Here’s a weeknight special from the menu plan. Paraj (“pa-rye”) is a Hungarian comfort food classic. It’s something you can get from one of the fast-food főzelék places around Budapest, or even pick up in the frozen food aisle at the grocery store. But it’s ridiculously quick and easy to make yourself, and you can make it lighter or creamier to suit your taste (or suit your suits, if you’re dieting). The addition of an egg on top makes it a filling and nutritious meal, but you might also toss in chunks of potato, croutons or cheese. With its vivid green color and soothing flavor, this is a favorite bright spot for a grim chilly day.

Print recipe

Paraj – creamy spinach soup

We always use frozen spinach because we inevitably have some in the freezer, but there’s no reason an equal weight of fresh spinach wouldn’t work just as well. Don’t overcook it; you want to just soften the leaves enough to make a smooth puree. We use whatever milk we have on hand, usually 1 or 2%, but for a creamier soup, use whole milk.

Ingredients

Serves 4

• 1 pound frozen chopped spinach, defrosted
• 1 Tbs good-quality olive oil
• 4 garlic cloves, minced
• 4 cups milk
• 1 tsp salt or to taste
• 4 eggs (for serving)

Method

• Warm your olive oil gently in the bottom of a medium stock pot and add the garlic. Cook the garlic for about a minute, watching carefully that it doesn’t brown.
• Add the spinach and saute for 3-4 minutes over medium-low heat, until most of the liquid has cooked off. Add the milk and salt and bring to a simmer.
• Using an immersion blender, blend the mixture until you have a fine, bright green puree. Taste for seasoning and then simmer over low heat for another 5 or so minutes.
• Meanwhile, cook the eggs to your liking (fried, poached, or hard-boiled are all delicious and worth a try).
• Ladle the soup into bowls, topping each a cooked egg.

Print recipe

Emperors Crumbs

Original recipe tripled, reduced eggs. We have been able to find semolina without any trouble here, both packaged (Bob’s Red Mill is one brand) and in the bulk bins. We love the bulk bins these days!
Ingredients

Makes 5-6 portions

• 2¼ cup/300 g semolina
• 3 cups/750 ml milk
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 5 eggs, separated
• pinch salt
• 1½ cups/300 g sugar
• zest from 1 lemon
• 50 g butter for sauteing
• powdered sugar, compote or jam or all three as topping

Method

• Mix together the semolina, flour and milk. Let it sit for an hour or so to let the semolina absorb the milk.
• Mix the egg yolks together with sugar and stir it into the milk mixture.
• Whip the egg whites and a pinch of salt into firm peaks and fold it into the milk/egg mixture.
• Melt the butter and add the batter. Stir the batter with a spatula or wooden spoon until it starts to form little clumps – crumbs. Depending on the size of the pan this can take up to 30 minutes.
• Serve hot with powdered sugar or with jam, or with compote or drizzle with some syrup.

This recipe was born when we invited my in-laws for a Hungarian picnic. Traditionally, the protein part of the meal would be cold cuts: thinly sliced Hungarian paprika sausage or the famous Pick/Hertz winter salami.  You can’t get those here, though,  and substituting sugar-soaked ham was not an option for me. The other popular Hungarian custom for picnics is to take their big kettle and cook goulash, fish soup, bean stew or paprikash. I would be all for this, but I do not think it will make the California firefighters happy.  The grass is so dry that you can light it up just by looking at it. I also had doubts that the picnic grounds would be happy to see some crazy Hungarian making a huge pot of goulash while burning their turf, and I definitely didn’t want to risk expulsion from the Marin Cheese Factory. Where would I get my healthy dose of Camembert?  So under pressure, I threw together this recipe, with a very Hungarian result. It’s maybe best served warm, but kept cool in the picnic basket, it makes a great sandwich filling.

Print recipe

Hungarian Vegetable Chicken

This is a rustic dish and it can be altered as you wish. If you are crazy, you can skip the bacon and go for vegetable oil. It will still be good.

Ingredients

Feeds 4 people.

• 2 pounds boneless chicken (preferably dark meat)
• 3 wax peppers (Anaheim)
• 2 tomatoes
• 1 onion
• 3 cloves garlic
• 1 strip smoked bacon
• ½ tsp salt
• 3 tsp paprika
• 1 cup red wine
• pepper to taste

Method

• Cut the chicken into 1 inch strips or cubes. Dice the bacon and the onions. Mince the garlic, slice the pepper and the tomatoes into circles.
• Start frying the bacon on medium high heat to render some fat, then add the onions.
• When onions are translucent or even caramelized (burned) on the edges add the chicken cook on all sides (5-6min) and then add the peppers and the pepper and paprika.
• When peppers start to shrivel (7-15 min), add the garlic and tomatoes. Toss together and cook for 7 more minutes (do not burn the garlic).
• Add the wine and lower the heat. Simmer until the liquid evaporates and the mixture thickens.

All I want to say is that körözött is a staple food of Hungary. They are lucky, because they can go to the local Tesco Hypermarket, pick up a tub of the classic spread, or even try “impure” körözött and buy it together with a hearty dose of additives and preservatives. You, the unlucky ones have to make it yourself. The good news is, that it can be kept in the fridge for quite a time even without the pesky additives and preservatives.  Well, enjoy your Hungarian experience!

Print recipe

Hungarian Spicy Cheese Spread – Körözött

This is the basic, the elemental soul of körözött. People tend to over-complicate this simple spread. Silly, when it is best enjoyed simply with bread or vegetables; tomatoes and peppers make a perfect companion. You might want to reduce the amount of onions, but remember that after chilling the spread will be milder. If you want to go fat free, go for it and use reduced fat or fat free cottage cheese and cream cheese.

Ingredients

• 1 small tub (8 oz) large curd cottage cheese
• 1 smaller or ½ a large onion
• small package (3 oz) cottage cheese
• 1 onion
• 3 tsp paprika
• ½ tsp salt
• ½ tsp pepper
• ½ tsp caraway powder
• 1 cup red wine

Method

• Put all the ingredients except the onion into a big bowl.
• Grate the onions into the mixture. You can go either chunky or fine.
• Stir the mixture well and then process it with a stick/immersion blender or in a food processor.
• Put it back into the cottage cheese tub and chill it for few hours, best overnight. There will be a little bit leftover which will not fit into the tub. You go ahead and eat it.
• Enjoy with a great rustic bread.

Print recipe

Valeria’s Potatoe Torte

This is the cake part of the recipe. We used Russet potatoes, which worked great.  The recipe calls for three eggs, but our eggs were small so we used 4. You can experiment with the filling. We tried to mix cocoa and chocolate into the potatoes and we layered that with chunky cherry preserves. The results were ok but not great. I think the original filling is more suitable. You can also try any ordinary buttercream frosting but then forget about the cake being good for people watching their weight! You can also eat it without filling like a coffee cake. In that case add some vanilla and more walnuts.

Ingredients for the cake

• ½ pound floury potatoes
• 3 large eggs
• ½ cup sugar
• ½ cup walnut halves




Ingredients for the filling

• ½ pound potatoes
• Up to ½ cup sugar
• ½ cup walnuts halves
• rum
• 1 Tbsp butter

Method

1. Cook the potatoes until soft, then mash them or put them through a ricer.

2. Let them cool a bit, but while they are still warm add the egg yolks, sugar, and ground walnuts. Mix well.

3. Beat the egg whites to form soft peaks, and gently fold into the previous mixture.

4. Pour it into 2 nine- inch round pans and bake it at 350F for 20-25 minutes. You wll see that the top is getting a bit golden.

5. Cool on a rack for 10 minutes, then turn out from the pan and frost as desired.

The recipe for filling:

Cook the potatoes until soft, mash them in a medium bowl, beat in the other ingredients. Enjoy!

Főzelék is a special category in Hungarian cuisine. It’s not  quite a soup, but neither is it a stew. They are made in many ways and provide a cheap source of nutrition and yuminess. There is a potato főzelék, green bean főzelék, bean főzelék, spinach főzelék, pea főzelék, lettuce főzelék, squash főzelék and many, many more. Usually they are served with topping like a sausage, hot-dog, meatballs, or boiled or fried eggs. In my family we used to serve them with pörkölt (thick meat stew).
This is the ultimate Hungarian fast food. If you will be traveling in Hungary, try one of these cafeteria-style places and have a főzelék with topping. You might spend around 600 Ft (forints – something like $3) and have a great, satisfying meal.

My favorite főzelék is lencse, which is translated as buttered or stewed lentils. The process of making it can be very complicated or very simple. The complicated version requires you to cook smoked meat the night before and to keep the smoky water. Also you must soak the lentils for at least 12 hours. My family goes for the simple version. We do not cook smoked meat a day before and we do not soak lentils. Anyway, modern processed smoke meat is full of junk, and if you cook it you get rid of some of the junk. And then that junky water you use to cook the lentils. No thank you. So my mum skips the “smoked” part all the way. I found that liquid smoke works pretty well (I recently read that liquid smoke isn’t anything too awful, which was nice to know).
If you buy fresh and good quality lentils you can skip the pre-soaking too. Unfortunately the organic lentils I bought from the bulk bin at WholeFoods (sometimes known as Whole Paycheck for a reason) were apparently a mixture of fresh and old lentils, and  some of them overcooked while others were still crunchy. You need a place where there’s good turnover for these kinds of bulk foods; I am still learning about where to shop in California.

Print recipe

Buttered Lentils – Lencse-fozelek

For this ultimate Hungarian recipe use ordinary brown lentils and common sense with the amount of water.

Ingredients

Serves 6 humans.

• 2 cups lentils
• 10 cups water
• 1 tsp and a pinch of salt
• 2 bay leaves
• 4 cloves garlic
• 1 tsp sugar
• 1 lemon
• 8 oz sour cream (small tub)
• 4 oz milk
• 4 tbs all purpose flour
• 1tsp liquid smoke
• 4 oz milk

Method

• Wash the lentils, put them in a large pot with water, garlic, salt and bay leaves.
• Prepare a mixture of sour cream, milk (half of the sour cream container) and pinch of salt. Let it sit and bring it to room temperature while the lentils are cooking.
• Cook the lentils on medium-low heat until the lentils are tender. If necessary add water. Keep the water level approximately half an inch above the lentils.
• When lentils are fully cooked, stir the  flour into the sour cream and milk mixture. Blend it well and add it to the lentils. Add the sugar and the liquid smoke, bring it to boil and cook it for another 5-10 minutes. The lentils and the sour cream mixture should make a thick stew-like consistency. Then turn off the heat.
• After it cooled a little bit (5-10 minutes) add a juice of a lemon (you can substitute it with 1-2tbsp of white vinegar).
• Serve it with sausage or meat balls or hot dogs or cooked eggs. Do not forget a good bread.

Many of our recipes end with the sentence: “Enjoy with a good rustic bread”. Bread is the staple food of Central Europe. We eat bread with everything. One of the challenges of moving was to find an everyday bread -  frankly, supermarket “sandwich” bread here is pretty bad. Sorry my friends, it is the truth. It is full of preservatives, different crazy sounding items and of course, sugar (that is true about everything. Everything tastes sweet here. It is like non-stop candy time). On other hand there are artisan breads. Well, those are amazing! The only problem is they are not priced for everyday eating. A good bread, which our family polishes off in 30 seconds, is $4. If you eat it once in a while, yes, it is the right price for something “special/artisan”. But if you eat it as Europeans do, yikes!
So we make our own. Katy is a great baker and she has been making all kinds of amazing breads. The only thing I missed was the rustic Hungarian potato bread. So in order to surprise her one night I made the “no knead bread“, added a potato and adjusted it accordingly. I was amazed with the results – exactly what I was hoping for! Now I’ll share this Hungarian recipe with you.

Print recipe

Hungarian Potato Bread

Use bread flour. I used King Arthur bread flour. Russet potatoes are ideal for this recipe, because they are nice and floury. The potato has a few roles in the bread making: it will keep the bread moist, adds a gentle potato flavor to the crumb and a light bitterness to the crust.

Ingredients

Makes 2 small loaves or 1 big one.

• 3 cups bread flour
• 1 tsp instant yeast
• 2 tsp salt
• 1 large russet potato
• 1½ cups water

Method

• Peel and dice the potato, then rinse off the starch in a colander. Cook it until soft enough to pierce with a fork. Once soft strain the water and let it cool.
• In a large bowl mix flour yeast and salt. Mash the potato (or put it through a ricer) and add it to the flour mixture.
• Add 1 cup of water and then more if necessary. The dough should be on the sticky side. Put it in a clean bowl and cover with plastic wrap.
• Let it rise at room temperature for 12 hours. After 12 hours you should have a sticky goo, basically.
• Prepare a baking dish ( I used a small square stoneware baking dish) put it into the oven and preheat the oven to 500 F.
• Turn out the dough onto a floured surface and divide it in half; each blob will be a small loaf. Try to fold the dough over onto itself few times. Shape them and sprinkle with flour. Let the first one rest for 30 minutes.
• Dust the baking dish with flour and carefully put in the first loaf. Cover it with tinfoil and bake it for 25 minutes.
• After 25 minutes, uncover and bake another 35 minutes or until the bread gets dark and crusty. That is what we want!
• When the first loaf is ready you can bake the second one as above.
• Let it cool before you eat it.

Scrambled eggs were for me the ultimate cooking experiment – I have tried them so many ways. One of the first meals I made for my wife were scrambled eggs “valcs style” (valcs is my old nickname). And from time to time, she requests it again. That, however,  is a recipe for another time. I thought that after our long break, we should start up with something simple. I found out that in the US it is still possible to find a good honest bacon, which is a basis for this Hungarian style recipe.

Print recipe

Hungarian Style Scrambled Eggs

There is no exact recipe for this. It is more a rundown of ingredients and the ratio that I like best. In the summer I used to add one pepper and one tomato 3 minutes before I added the eggs. If you don’t like bacon (if there are such people) you can skip it and add just a plain vegetable oil. If you are scared of bacon for health reasons, try to add just a tiny bit. And if you don’t eat bacon for health or religious reasons, then instead of 1/2 tsp of red paprika use 1 tsp of Spanish smoked paprika. Serve it with really good fresh bread.

Ingredients

This is a 1 person recipe. Multiply it as you wish.

• 1 onion
• 1 strip of REAL bacon
• 3 eggs
• salt to taste
• pepper to taste
• 1/2 tsp marjoram
• 1/2 tsp red paprika

Method

• Roughly chop the bacon and start to fry it on a medium high temperature and render some fat.
• Add the onions, salt them and cook them until they are caramelized
• Add the red paprika, stir and add the eggs.
• As soon as I add the eggs I remove the skillet from the heat and let the eggs cook off the heat source. Usually this provides you with creamy but well-cooked eggs.

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, warm up with one of the most famous soups in Hungary -  bean soup a la Jokai. Jokai Mór was a writer who was born in Komarno (my town). According to my dad, the inspiration for the main character of his famous novel Aranyember (The Man with the Golden Touch) is related to our family. Also, while he was living in Budapest, he was living in the second district where he had a small vineyard. Katy and I also lived in the second district and I also have a vineyard (not in the second district though)! It is fate! This recipe must be published on Emperors Crumbs!

If they tell you that the soup was named after Jokai because he invented it, that’s a lie. If they tell you that the soup has his name because he liked it, they are wrong, but close. A famous Hungarian food historian Draveczky Balázs said that Jokai’s favorite soup was bean soup cooked with smoked pork trotters. There were no vegetables, smoked knuckle or sausage in that version. According to Draveczky, those were later additions.

I have developed a vegetarian version for Katy. I was amazed with the results – I must admit I liked Katy’s a lot.

Print recipe

Bean Soup a la Jokai

Perfect hearty, winter soup. Thick, spicy with full flavor. A must for the chilly winter days. Depending on your beans, you might need to adjust the amount of water. If you want to keep the health beneficial properties of the beans you should use the water you soak the beans in. Unfortunately, the health beneficial properties also seems to include gas. So, it’s up to you; if you want to reduce the beans’ gas producing quality, boil the beans for 2 minutes, discard the water and wash the beans.

Ingredients

Makes soup for 6 portions

• 1 onion
• 1 green pepper
• 1 tomato
• 1 carrot
• 1 parsley root
• 1 celery root
• 8 ounc beans
• 10 ounce smoked meat (e.g. knucke)
• 5 ounce Hungarian sausage
• 1tbsp flour
• 2 cloves garlic
• 1 bay leaf (turkish)
• 10 cups of water
• chopped parsley – optional
• salt

Method

• Soak the beans overnight. Hungarian smoked meat tents to be too salty. If that’s the case, soak the meat too.
• Chop, chop, dice, dice all the vegetables.
• In a big pot on a low fire saute diced onion. Dice the pepper and add it. Cut the roots into circles and add them. Once the onion is translucent or getting brown add the chopped tomato.
• Cut the smoked meat into 1/2 inch cubes. Add the smoked meat and the beans, stir and add the water.
• Cook on a low fire until the beans are getting soft. Anything between 50 min and 2 hours.
• In a big pot on a low fire saute diced onion. Dice the pepper and add it. Cut the roots into circles and add them. Once the onion is translucent or getting brown add the chopped tomato.
• Add a 1 or 2 table spoons of flour to the sausage fat and fry it for 1min. Add the mixture to the soup.
• Let it boil through (1min). Try it and if necessary season it.Because of the smoked meat and the sausage the soup will not need salt.
• Serve the soup with a big spoon of sour cream and chopped parsley.

Print recipe

Bean Soup a la Jokai

This is the vegetarian version of the soup. Instead of smoked meat I used smoked tofu, and I was surprised about the results. I might have liked it better then the meaty version.

Ingredients

Makes soup for 6 portions

• 1 onion
• 1 green pepper
• 1 tomato
• 1 carrot
• 1 parsley root
• 1 celery root
• 8 ounce beans
• 8 ounce smoked tofu
• 3/4tsp salt
• 1 and 1/2 tbs vegetable oil
• 1tsp red paprika
• 1/2tsp pepper
• 1tbsp flour
• 2 cloves garlic
• 1 bay leaf (turkish)
• 10 cups of water
• chopped parsley – optional
• salt

Method

• Soak the beans overnight.
• Chop, chop, dice, dice.
• In a big pot on a low fire saute diced onion. Dice the pepper and add it. Cut the roots into circles and add them. Once the onion is translucent or getting brown add the chopped tomato.
• Add the beans, stear and add the water and salt.
• Cook on a low fire until the beans are getting soft. Anything between 50min and 2 hours.
• In a separate small pot heat up the vegetable oil, add the pepper, and the flour. Fry for cca 1min add the paprika stear and add it to the soup. If necessary you can ad some of the soup liquid to get out the paste from the small pot.
• Let it boil through (1min). Try it and if necessary season it.
• Serve the soup with a big spoon of sour cream and chopped parsley.

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’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.

Töki pompos is the Hungarian name for this specialty, and once I got my hands on a piece I understood why fair-goers waited in the icy wind for their own slice. Soft dough with an artery-busting topping of sour cream, onions, bacon and cheese is just what you need to fortify yourself for braving the crowds at the vásár. Even if you don’t make it to the fair, this is easy to make at home, although you might need to open a window and let in some fresh air to really recreate the atmosphere.

Print recipe

Oven-baked lángos (Töki pompos)

Since I’m not a porkophile, I leave the bacon off my piece, and just go a little heavier on the smoked cheese. If you don’t feel like making dough yourself, prepared pizza dough will work in a pinch.

Ingredients

Serves 4-6

• 8 oz/220 grams floury potatoes (about 1 large potato)
• 2½ cups/320 grams flour
• 1 tsp instant yeast
• 1 tsp salt
• 2/3 cup/160 ml water, reserved from cooking the potatoes

For the topping

• 1 cup/200 grams sour cream
• 2 large cloves garlic
• 4 oz/110 grams thick-cut bacon, cubed (optional)
• 1 large purple onion, thinly sliced
• 4 oz/110 grams smoked cheese, grated

Method

• Peel and roughly chop the potato; cook in a pot of boiling water until pieces are easily pierced with a fork, about 10 minutes.
• Drain, reserving 2/3 cup of the cooking water. Set the water aside to cool, and mash the potatoes.
• In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, yeast, and salt.
• Stir the mashed potatoes and water into the dry ingredients, and mix until the dough comes together. Knead the dough for 4-5 minutes until it is smooth and a bit sticky.
• Place the dough in a clean bowl, cover with plastic and leave it to rise for about 2 hours or until doubled.
• When the dough has risen, preheat the oven to 400 degrees F, 200 C.
• On a well-oiled baking sheet, roll or pat out the dough to about ½ inch (2 cm) thick, then bake for 8-10 minutes or until it is just beginning to turn golden. Set aside to cool.
• While the dough is baking and cooling, prepare your toppings. Chop the bacon, slice the onions, grate the cheese. Put the garlic through a press or use a microplane, and mix it into the sour cream.
• When the dough is cool enough to touch, spread on the sour cream, then sprinkle the onions and bacon evenly over the top. Sprinkle the cheese over it all.
• Return to the oven to bake another 10-12 minutes until the cheese has browned and the bacon is cooked.
• Slice and serve.

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.

Print recipe

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.

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.

As with most of the basic dishes from this part of the world, there are many variations in how to prepare letcho. Letcho can be a main dish when made more substantial with rice, sausage, eggs, bacon, tarhonya (Israeli/large grain couscous) etc. Depending on the peppers you use, letcho can be hot or mild. The letcho I mention here is my very old recipe. I used to make it for Katy when we were living in Banja Luka (in Bosnia) and it is one of the first meals I learned to prepare for myself  when I was 10.

Print recipe

Letcho

This is a recipe for 2. Simply, because I used to make this for 2. You can make it bigger by just multyplying the ingredients.

Ingredients

Makes 2 portions.

• 2 tbs oil
• 1 big onion
• 4 Hungarian or red bell peppers
• 4 medium tomatoes
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp pepper
• 1/2 tbs marjoram – optional
• 1 Tbs paprika
• 2 eggs

Method

• Chop the onions and saute over low heat in a large pan with about a Tbs of oil. Salt and pepper to taste.
• Cut the peppers into rings and add them to the pot when onions are starting to get brown.
• Roughly chop the tomatoes.
• Once the peppers are soft, add the marjoram and paprika. Stir and add the chopped tomatoes. Lower the heat and cook until tomatoes begin to break down.
• Beat the eggs in a small bowl and add to the pan, stirring as you pour them in. Cook another 5 min.
• Serve with fresh bread. Best with a country loaf, ciabatta, or similar bread that can soak up the juices.