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Hungarian cuisine, spices,
and the most popular dishes
Characteristic of Hungarian Cuisine
Advantages:
Disadvantages:
• Varied menus
• Creative dishes
• Rich flavour,aroma
and texture
• Easy to prepare
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Too many fat
Too much calorie
Not for people in diet
Heavy for the
digestion system
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There are also a few unique Hungarian cooking methods that we use
to prepare our dishes.
Broiling should only be used for more tender chops and steaks since
no additional tenderization will result. High surface temperatures
result in extensive browning which give the meat a unique flavour.
Charcoal broiling is a popular method suitable for cooking chops,
steaks, chicken, ribs, kabobs, sausage, and sometimes roasts.
Temperatures used in this method of cooking are usually lower than
oven broiling.
Roasting is appropriate for tender roasts. Meat should be protected
during roasting by an external layer of fat or by aluminium foil to
prevent excessive moisture loss which results in a dry finished
product.
For cuts of meat which are lower grade or tend to be tougher due to
the cut, moist heat is the preferred method of cooking. Braising and
pot roasting are both moist heat cooking methods where meat is
cooked in closed containers with added water. Seasoning, sauces,
and flour may be added during cooking to enhance the flavour or
texture of the final product.
Spices we use in Hungary
Black pepper: This spice is from India. You can find black, white, green
and pink ones. We often use them in stews, steaks
and special Hungarian foods, for example in Gulash
Soup.
Bay leaf: Ancient Greeks and Romans crowned victors with wreaths of
laurel. Romans felt the leaves protected them against thunder and the
plague, so, they started to use them in their meals. In
Hungary we put leaves to soups and for example to
stuffed cabbage.
Caraway: It’s a quite small spice, but it’s really strong. It’s from Europe. You
can use it everywhere for example in breads, soups and steaks.
Majoram: It’s from Italy and Greece, so, it’s a Mediterran spice. You can use it
as herb beer.You can find it in Hungarian foods e.g. welt or stews.
Red pepper: What ‘s this? You can read about this spice in the next page!
History of Hungarian paprika
The Turks introduced the pepper plant to Hungary
during their rule in the 16th-17th centuries.
At first it was regarded and used as an ordinary plant
and decorated the gardens. Shepherds and
herdsmen who had more contact with the invaders
started spice their meals with the fiery powder.
Then paprika got to the kitchens of the peasants.
Aristocrats found the peasant foods flavoured with
the red spice very tasty and slowly they started to
use paprika too. By the 19th century paprika became
a dominant spice in Hungarian kitchens and
restaurants.
Hungarian paprika
facts
• -Paprika powder is produced by grinding the
dried deep red paprika pods of the pepper
plant (Capsicum annum L. is the botanical
name)
• -It can be sweet, mildly hot and very hot,
• -The fresh red pepper is rich in vitamin C
(150mg/100g paprika) and other important
minerals.
Albert Szent-Györgyi (1893-1986)
Hungarian scientist, was awarded the Noble prize in
1937 for discovering vitamin C.
It has anti-scorbutic and other physiological effects.
He and his colleagues worked at the laboratory of the
Szeged University. Szent-Györgyi and his collegues
experimented with the paprika plant and they
extracted vitamin C first in the world form the
vegetable.
Hungarian soups
• Hungary is a soup-eating nation. A
complete three-course meal always starts with
a soup. It can be a hearty meat soup like the
world-famous goulash or a sweetish fruit soup.
• Almost every part of Hungary has its own way of
making goulash.
• Újházy chicken broth (Újházy tyúkhúsleves) is
another tasty Hungarian soup that you'll find on
restaurant menus.
Gulash
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Ingredients for about 6 person:
2 1/2 lb beef; cut into 1 inch cubes
2 lg onions; roughly chopped
4 oz bacon; cut into small cubes
2 oz lard; (or neutral oil, not
-olive
2 tb wheat flower
2 tb paprika powder *
2 cloves garlic; crushed
2 ts thyme
1 cn (16 oz) peeled tomatoes;
-crushed, with juices
4 c beef stock
1 green bell pepper; seeded
-and sliced
1 red bell pepper; seeded and
-sliced
1 salt and black pepper
Instructions
Fry bacon until light brown and fat releases. Add
lard, beef and onions.
Fry until beef is all brown. Sprinkle with wheat
flower and paprika powder.
Stir until fat has absorbed powders. Add the rest
of the ingredients, plus
some salt and pepper and stir well. Cover and let
simmer for 1 1/2 hours.
Stir occasionally and add water if sauce becomes
too thick. Season with
salt and pepper and serve with boiled potatoes.
Hungarian Fish Soup
Ingredients for about 6 portions:
1000 g different type of small fish (freshwater fish)
1500 kg carp (whole or fillets)
2 tablespoons lard
2 tablesppons
2 large onion
1 green pepper
1 big potato, peeled
salt and ground black pepper to taste
1 tomato, peeled and diced
1 egg and flour for the noodles
Preparations
and
Instructions
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Clean the fish.
Remove its teeth, tail, fins and
scales with a sharp knife.
Wash it with cold water.
Open up the carp at its belly
and remove the chitterlings.
Slice it up for 2 cm thick slices
and salt them.
Cut out the eyes from the head.
Peel the onions and dice them.
Peel the potato.
Dice the tomato.
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First of all we make a fish stock from the
small fish and the head of the carp.
Heat up the lard in a large pan and braise
the diced onions.
Sprinkle the onion with paprika and pour
immediately about 3 L water into the pan to
prevent paprika from getting burnt.
Put the small fish, the head of the carp, the
diced tomato and salt in the pan and cook it
until the meat comes of the fishbone.
Sieve the stock and bring in to the boil.
If you find it a bit thick, add some water.
Put the salted carp slices in the fish stock,
add slices of hot, green pepper, some salt if
necessary and bring it to the boil.
Grate the potato and add it to the soup.
Cook it for 1-2 minutes.
Beat up an egg add 1-2 tablespoons of flour
and mix it until you get a batter. It should
not be neither too thick nor too thin.
Salt it a bit and cut nice ball shapes into the
boiling soup with the help of a spoon. Cook
it for 2-3 minutes.
Hungarian fish soup is a substantial meal in
itself, especially this version with noodles
and grated potato
Hungarian Main Dishes
Soup is usually followed by some kind of meat
dish with potato, pasta or rice garnishing. Pickels or
salad made from seasonal vegetables accompany meat
dishes.
Pörkölt [pərkəlt] and paprikás are the most popular
Hungarian meat dishes. Pörkölt is a ragout made from
pork, beef or mutton or chicken with onions and paprika
powder as the main spice.
Stuffed cabbage (Töltött káposzta) is a traditional delicious
Hungarian dish that is often made for holidays
like Christmas or Easter.
If you're vegetarian try főzelék [f3:zeleik] which is
vegetables simmered usually in water and thickened with
roux.
Lecsó
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Ingredients
onion chopped fine
4 tb shortening
5 green peppers
1/2 lb tomatoes
5 tb uncooked rice
1/2 c water
1 c sour cream
2 eggs beaten
salt
Instructions:
Chop the onion very fine. Cook gently in the melted
shortening until tender.
Remove the seeds and membrane from the peppers and
cut into narrow strips.
Peel and core tomatoes and cut into pieces. Add to the
onion and cook a few minutes.
Wash the rice well and add with the water. Let this
come to a boil, add 1/2 cup sour cream. Simmer until
rice and vegetables are tender.
Just before serving, add the remaining (sour) cream and
the well beaten eggs. Season and serve hot.
Paprika chicken with dumplings
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Ingredients
1.2 kg chicken
1 large onion
2 tablespoons of oil
1 green pepper
1 tomato
1-2 teaspoons of flour
40-50cl sour cream
gnocchi tossed in butter to accompany
salt
pepper
1 teaspoon mild to hot paprika
Instructions:
Finely chop the onion and fry in the oil until transparent.
Sprinkle with paprika, toss in the chicken that has been
jointed and fry for a few minutes over a strong heat until
it becomes slightly brown.
Add a green pepper and a tomato, both sliced, salt and
simmer in its own juice under a lid until tender.
Blend the flour in the sour cream and add to the meat, boil
well and add salt if necessary. Serve with gnocchi tossed
in butter.
Hungarian desserts
Strudel
A strudel is a type of sweet
layered pastry with a filling
inside, that became well known
and gained popularity in the 18th
century through the Habsburg
Empire.
Strudel is most often associated
with the Austrian cuisine, but is
also a traditional pastry in the
whole area formerly belonging
to the Austro-Hungarian empire.
The pastry has its origins in the
similar Byzantine Empire or
Middle Eastern pastries (see
baklava and Turkish cuisine),
thus it is even related to the
Balkan burek pastry.
Beigli
This roll, the beigli
[‘bεjgli] is a
Hungarian
speciality. It is made
mostly for
Christmas or Easter.
Traditionally it is
filled with walnut or
poppy seed filling,
but nowadays new
fillings are being
experimented upon.
Hungarian
Twisted
Doughnut
February and
carnival time cannot
pass without
csörögefánk
[‘tsørøgεfαnk], this
traditional Hungarian
doughnut!
Among the
doughnuts this is a
popular delicacy –
the Hungarian
Twisted Doughnut,
which is, because of
its shape also known
as "Turnings".
• The climate in our country and the soil
are perfect for growing grapes and winemaking.
• Yet apart from Egri Bikavér (Bulls Blood)
and Tokaji aszú most Hungarian wines are
lesser known in the world.
• Some Hungarian wine producers make wines
because they want to preserve the quality and
fame of Hungarian wines.
• There are 5 bigger and 22 smaller wine regions
in Hungary.
Wines from Tokaj
The area where Tokay wine is traditionally grown is a small
plateau, 457m (1500 ft) above sea level, near
the Carpathian Mountains. The soil is of volcanic origin,
with high concentrations of iron and lime. The location of
the region has a unique climate due to the protection of
the nearby mountains.
Winters are cold and windy; spring are cool and dry, and
summers are noticeably hot. Usually, autumn brings rain,
followed by an Indian summer, allowing a very long
ripening period.
Types of Tokaji wine
• Dry Wines: These wines, once referred to as
common, ordinárium, are now named after their respective
grape varieties: Tokaji Furmint, Tokaji Hárslevelű, Tokaji
Sárgamuskotály and Tokaji Kövérszőlő.
• Szamorodni: This type of wine was initially known
as főbor (prime wine), but from the 1820s Polish merchants
popularised the name samorodny("the way it was grown" or
"made by itself"). Szamorodni is typically higher in alcohol than
ordinary wine. Its alcohol content is typically 14%. There are
two main types of Szamorodni: sweet and dry depending on
how much sugar and botrytised grapes it contains.
Aszú: This is the world-famous wine that is proudly cited in
the Hungarian national anthem. It is the sweet, topaz-coloured wine
that is known throughout the English-speaking world as Tokay.
The original meaning of the Hungarian word aszú was "dried", but
the term aszú came to be associated with the type of wine made
with botrytis (i.e. ”nobly rotten”) grapes.
Aszú is racked off into wooden casks where fermentation is
completed and the aszú wine is to mature. The casks are stored in
a cool environment, and are not tightly closed, so a slow
fermentation process continues in the cask, usually for several
years.
Pálinka
History
• The first records of the Hungarian spirit date back to the fourteenth
century, and refer as "Aqua vitae reginae Hungariae" to the aqua
vitae of the wife of the King Charles I of Hungary. This spirit was
probably a brandy blended with rosemary, and had its use in
medicine, as both the king and the queen suffered from arthritis.
• The word pálinka derives from the Slavonic stem "páliť", to burn. In
Hungarian the word is most probably of Slovak origin, as "Tótpálinka"
(literally Slovak pálinka) was used in Hungary to refer to alcoholic
drinks derived from wheat.
• The word pálinka became widespread in Hungary in the seventeenth
century, but it still referred to distillates made from grain. The
meaning was later transferred to fruit brandies, while wheat distillates
were referred to as "crematura". Distillation became a privilege of the
landlords. Private distilleries and factories started to appear towards
the end of the eighteenth century, which led to legislation and to the
introduction of a Pálinka tax.
• The patron of Pálinka distillation is Saint Nicholas.
Types of Pálinka
• - Kisüsti (literally "Small pot, cauldron") is a double-distilled pálinka
made in a copper pot not exceeding a volume of 1000 liters.
• - Érlelt (Aged) is a pálinka aged for at least 6 months in a wooden
cask smaller than 1000 liters, or for at least 12 months in a wooden
cask of 1000 liters or above.
• - Ó (Old) is a pálinka aged for at least 12 months in a wooden cask
smaller than 1000 liters, or for at least 24 months in a wooden cask
of 1000 liters or above.
• - Ágyas ("bedside") is a pálinka aged for at least 3 months together
with fruits. The fruits can be of the same sort used to obtain the
distillate or of another sort. To 100 liters of pálinka at least 10 kgs of
ripe fruits have to be added.