or even frosting) for the filling
• Additional sugar to roll the doughnuts in

Method

• Heat the milk and butter together in a small pan until just below boiling. Set aside and allow to cool to lukewarm.
• In a large bowl, stir together 3½ cups flour, yeast, 1/3 cup sugar, and salt. When milk mixture has cooled, add it to the dry ingredients along with the egg yolks (reserving the whites for later). Mix to form a soft dough, then turn it out onto a floured surface and knead until the dough is smooth and still a bit sticky, adding more flour a tablespoon at a time if it’s very sticky. Place the dough in a clean bowl, cover, and leave in a warm place to rise for 2 hours or until doubled (or in the fridge overnight).
• When dough has doubled, turn it out onto a lightly-floured surface and roll out to about 1/8″ (0.5 cm) thin. Using a 2″/7 cm round cookie cutter, cut out circles; you can re-roll the scraps until you use up all the dough; you should get about 24 circles.
• Brush a circle with the reserved egg whites, then place about a teaspoon of filling in the center of the circle. Top with another of the dough circles, and pinch along the edge to seal. Repeat until all the circles have been used.
• Cover the doughnuts with a cloth and leave for 20-30 minutes or just until puffed.
• In the meantime, heat about 2 cups/0.5 liter of vegetable oil in a large pan. When a scrap of dough sizzles when you drop it in, the oil is hot enough.
• Fry the doughnuts in batches, being careful not to overcrowd them. Cook each doughnut for about 3 minutes or until golden brown, then turn and cook another 3 minutes.
• Place the cooked doughnuts on a layer of paper towels to cool for a minute or two; while they are still warm, roll them in granulated sugar and serve.

Today we have a classic from Czech pubs. Utopenci is a jar of pickled hot dogs, onions and spices. It is a necessary addition to all czech pubs, usually to be found near the tap.

The name Utopenci has deep roots in the Czech soul and humor. Utopenci were invented 100 years ago by Mr.  Šamánek who owned a mill and a pub in Beroun. The pickled hot-dogs were very popular and his pub was famous throughout the country. As life has its irony, he drowned on day while fixing his mill’s wheel. Czechs love black humor and they named this classic Utopenci – Drowned men.

I decided to post this video, because it reflects the era of socialist pub culture, which spans the late 50′s until mid 90′s of the past century. This is the period when the pub was the gathering place of ordinary Czech men, and a very important institution where the men had to fight for social positions and made their most important life decisions. At 3:30 pm the men came home after a hard day’s work, and after a well-deserved lunch they would set off to the pub. They had to rush, because the pubs were open only until 9  pm. As soon as the last round was called (usually known by the fact that the smoke in the air could be cut by a dull knife)  they had a hard “orientational” walk home where they would be shouted at and beaten by pasta-roller wielding Czech women – the wives.  This song reflects the hardship of the Czech men. In this video you could see the hard fight for social acceptance, and of course the original beer tap which was in use in all pubs in Czechoslovakia for almost 50 years. As a sign of the sour future to come, the main character helps himself to utopenci. During this presentation you will be able to see how the air thickens as a sign that time is running out and slowly they have to start the journey home.

Print recipe

Utopenci – Drowned Men

There are plenty of variations for utopenci. Originally, utopenci were not spciy so you can leave out the chili. The very basic recipe is the first 10 ingredients. After that you can use your imigination – some people add mustard or mustard seeds, horse radish, pickled cucumbers, Worcester sauce, olives etc. I have added tomatoes because Katy likes pickled tomatoes so why not?

Ingredients

• 2.5 cups water
• 1.5 cups 8% white vinegar
• 10 whole pepper corns
• 4pc allspice
• 1 bay leaf
• 2 pounds of thick hot-dogs
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp sugar
• 5 cloves garlic
• 4-5 big onions
• 2 chilies
• 10 cherry tomatoes
• 2 cups of sauerkraut

Method

• Mix the water, vinegar, salt, sugar and the spices and bring them to boil. Boil them for 2 minutes and then let the liquid cool.
• Peel the hot-dogs, chop the onions into circles. Peel the tomatoes. The trick with tomatoes is to put them into boiling water for 20 sec. After that it is very easy to pop them out of their skin.
• Prepare a 4.2 pint (2liter) jar. Start to layer onions, garlic, hot-dogs, sauerkraut, chilies. You can do few layers. On the top I have put the tomatoes.
• Once the vinegary liquid is lukewarm, pour it into the jar. Shake the jar in order to get rid of bubbles. Do not leave out the spices and put them into the jar. Seal the jar and put it into a cool place or fridge for 2 weeks. If you are going crazy you can eat them in one week, but two weeks is the etiquette. In the fridge they will take longer to mature.
• Serve with rustic bread and plenty of pilsner. Do not forget to invite me over.

It’s the quiet week between Christmas and New Year’s, a good time to introduce you to our family traditions for the holiday season. My in-laws – Valerian’s parents – are wonderful hosts. Even better, they are wonderful cooks, and there is no time of year we enjoy this more than Christmas Eve. There is a whole ritual to the meal, many courses, and then the grand finale: a crash from the living room, the door is flung open, and there’s the outrageously spangled Christmas tree, overflowing with gifts from Jézuska/Ježiško (the baby Jesus).

But let’s back up. A couple of weeks before, my mother-in-law starts baking the Christmas cookies. Chocolate bear paws, powdery vanilla kifli, iced spice cookies, a whole selection. These are deliberately made in advance so that they have some time to soften. Personally, I think they’re so delicious when they’re newly baked and still crisp I don’t know how it’s possible that they last until the holiday, but there are a lot of them.

The menu for the Christmas Eve feast itself is well established. We start with a toast, of course, everyone raising a glass and wishing one another good health – Egészségedre! Na zdravie! Then each family (Valerian has two brothers) chooses an apple and a walnut. These are split open: if there are no worms or blemishes, the nut predicts a year of good fortune, the apple one of good health. I admit I have gotten rather spooked the few times we’ve drawn a bad apple! The shells and other bits are put in a bowl in the center of the table; for each course, everyone is supposed to add a little off their own plate to this bowl, which is “for the birds”.

Next comes the oblatky, thin wafers called “spa wafers” as they are sold year-round at spas and baths. Valerian’s family always serves them with the peculiar combination of garlic and honey; I just rub a little garlic on the wafer and drizzle on the honey, but the less timid chop the garlic a bit and pile it on.

Rounds two and three are also sweet: makos guba, followed by plum pudding. Don’t forget to put a little in for the birds!

My favorite comes next, lentil soup. I always have at least two servings, even though eating too much of any one course leaves dangerously little room for what’s coming next. We usually take some soup home with us, murmuring a little prayer that it doesn’t overturn in the car on the way.

Now the main spread is set out. Fried fish is the centerpiece; at this time of year most of the supermarkets have live carp for sale since it’s traditional to serve fresh river fish on Christmas. Side dishes include two kinds of potato salad, one with mayonnaise and one without and some kind of vegetables for me and anyone else who wants them.

The little ones start to get restless at this point, and so after an exchange of meaningful looks among the adults, it’s time to check out what Jézuska brought. Sometimes it can be hard to decide whether it’s more important to finish dinner first:

We nibble the cookies and sip coffee and try to talk over the shrieks of joy/indignation as the kids examine their haul. It’s a smashing conclusion to a very satisfying evening.

Have you ever eaten a Chinese steamed pork bun? Imagine a sweet version, and you pretty much have buchty na páře (in Czech) or parené buchty (in Slovak). Instead of spicy meat, the fillings here are usually jam, sweetened poppy seeds, sweetened cheese (tvaroh), or chocolate. Buchty na páře just means steamed buchty, and buchty are, well, what they are – a kind of soft bread roll. (It’s pronounced something like book-tee, say the ch softly like in Loch Ness.) There are also baked buchty, which maybe we’ll cover another time. The dough itself is quite soft, and develops a rather tough, chewy skin while it steams.

That sounds a little unappetizing, doesn’t it? But it’s delicious, I promise! They’re usually served topped with vegetable oil, sugar, and cocoa powder that you stir together as you eat to make a chocolate syrup. Yes, initially I was kind of put off by the idea of pouring oil directly on my food and used melted butter, which for whatever reason seemed more palatable, but ten years in Central Europe and now I’m totally fine with dousing foodstuffs in oil. Of course there’s no reason why you couldn’t use ready-made chocolate syrup or any other topping, really, but at least once you should try saying “slather some oil on my buchty, baby”.

Print recipe

Buchty na páře/parené buchty
Ingredients

• 1 cup/ 2.4 dl milk
• 3 cups/280 grams flour
• 1 sachet instant yeast (7 grams)
• 2 Tbs sugar
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 egg

For the filling:

• jam, Nutella, or mini chocolate chips
• 2/3 cup poppyseeds ground together with 1/3 cup sugar

Method

• Heat the milk until it is almost boiling (“scald” it; this makes the yeast work better). Set it aside to cool. Meanwhile, mix together the flour, yeast, sugar and salt in a large bowl. When the milk has cooled to lukewarm, pour it into the dry ingredients and mix. Add the egg and mix well with a wooden spoon or your hands; the dough will be very soft, but it should come together. If it’s too wet to work with, add a little flour.
• Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and leave to rise in a warm place about an hour, or until doubled.
• Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and leave to rise in a warm place about an hour, or until doubled.
• In the meantime, prepare your steaming equipment. We have a flat-bottomed steaming insert for our big pasta pot, but any type of steamer works, including the kind that open like a flower. Brush some oil over the steamer, as the buchty can stick during cooking, and put a few inches of water in the bottom of a pot big enough to hold the steamer. I usually turn the water on while I’m making the buchty so they can cook straight away.
• When the dough has doubled in bulk, turn it out onto a (very) well-floured surface and roll out to about a quarter-inch (0.5 cm) thickness. Cut into squares that are about 4 inches (10 cm) square, 3 inches (8 cm) if you want smaller buchty. Larger buchty are more authentic but smaller ones may be more practical if you’re serving them as a dessert. Dollop about a teaspoon of filling into the center of a square, then gather up the edges and pinch to seal at the top, making a rounded sort of package. Continue adding filling and making the buchty until you’ve used all the squares.
• Now you’re ready to steam! Carefully place several buchty into the steamer; don’t crowd them, they’ll expand somewhat while cooking and can stick together. If you haven’t already, turn on the heat and once the water is boiling, put the steamer into the pot, cover and cook the buchty for 8-10 minutes and have developed a firm, slightly translucent skin. Using tongs or a couple of forks, gently lift the buchty out of the steamer and place them on plates to serve. You should cook all the buchty now, but you can freeze any that you don’t want to eat right away, and just steam them again (or even microwave them) to heat them through.

To serve

• Valerian’s family tops buchty with a spoonful of cocoa powder, a heaping spoonful of granulated sugar, and then pours oil over the top. As you eat, you swirl the toppings together, delicious!

For me, Christmas is always associated with memories from my childhood. I will definitely make a special post about our customs, but before that I would like to introduce to you our Christmas candy. “Szaloncukor”, or as Slovaks know it, “salonky”, can be translated as “parlour candy”. They were hung on Christmas trees, usually in the  parlour. They were “invented” at the end of the nineteenth century, but the fashion did not pick up until the beginning of the twentieth century. And szaloncukor are still in style.  No wonder, because they are constantly changing – the first ones were just fondant covered with chocolate, wrapped in white paper and tinfoil, but since then plenty of flavors have been brought out. I clearly remember the introduction of the jelly szaloncukor (at the end of  the ’80s – beginning of  the ’90s) when we made special trips to Hungary to purchase this valuable commodity.  According to the customs regulations, we could bring only one or 2 boxes (about a pound), which was never enough for our big Christmas tree.

Since then Slovakia and Hungary joined the EU and the flow of szaloncukor is unobstructed. All the big candy manufacturers have their own szaloncukor on the market so everyone can find a favorite. Yes, you can get Tesco value and Tesco “color” brands,  Milka brand, Norbi Update brand (a Hungarian celebrity weight-loss program), szaloncukor for diabetics etc. The business is good.  The romantic, handmade and rock-hard fondant was replaced by an unbelievable selection of flavors spiced up with wide variety of additives and preservatives proudly printed on the package in E numberology. The flavors for 2009 are stawberry yogurt, caramel cream and the good old chestnut is still in.

One lucky reader can win a few of these gems from Emperor’s Crumbs to decorate your own tree! Details are in the next post. Feel free to indulge – it’s the right time of year. Right?

Disclaimer: No szaloncukor were harmed during the making of this post.

If you visit Central Europe, you are almost certain to come across one of the few symbols from the socialist era that remains beloved today: the Little Mole, known variously as Krtek, Krtko, Kisvakond, Krecik or die Maulwurf. Our kids love to watch Little Mole cartoons on YouTube, and since the vast majority of them are short, sweet, and dialogue-free, they’re OK with me too. (There are a few peculiar exceptions that I generally don’t show the children.) The mole and his friends have fully embraced capitalism and now are emblazoned on t-shirts, toys, games and books, and are part of the wave of fashionable nostalgia that hit this region a few years ago.

While he is popular all around the Central Europe, the Little Mole shows his Czech origins from time to time. For his friend the frog’s birthday, he bakes koláče, a typically Czech pastry that can be filled with jam (as seen here), poppyseed filling, sweetened cheese or nuts.

Koláče aren’t reserved for festive occasions, they’re a substantial snack with tea or coffee, or an indulgent breakfast. They are also called frgale, which certainly sounds fancy; they can be dressed up by making patterns with different types of filling, which looks especially elegant if you make one big koláče.

Here’s a recipe and a couple of different filling variations, to be mixed and matched as you like.

Print recipe

Koláče/Czech pastries

I’ve listed the fillings separately, since they’re useful for other types of pastry.

Ingredients

Makes 8 koláče

• 1 cup/20 ml milk
• 2 oz/50 grams butter
• 3½ cups/500 grams flour
• 1/3 cup + 1 Tbs/80 grams sugar
• ½ tsp salt
• 1 packet instant yeast
• 1 egg + 1 yolk

1 or more filling, in next recipe

Method

• Heat the milk and butter in a small pan until almost boiling. Remove from heat and allow to cool to lukewarm.
• In a large bowl, whisk together flour, sugar, salt and yeast.
• Pour the milk mixture into the dry ingredients and stir together. Add one egg and mix until a sticky dough forms. Scrape down the sides of the bowl until it is fairly clean, cover it with plastic and leave the dough to rise for 2 hours at room temperature or overnight in the fridge.
• When the dough has doubled in bulk, divide it into 8 equal portions (each should weigh about 4 oz or 100 grams) and roll into balls. Cover them with a cloth and leave them to rest while you make the filling, see recipes below.
• Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F/190 C. Whisk the egg yolk with about a tsp of water to make an egg wash
• Gently flatten each ball to make a circle about 3½” across (9 cm)and form a well in the center. Spoon about 2 Tbs of filling into the well.
• Brush the exposed dough with the egg wash, and bake on a greased (or even better, parchment-paper lined) baking sheet for 20-25 minutes, or until golden brown.

Print recipe

Sweet fillings for pastry

Each of these recipes will fill at least 8 koláče. If you have filling left over, you could use it to make turnovers with frozen puff pastry dough, or fill any other type of pastry that suits your fancy.

Ingredients for poppyseed filling

• 1 cup + 2 Tbs/150 grams poppy seeds
• ¼ cup/ 60 ml milk
• ¼ cup/ 25 grams sugar

Method

• Grind the poppyseeds in a spice or coffee grinder until they form a paste.
• Mix with the milk and sugar in a small pan and cook over low heat, stirring frequently, for 2-3 minutes.

Ingredients for sweet cheese filling

• 9 oz/250 grams soft cheese, such as turó/tvaroh or ricotta
• ½ cup/ 50 grams sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla
• zest of one lemon
• 1 Tbs butter, softened
• 1 egg

Method

• Cream the butter and cheese together with the sugar. Beat in the egg, lemon zest, and vanilla.

Ingredients for walnut filling

• 7 oz/200 grams ground walnuts
• 1 cup + 2 Tbs/120 grams sugar
• 2/3 cup/150 ml milk
• zest of one lemon

Method

• Mix all ingredients together in a small pan and cook over low heat for 2-3 minutes, stirring constantly.

With this recipe I plan to save the world from the economic crisis. Not because it is cheap to make, but because the tradition says that if you eat this soup on New Year’s Eve, the lentils represent coins. Your wealth next year depends on how many lentils you will eat. You guessed right, we eat tons of this soup. We try our best to eat many, many coins in order to pay for our dreams or blog hosting costs.

Before New Year’s Eve, we have this soup as a Christmas dish.  Most families in Central Europe have fish soup, but our and other cool families prefer this amazing lentil soup. Since Katy joined the family, we also have this soup many times during the year. My mum makes it the best, but I have gotten good at it too. And I even developed a vegetarian version especially for Katy.  Here I mention both, the classic with sausage, and the vegetarian version. Enjoy and get rich!

Print recipe

Lentil Soup – classic version

The only meat in this soup is a Hungarian-style smoked paprika sausage (not hot). Gyulai kolbasz or Debreceni kolbasz are ok. Do not skimp on the quality, since you need just a little bit of it. Please do not use fancy vinegars. The rule here is cheap white vinegar. You can use any mushrooms, no need for anything exotic, but for the most authentic results you can use dried European wild mushrooms. The more varieties, the better the soup. Instead of sour cream you can use cream or 1/2 cream and 1/2 sour cream. For a fancy occasion I go for cream, when I am making it just for us, I use sour cream.

Ingredients

Makes 4 portions

• 1 cup dried lentils
• 3 cloves garlic
• 1 tsp sugar – optional but good
• 7 cups water
• 1 Turkish bay leaf or 1/2 Californian one
• 3/4 tsp salt
• 1 cup sliced mushrooms or handful of dried ones
• 2 tbs white vinegar or 3 tsp of lemon juice
• 1 cup sour cream or cream
• 1 cup or more sliced Hungarian style sausage
• 2ts flour

Method

• Wash the lentils, put them into a pot together with water, 3 cloves of crushed garlic (just hit it hard once with your palm), bay leaf, salt, sausage and mushrooms.
• Cook on low heat. When lentils get soft (40min to 1 hour). Add the sour cream/cream. In order to prevent curdling, put the sour cream into a bigger bowl and gradually add some of the hot soup, maybe a quarter-cup at a time to bring up the sour cream’s temperature. Then add the mixture back into the soup and bring it to a boil. (boil it for 2min)
• Now soup is almost ready. Let it cool a bit (like 5-10 min) and then add the vinegar and sugar.
• Depending on your taste, add more salt,vinegar or sugar.
• You can serve it with more sour cream and parsley.

Print recipe

Lentil Soup – vegetarian version

This is a vegetarian version of the amazing lentil soup. The quasi roux is for imitating the spiciness of the sausage. You could try adding a little Spanish smoked paprika (pimentón) for even more sausaginess. As above, use cream, sour cream, or a mixture according to your taste.

Ingredients

Makes 4 portions

• 1 cup dried lentils
• 3 cloves of garlic
• 7 cups of water
• 1 tsp sugar -optional but good
• 1 Turkish bay leaf or 1/2 Californian one
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 cup sliced mushrooms or hand full of dried ones
• 2 tbs white vinegar or 3 tsp of lemon juice
• 1 cup sour cream
• For the roux
• 1.5 tbs of vegetable oil
• 2tsp flour
• 1 tsp paprika
• 1 clove garlic
• 1/2 tsp black pepper

Method

• Wash the lentils, put them into a pot together with water, 1 clove of crushed garlic (just hit it hard once with your palm), bay leaf, salt, and mushrooms.
• Cook over low heat. When the lentils are slowly getting soft (cca 30min) make the roux. In a separate pan add oil, and start to fry smashed garlic and the black pepper. Add flour and when the flour is a bit brown, add the paprika, stir and add it to the soup. The process has to happen fast, because you do not want to burn the garlic or the paprika.
• Continue simmering over low heat. When lentils get soft (40min to 1hour). Add the sour cream/cream. In order to prevent curdling, put the sour cream into a bigger bowl and gradually add some of the hot soup, maybe a quarter-cup at a time to bring up the cream’s temperature. Then add the mixture back into the soup and bring it to a boil. (boil it for 2min)
• Now soup is almost ready. Let it cool a bit (like 5-10 min) and then add the vinegar and the sugar.
• Depending on your taste add more salt,vinegar or sugar.
• You can serve it with more sour cream and parsley.

You know you’re in love when your heart’s aflutter waiting to see if you’ll get a big gaudy gingerbread heart from the fair. What, that’s not the sure sign you were thinking of? At least then you’re spared the anxiety over whether you should save that cookie to gaze upon rapturously with thoughts of love, or just eat it. Sadly, many of the goodies sold at the local fairs just aren’t that tasty. Made for sturdiness rather than flavor, they might outlast your romance anyway. Here’s a cookie recipe that will satisfy lovers of spicy sweetness; you can always write Miľujem ťa or Szeretlek on it to satisfy any other lovers.

Print recipe

Mézeskalács/Perník/Spice cookies

This recipe is adapted from an old village cookbook. You can buy a mixed spice here called “Mézeskalács” or “Perník” spice, which includes cinnamon, allspice, anise, coriander, and nutmeg. If you can’t find a similar blend, substitute 1½ tsp ginger, 1½ tsp cinnamon, ½ tsp cloves, and ½ tsp nutmeg for a traditional gingerbread flavor.

Ingredients

Makes about 18 cookies

• 2½ cups/250 grams flour
• 2 tsp baking soda
• 2½ tsp mézeskalács or perník spice blend (or see above)
• 1 tsp cocoa powder
• 3/4 cup/125 grams granulated sugar
• 2 eggs
• 2 Tbshoney

For the icing:
• 7 oz/200 grams powdered sugar
• 2 egg whites
• 1 tsp vanilla extract or lemon juice
• food coloring, if desired

Method

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees F, 190 C.
• In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, spices and cocoa powder.
• Add eggs and honey. Mix to form a soft dough – it might not look like it’s going to come together, but it will. (I bet this dough would be easy to make in a food processor, not that I have one.)
• On a floured surface, roll out dough to about an eighth of an inch (4 mm) thick. Cut out with cookie cutters, and bake on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper for 10-12 minutes.
• While cookies are baking, beat together the icing ingredients until smooth.
• Allow cookies to cool completely before icing. Decorate using a pastry bag fitted with a small tip, or even a ziplock bag with a corner cut off.

I was intrigued by this recipe in a recent issue of our favorite Czech cooking magazine, Apetit, which is for a Babovka, Bundt cake, made with potatoes. I set out to follow the recipe, but as usual, I changed a little here, a little there (I omitted a packet of pudding mix, for example) and now I’m not sure how much it resembles the original. The potato gives it a wonderfully moist texture, it’s more delicate than I expected, and not too sweet. Perfect with afternoon tea, perhaps. We don’t have a potato ricer and while I used a hand mixer to beat the potato mixture there were still quite a few small lumps in the batter. No matter – they aren’t apparent at all in the finished cake.

Print recipe

Bramborová bábovka/Potato Bundt Cake (adapted from Apetit Magazine)

Because Valerian gets an upset stomach from too much baking powder, I used half baking powder and half baking soda for this recipe, and so I needed to use something sour like buttermilk or kefir for the 3 Tbs liquid. The original recipe calls for 2 tsp baking powder and using milk.

Ingredients

• 250g/2 2/3 cups flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 250g/8.5 oz cooked potatoes, mashed well or put through a ricer
• 150g/3/4 cup sugar
• 100g/4 oz butter, softened
• 3 eggs
• 3 Tbs buttermilk or kefir
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• zest of one lemon
• 100g/4 oz bittersweet chocolate, chopped

Method

• Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F/180 C. Grease and flour an 8-cup Bundt pan.
• In a large bowl whisk together flour, baking powder and baking soda, and salt. In a medium bowl, beat together the butter, sugar, potatoes, kefir or buttermilk, eggs, lemon zest and vanilla extract. Gently stir the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients. Fold in the chopped chocolate.
• Scrape into the Bundt pan and bake for 45-55 minutes or until top is golden.

There is nothing fancy, nothing sophisticated about lángos. It is simple, greasy and so delicious that when Katy’s friend came from NYC for her second visit to Central Europe, she refused all fancy restaurants and asked for lángos.

Unfortunately, modern ideas about health are killing lángos stands. What rubbish! The deep fried dough is full of vitamin B, and the salty garlic water, which you spread over the lángos, is brimming with allicin. If you decide to eat it topped with cheese and sour cream, you get protein and calcium as well! Why, it’s practically health food.

Print recipe

Langos

Ingredients

Makes about 6 large or 10 smaller langos

• 12 oz/330 grams floury potatoes
• 3 cups/400 grams flour, plus more for flouring your work surface
• 1 sachet (7 grams) instant yeast
• 1 tsp salt
• 2 tsp sugar
• 1 1/3 cups/3 deciliters milk
• Oil to deep fry
• —————————
• To serve:
• Garlic
• Sour cream
• Grated cheese (Emmental or another firm, mild cheese)

Method

• Peel, roughly chop and boil the potatoes. While they are cooking, stir together the flour, yeast, salt and sugar in a large bowl.
• When the potatoes are soft enough to pierce easily with a fork (it doesn’t matter if they start to fall apart a little), drain off the water and mash them while still hot. Add the milk and make as smooth a paste as you can – don’t worry if there are small lumps.
• Stir the potato mixture into the dry ingredients; when it is well combined, turn it out onto a clean surface and knead for a few minutes (you could also use a stand mixer with the dough hook attachment). The dough will be soft and sticky; if you find it too sticky to work with, add a little flour, but don’t worry too much. Place the dough in a large, clean bowl, cover with plastic wrap and allow to rise for 1.5 hours or until doubled in bulk. You can also put it in the refrigerator overnight at this point, if you prefer.
• When you are ready to fry the langos, heat about 2 cups/half a liter of oil over medium heat in a pan (we used our big non-stick skillet). While it is getting to frying temperature, you can prepare the langos. Flour your work surface liberally, and have more flour ready to sprinkle on the dough. For each langos, scoop out about ½ cup of the dough and blob it onto the work surface. Sprinkle flour over the top of the dough and pat it out to about ½ an inch/2 cm thick. If you use plenty of flour it won’t be too sticky, I promise!
• The oil is hot enough when you toss in a tiny scrap of dough and it bubbles fiercely. Carefully place the langos in the oil one at a time (2 might fit in a large pan, but don’t crowd them) and cook about 3 minutes or until the bottom is a deep golden color. Turn with a fork or tongs and cook another 3 minutes. Remove from the oil and allow to drain on a paper towel. Repeat until all langos are cooked..
• To serve, traditionally the langos is brushed with a mixture of garlic paste and water or oil. Crush a couple of cloves of garlic in a press or using a microplane grater, and mix with about 2 Tbs water or olive oil.
• On top of this, if you dare, spread sour cream and sprinkle with grated cheese. Enjoy!