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!

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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.

Here, I have split the fight against hangover into 3 parts: before, during and after. If you fight on all fronts your chances are better. The before and during stages are the most effective. So here are my tips.

1. Before, or prevention.

Eat. Eat a lot of fatty and salty foods a few hours before you drink. Go to the party with a full stomach and eat more there. Try to avoid very spicy foods, and concentrate on fatty and salty (like you need an incentive!). If you plan to drink a lot, take 2000 mg (yes 2 thousand milligrams) of vitamin C. With this strategy the alcohol will be absorbed more slowly. You can also try the ultimate Hungarian party food, “zsiros kenyer” (“greased bread”). Use lard, goose fat or duck fat, spread it on a sliced of bread, add thinly sliced onion, finish with a sprinkle of salt and red paprika over the top.

2. During.

Sometimes it happens that I am drinking a good wine with my friends and realize that I forgot my friend’s wife’s name, tell a story which is not true or have problems walking to the restroom. In most cases I manage to realize that I am getting/got drunk. At this point I switch to drinking mineral water, preferably non-sparkling or lightly sparkling. And I drink a lot of it. I mean really a lot of it, 2-3-4 pints. As much as you can fit into you. You can do this also after a party, before you fall asleep. Just keep yourself awake, watch some TV and drink and drink. This is the most effective method of avoiding hangovers if you are already drunk. If you smoke, then drink 2x as much.

3. After

So you fall asleep. If you need to pee every hour during the night, you will be saved. You took my “drink mineral water” advice. Otherwise, you are doomed. You woke up with church bells ringing in your head, while the road workers are breaking concrete in your brain. I told you! Drink water before you go to bed! What to do with you? Well, it happens to the best of us and here is how you ease your pain with more pain.

the nice way

Go have a shower. Alternate ice cold with warm. Do it for 20 minutes. It works, puts you on your feet. Go have a walk. Drink non sparkling mineral water, you can add a little bit of salt. 2000mg of vitamin C might help. Pickles? Yes! Fermented pickles? Double YES! Coffee? no. rich chicken broth or vegetable broth? double yes. Although I have heard that coffee with lemon helps. I tried it. It did help to empty my stomach which was effective in its own (unpleasant) way…

the hair of the dog that bit you

If you really have to be ok next day, drink more alcohol. It will be hard to get it into your body, but in most of the cases it helps you with your hangover. I have to warn you! You will have a hangover, you just postpone it. Also you are shocking your body – this method gets rid of the symptoms, not the drunkenness. Basically you trick your body that you are drunk again. Do it the nice way. I am mentioning this way only because in Central Europe it is a popular way to get rid of a hangover.

I hope this helped. We wish you a great party and a happy New Year ! Please do not end up as the leader of one of the governmental parties in Slovakia.

It is time to drink yourself to death in order to celebrate the new year. At least that’s what we do in central Europe. Along with huge amounts of alcohol we also serve plenty of food and we blow ourselves up with firecrackers and fireworks.  We have a  saying: “as it is on New Year’s Day, so it will be all year”. Maybe that is why Hungary has one of the highest suicide rates and Slovaks and Czechs are heavy drinkers.

I have a few tips for you how to avoid hangovers or “still drunk” stages on New Year’s day, and also a description of a typical Central European sandwich.

One of the classics for any celebration is a sandwich. It is not a sandwich as the world knows it, two slices of bread with yummy things in between.  No, no. This one is open, fancy and full of anti-hangover properties. Here is how you should make it. We do not offer this sandwich only on New Year’s but also on any occation, including long meetings.

Take a slice of white bread, spread butter, add salami (not too spicy, rather fatty), add a slice of pickle, slice of a hard boiled egg, blob of mustard or ketchup or both,  grate cheese over it and you are set. Make hundreds of these and your New Year party will be great.  Bread, butter, salami, cheese will fill your stomach so the alcohol is absorbed more slowly (the fats will especially protect you). The egg yolk, pickle and mustard are full of vitamin C and minerals so they will help you a bit to avoid hangovers – a perfect snack for your party!

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.

This recipe is a Christmas classic. In our family we call it pompos and serve it as the third course in our Christmas dinner multi-course menu. I am glad to inform you that on the web you will find numerous recipes for this treasure, but none of them is like mine. Our family makes the pompos a bit differently and you will be happy to know that this is one of the oldest recipes in our family, maybe few hundred years old. The fact that it is also easier helps too. And you can use up stale bread while you’re at it.

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Pompos – Bread pudding with poppy seeds

This is a very simple and straightforward recipe. Please feel free to adjust the quantities of poppy seeds and sugar. The quantities here are for real poppy seed lovers like me. Traditionally honey was used instead of sugar. I have used rock-hard rolls, but you can use any sweet or savory breads or even stale cake (who ever has stale cake?). My mum replaces milk with water, because this way it keeps longer. I recommend making smaller quantities and using milk for better flavor.

Ingredients

Makes about 4 portions

• 1½ cup poppy seeds
• 7-8 stale rolls or bread (around a pound)
• 2 cups milk
• zest of 1 lemon
• 1 cup sugar
• ½ cup raisins

Method

• Grind the poppy seeds in a food processor, spice or coffee grinder.
• Heat up the milk and add the poppy seeds, lemon zest, sugar and the raisins. Bring it to a boil and then set aside to cool.
• Cut the bread into 1-inch chunks.
• Put the bread into a big bowl and pour the milk over it.
• Mix gently but thoroughly. Set aside for 10 minutes and let the bread absorb the liquid.
• Serve with drizzled honey on top.

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.

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!

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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.

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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.