Davida
and I felt that Hungarian food would be a good choice for her parents since many
Ashkenazi recipes have connections to Hungarian food. I tried to choose some recipes that would be
familiar and some that were different from dishes I had before. I definitely wanted
to make Chicken Paprikash, since that is so strongly associated with Hungary
(and, since it is traditionally made with sour cream, it is a dish I had never before
eaten). But, the other parts of the meal
were up for grabs.
The Appetizer:
Although not
usually thought of as an appetizer, stuffed cabbage is quintessentially both Hungarian and
Jewish. The only change to the recipe
was, of course, to replace the pork with more ground beef. Also, since this was an appetizer, I used
mainly the inner leaves of the cabbage and cut the larger leaves in half, so
that the resulting dish would be more finger-food sized. This made the cabbages more difficult to fold
up, and I had to be very careful so that the stuffing didn’t fall out during
cooking. I loved the fact that these
cabbages were cooked in sauerkraut – the tang of the sauerkraut infused the
cabbages so nicely, and the sauerkraut was a pleasure to eat on its own (I know
that not everyone shares my taste for sauerkraut, but fortunately Davida’s
father did). This was reflected in the
ratings given by the guests – spanning the range from 4-7, averaging 5.7, which
is probably where I would have rated it – it was good soul food, but nothing
really exceptional.
The Main Dish:
The star of the meal was the Chicken Paprikash. While I was unable to find authentic hot
Hungarian paprika, I did find Hungarian sweet paprika and combined that with
“regular” paprika for the dish. Other adaptations to the recipe included: Earth
Balance vegan spread instead of butter; gluten-free flour (Hannah has celiac);
and dairy-free coconut milk yogurt rather than sour cream. Those guests who had Paprikash before said
that, while it was not as spicy as the traditional dish, it was otherwise a
very good approximation. The first time
I cooked through the alphabet, I studiously avoided dishes that combined milk
and meat, to adhere to the standards of Kashrut. This time around, I am enjoying using
dairy-free “milk” products, especially coconut milk yogurt, to expand my
horizons. It has really been an
enlightening experience!
Not only was the dish delicious, the
bright red color and thick sauce made it a delight to look at. The dish was rated 6’s and 7’s, averaging
just under 6.5. I would have rated it a
7; definitely a keeper. Not very fussy
to make and great for leftovers.
The Starches:
What would a
Hungarian/Jewish meal be without two starches!
While the paprikash recipe that I used says to serve it over noodles, other sites that I looked at
suggested that Nokedii dumplings are often served with chicken
paprikash. They looked simple to make,
consisting only of eggs, salt, and flour.
The only real question I had was how well they would turn out using
gluten-free flour. Well, that didn’t
turn out to be an issue – the gluten-free flour worked just perfectly; the
problem was the time it took to make the dumplings. It was very tedious making dozens of small dumplings;
putting small dabs of the dough into boiling water, and fishing them out when
done. Cooking them took about 45 minutes of constant supervision. While they were surprisingly tasty and went
incredibly well with the paprikash sauce, soaking it up like a sponge (guest
rating of 5.7, although one guest gave it a 2), I’m not sure it was worth the
time. Next time, I’ll stick to noodles
with the paprikash.
The other starch
was a rakott krumpli (pleated potato casserole). While the recipe was from joyofkosher.com, I still needed to
tweak the recipe, because it included dairy. Coconut milk yogurt to the rescue,
once again replacing the sour cream in the original recipe, together with vegan
“cheese.” The end result was not as
pretty as the picture in the recipe, I think mainly because the yogurt didn’t
bake as well as sour cream would have, and it wasn’t as creamy as I would have
liked, but it definitely was quite tasty.
The hard-boiled eggs, however, did not add much to the potatoes, onions,
and yogurt. I would use twice as many
were I to make it again. The guests all
really liked it, though, giving it an average rating of 6.3!
The Vegetable:
Lecso is a tomato-pepper-onion stew. Apparently, some make it with hot peppers,
but I just used a combination of sweet red and green pepper. It was a very simple dish, seasoned with just
paprika and a bit of salt. Nothing
special, but also did not compete with the other dishes. It got a wide range of ratings, from 4’s to
7’s, with a majority of 5’s (average of 5.4); personally, I give it a 4. Probably not something I would make again,
but it was simple to prepare and not objectionable in any way.
I do think we did
the right thing skipping “G” for this meal.
The overall comments, especially about the Chicken Paprikash, were really
quite positive. Always nice to cook for
appreciative eaters!
Up next: Iceland! (after going back to Ghana, of course)
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