Hungarian Stuff

Recipes, a special true story set in Hungary, music, and links to dance videos below.  🙂 

In my new book, First Hungarian Words, I made a page of school supplies with their Hungarian words.  Just for fun, on the notebook paper, I wrote some sentences in Hungarian.  Here is the translation of that:  My name is Elizabeth. I like flowers, blue birds, and sunshine. I like to eat chicken paprikash, cucumber salad, and Dobos torte. My favorite color is purple. 

Purchase First Hungarian Words here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chicken Paprikash (Csirke Paprikas) with Galushka  (Galuska)

• 2 medium onions, minced
• 2 T. lard or chicken fat or butter
• 3 lb. bone-in and skin-on chicken, cut into pieces
• 1 large, ripe tomato, peeled & chopped
• I heaping T. paprika
• 1 t. salt
• 1/2 c. water
• 1 sweet green pepper, sliced
• 2 T sour cream
• Ga-lush-ka (recipe follows)

Cook onions and fat in a 4 quart pot with lid on low, covered, 5 minutes until onions are pasty, not browned.

Add chicken and tomato; cover and cook over low heat 10 more minutes.

Add paprika, salt, and water; cook covered over very low heat 1 hour or until chicken is done.

Take off lid, cook 5 minutes to evaporate some liquid. If you’d like, cook off longer to thicken the sauce.

At this point, you can de-bone the chicken if you like.

Add green pepper and salt to taste, if needed. Stir in sour cream. Cook, covered, over very low heat until just warmed through.  Serve over galushka.

Galushka

• 3 eggs
• 3/4 c. water
• about 2 1/4  c. flour
• melted butter
• cheap pan with 1/2 inch holes cut in it (you can use a drill) or drop dough by spoon

Start large pot of water boiling, add a few dashes of salt. Get a saucepan with butter ready. Preheat oven to warm, or lowest setting.

Mix all ingredients until smooth.  This should be a runny, but not thin, batter. Press batter through pan holes using a flat spatula (or drop teaspoons) into a pot of boiling, salted water.  Don’t do too many at once or crowd the pot.

Melt butter in saucepan.

Dumplings are done when they rise to the surface.  Scoop out with a slotted spoon. Let drain.

Drop cooked dumplings into hot butter and cook just a bit, coating with butter.  Put dumplings into a pan and keep warm in oven until the rest of the batch is done.

These are also SO good as a meal with scrambled eggs.

 

Cucumber Salad

• 2 medium cucumbers, peeled and sliced very thinly
• 1 t. salt
• 1 t. sugar
• 1/4 c. white vinegar
• 1/2 c. water
• paprika (Hungarian of course)
• black pepper

Sprinkle salt on cucumbers and let stand for 60 minutes.

Squeeze water out of cucumbers using a paper towel.

Mix sugar, vinegar, and water. Pour over cucumbers and refrigerate for at least 2 hours.

To make pretty and traditional, sprinkle half the salad with paprika and half with black pepper.

 

Ischli Fank 

• 3/4 c. real butter
• 1 1/2 c. flour
• 1/2 c. sugar
• 3 oz. walnuts, finely ground, about a scant cup before ground
• raspberry jam
• chocolate icing (recipe follows)

Cut butter into flour with two knives or pastry cutter, as a pie crust. Add sugar. Add nuts to dough.  Knead, but don’t overwork.

Roll or 1/8″ thick and cut out rounds, OR pat small balls of dough to 1/8″ thick right on the pan and cut out, removing extra dough.

Bake at 375 degrees F for 7-8 minutes. (Edges of cookie should be only barely brown.)

Cool.  Spread jam on a cookie and place another single cookie on top.  Spread icing on top of double cookie. Let icing dry.

Icing

• 1 T. butter
• 2T. unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1/2 c. powdered sugar
• 1 1/2 T hot water

Mix all.  it should be fairly runny.

*These freeze nicely–although they may look a little prettier if they are frozen without the icing and the icing is put on later.  They also keep well at room temperature–if you hide them from the family.  🙂 

**Ischli Fank (ish-lee fonk) means “cookies from Ischl,” a town in Austria. “Ischli” is probably the Austrian spelling, and “Isli” is probably the Hungarian spelling. 

 

This story, very close my heart, begins here and goes for the next two blog posts after that:

December 1944, Budapest, Hungary, Part 1

 

Hungarian Folk Music and Dancing:

Csárdás 
This piece opens with a mournful, haunting melody. Then follows a very fast, exciting dance which still has a hint of sadness. Watch their fingers fly!  A sweet, happy theme comes next, followed by a joyful version of the very fast part. The piece ends with a triumphant note. This music changes from mood to mood, just like a moody Hungarian.  🙂

 

Some fun Hungarian Folk Dancing:

 

Fast Hungarian Gypsy Dancing (Real Men Dance, Too):