Friday, November 13, 2009

Gomba Paprikás



This is one of our favorites! It's a mushroom stew with plenty of paprika and sour cream served over Hungarian dumplings called nokedli. Below is the recipe for chicken paprikás that is easily adapted for mushroom paprikás. Consider it a bonus post!

Chicken/Mushroom Paprikás

Ingredients:
2 Tbs oil
2 large onions, chopped
1 1/2 t salt
2-3 Tbs paprika
½ cup water
1-2 tomatoes, chopped
2 lbs chicken pieces or mushrooms
1 banana pepper, sliced into rings
2 Tbs sour cream, plus more for garnish
1-2 Tbs flour

Method:

In a large pot sweat onions in oil with a pinch of salt. When onions are soft take the pot of the heat and add the paprika and stir around before adding water and tomatoes. Add chicken pieces and simmer with the lid on for about 30 minutes. (If making with mushrooms add them and saute until brown then proceed with recipe.) When the chicken is cooked, add the pepper slices and simmer for another 10 minutes. Take out chicken pieces and stir together sour cream and flour adding the mixture to the sauce. Serve chicken topped with the sauce next to nokedli and plenty of sour cream to garnish

Nokedli

Ingredients:
2 eggs
2 tsp salt
¾ cup water
3 cups flour

Method:

Whisk egg, salt, and water together until thin. Slowly add flour and mix until a thick batter forms. Bring a pot of salted water to a boil and place nokedli maker* across the top. Push the batter through the grates and into boiling salted water. Simmer until they rise to the top. Drain and serve hot.

Makes approximately 4 servings

Cook’s Note: For two people sharing paprikás over two nights, make a half batch of nokedli the first night and another half the second night.

*This tool looks like a large holed cheese grater and is used to make nokedli or spaetzle.

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Sunday, November 1, 2009

Great Post!

Anyone not familiar with Anna's (and sometimes Burke's) blog Hodge Vodge/Hogy Vagy please check out their latest adventure. They just got back from a wonderful vacation to Slovenia. Most notably they experienced wonderful European hospitality and artisanal craftsmanship!

I urge you to read this!

Monday, October 26, 2009

Pumpkin Ravioli

We chose this as the menu because of the fall-themed party that included pumpkin carving. We didn't, however, use the jack-o-lantern scraps. We chose a variety that smells like candy and brown sugar, almost like an instant pumpkin pie upon cutting the squash open. It was a wonderful sensation. The color is much like that of the eggs we get here, a very deep yellow/orange that is truly beautiful.


Delicious fall squash.
After slicing the two halves up I placed them on my Silpat and roasted them in the oven for about an hour each (there were two batches). Though this step was not pictured and that's a shame because there were pools of caramelized juices on the Silpat that were wonderful to behold as well as taste. Then everything went into the food mill, the glorious food mill. While I was spending about five minutes to turn the squash into a tasty purée I reflected on the hour and a half or so it took me last year to use a spoon and sieve to do the same job. I relished this fact though the palm of my hand started to hurt in memory of the spoon digging into it for an hour and a half last year.


Hurrah for foodmills!

This purée was wonderfully cooked and was very complex for being squash simply roasted. Because it was quite moist and wasn't planning on roasting the slices for a long time I decided against adding even butter or oil to them. Though this would have added more flavor I was very happy with my nearly instant pumpkin pie filling. Now if I can just find a damn pie tin...


Freshly pureed pumpkin.
Once the filling was finished with some cinamon, freshly grated nutmeg, turo, brown sugar, and salt. Franny and I rolled out the pasta. Quickly dropping down tablespoons of pumpkin filling we sealed them and cut them in no time at all. We cooked them in batches of five then put them in the frying pan with browned ghee and sage. Happily the sage was from our very own plant!


Pumpkin ravioli in the brown butter bath.

To finish plating we grated some fresh Parmigiana Reggiano.


Plated ravioli


Yum!

We finished dinner with a fresh dessert of Apple Crisp that Franny quickly whipped up. It was a family recipe and absolutely delicious!

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If a pumpkin grows in Hungary does anyone carve it?

Meditating over this question we invited Emily and Tomi over to take part in our fall festival. It was lots of fun and included roasting pumpkin seeds and making pumpkin ravioli (but that's another post). I think Emily and Tomi had a lot of fun; we sure did!



The three stooges.

Franny and I carried these pumpkins home by hand, along with our usual market list of groceries. It was hard work, but so worth it for the reward of fresh pumpkin seeds and friends wielding knives and smiling!


The three stooges when lit.
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Monday, October 5, 2009

Zucchini Soup



It's really hard to figure out where to begin. I'm not even sure where the beginning is so it's hard to start there. So after some reflection I found a picture of zucchini soup that I made on a few occasions this summer and absolutely loved! It became the defining soup of the summer because of the perfectly fresh and small zucchini I could find at the farmer's market that allowed me to step back from the recipe and let the vegetable do all the work. This soup, plenty of bread, and an ice-cold glass of homemade hibiscus tea (jamaica) became one of the most comforting meals of the season. Enjoy!

Zucchini Soup

1 kilo zucchini, chopped
1 large onion, chopped
Olive oil
4 cups vegetable broth
salt and pepper

Saute the onion and zucchini until they begin to brown. Be sure to use plenty of salt to season the vegetables during the saute. Add broth and pepper, adding more salt to taste. Cook until tender, about 10 minutes then put the stick blender to it. Serve with dumplings or simply with bread.
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Sunday, September 27, 2009

Guest Appearance

Hey all,

I still don't have internet, but I do have my laptop back. Check out my friend's blog with my first blog post in a long time! Can't wait to get back to writing about Hungary, food, and crazy fanny packs.

Check it out here.

Best,

Jon

Monday, June 22, 2009

Watermelon Granita

Hey folks! Sorry for not writing for so long, but I assure you that as busy as things have been lately I'm just collecting stories for a backlog of posts. But until I get to them, I have to move first, here's watermelon granita. Enjoy!



Franny and I went to the market this weekend and bought a quarter of a watermelon. It's been really hot in the south of Hungary, and dry, though I was surprised to see watermelon in June. There weren't just a couple either, there were more than 5 stands dedicated to watermelons or a combination of watermelon and other melons. So we dove in and bought a quarter of one to take home. It was good too, but not amazing, so we made other plans for it. I cut chunks of it into thin slices and Franny, using a strainer and a spoon, pressed all of the juice out of the fruit. We then strained it one last time, added a pinch of salt and sugar and poured all of the collected juice into a 9x13x2 baking pan. Placing the baking dish in the freezer I checked up on it every so often and scraped the ice as it formed to create large flat watermelon crystals of goodness. Serving suggestion above.
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