Hungarian cuisine

Vegetarian Journal, Jan-Feb, 2002 by Nancy Berkoff

Stews are important lunch and dinner items. The most famous is probably the paprikash, as we have mentioned, made with onions and paprika and finished with sour cream. Tokany is another type of stew, using pepper and mushrooms and also finished with sour cream. Gulyas contains only meat and potatoes, simmered with paprika, but not finished with sour cream.

Metelt is the Hungarian word for noodles, and every household and restaurant has its technique for coaxing flour and water into satiny ribbons. Tarhonya is a type of egg barley made from flour and eggs, grated into boiling water. Like spaetzle, gombo are dumplings, and galuska are soft noodles made by dipping thin pieces of bread dough into simmering liquid, which causes them to congeal and then swell. There are as many varieties of Hungarian noodles as there are political opinions.

Apples, plums, apricots, and melons are eaten fresh, but they are also made into preserves and brandies. Fresh vegetables are not that popular, but fresh fruit and fruit juice is. If fresh fruit is not in season, then dried fruit is served. A wonderful New Year's Eve punch (see the recipe below) is made from a combination of fresh juice, fruit zest, and dried fruit. The famous Dobos torte is shortcake slathered with plum preserves.

Nuts and seeds are more important than dried beans for flavoring. I've included a recipe for caraway seed soup that is very flavorful. Lentil soups may be made on occasion and beans may be served as a side dish, but vegetable and potato soups are more popular.

Hungarian wheat, bankoti, high in gluten, is considered great for bread and pastry baking. Hungary is known for its sweet tooth, with a national preference for cakes, cookies, and pastries rather than candy. The Cukraszda is a buffet of cakes, tortes, and pastries, most topped with lemon or orange zest, toasted nuts, and poppy seeds. Retes, the Hungarian equivalent of strudel, can be sweet or savory, filled with fruit, nuts, potatoes, or cabbage. Try your own fast version of retes by filling frozen vegan phyllo sheets with canned pie filling, raisins, and chopped nuts. Even noodles get into the act. Meleg Tesztak can be any number of sweet noodle dishes, ranging from hot, buttered noodles tossed with cinnamon, sugar, chopped nuts, and poppy seeds, to more complex noodle "puddings" layered with chopped nuts, raisins, and fruit preserves. Palacsintak are very thin crepes, usually used for sweet dishes, filled with fruit preserves, cream cheese, and chopped nuts. You can make a vegan version by using egg replacer in the crepe batter and soy cream cheese in the filling.

In Budapest, strudel shops offer prune, plum, poppy-seed, and apricot fillings, and even savory fillings of potatoes and cheese. Transylvania uses both wheat flour and cornmeal for breads and dumplings, serving them with lots of sauerkraut and noodles. From Transylvania we get the idea to eat flax and flaxseed. Stuffed grape leaves and cabbage are another Transylvanian creation.