Chocolate Cherry Squares

My dear friend/neighbour invited us for dinner one night and I offered to bring dessert. I spotted some frozen cherries at our grocery store and picked them up thinking they would be a good ingredient for dessert in a pinch, not thinking that pinch would be sooner than later. I’ve made these squares before, without the chocolate ribbons so I wanted to update the recipe, and because, as JT said, “What could possibly be wrong with cherries and chocolate?” You be the judge.

Chocolate Cherry Squares

A Kitcheninspirations original recipe

Makes one pan 23 cm x  33 cm (9” x 13”) about 20 squares

Ingredients:

• 300 g frozen cherries, defrosted and drained
• 3 eggs separated
• 120 g unsalted butter (room temperature)
• 125 g caster sugar
• 250 g flour
• 25 g baking powder
• ½ tsp salt
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 125 mL cream
• 150 g Belgian milk chocolate
• 50 mL cream

Directions:

• Grease and flour 9” x 13” x 2” baking pan (22cm x 33cm x 5cm).
• Preheat oven to 350° F (175°C)
• Heat the cream until almost boiling and pour over the chocolate and stir until entirely melted. Allow to cool.
• Whip the egg whites until stiff but not dry (should be able to stand in a peak) – no need to wash the beater if you do it in this order, if you cream the yolks first, then you must wash the beater and dry thoroughly).
• Cream the egg yolks with butter and sugar until light and fluffy (should be a lighter shade of yellow).
• Sift flour, baking powder and salt – dry ingredients.
• Alternating dry ingredients with the milk, fold into egg yolk mixture.
• Gently fold beaten egg whites into the mixture.
• Spoon  about half of the batter into greased pan. Note the batter is quite thick, you will have to spread it into the cake pan with an offset spatula. Drizzle the milk chocolate ganache over the batter and spoon the remaining batter on top, speading evenly with the offset spatula.
• Dot with the cherries throughout (you may want to give each cherry a squeeze as you dot so ensure there are no pits!).
• Bake in preheated oven for about 20 to 30 minutes (test with a toothpick to make sure it’s done).
• Cool in the pan (don’t cut until it is entirely cool otherwise it will become ‘bacony’ or szalonás, as the Hungarians put it).

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Linzer-Style Squares

The renovation is going well. We really like this contractor because he communicates frequently. He’s on site almost every day; he’s only missed one or two days and it was because his wife had a baby! The subs are also good, only a couple of them smoke and they have been reasonably good about not littering their cigarette butts (you’d be surprised).

However, I do have a couple of issues which we will take up with him on our project review at completion. It’ll be feedback to he can improve for the next project.

As you know, I bake for the guys almost everyday and these squares were part of my repertoire. The pastry is delicious but quite delicate so it’s a little finicky to roll out. JT thought the jam to crust ratio wasn’t high enough, but I like a buttery crust so it was fine with me. The jam caramelizes as it bakes and concentrates the flavour. I used a jam with double the fruit, but i think regular jam would work too. Needless to say, these didn’t last long.

Linzer-Style Squares

For the original recipe, kindly click here.

Makes one 23 cm 23 cm (9″ x 9″) pan

Ingredients:

• 250 g butter, cold
• 250 g flour
• 125 g icing sugar
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• A pinch of ground cloves
• A pinch of salt
• 150 g ground almonds
• 1 tsp Lemon zest
• 1 egg yolk
• 375 mL Jam (your choice)

• 1 egg, whisked (for brushing the lattice)

Directions:

1. In a food processor, combine the butter, flour, icing sugar, cinnamon, cloves, ground almonds, pinch of salt, lemon zest and egg yolk and pulse until it comes together. Form into a disk and cover with plastic wrap and allow to rest for 30 minutes in the refrigerator.
2. Preheat the oven to 350° F. Line a square pan with parchment paper.
3. Divide the dough into 1/3 and 2/3 and push the 2/3 quantity of dough into the pan in an even layer. Spread the jam of your choice over the bottom layer of the dough.
4. Divide the remaining 1/3 of the dough into 12 equal parts and roll into thin straws. Lay the straws on top of the jam layer in a lattice pattern. Brush the lattice with egg and bake for 50-60 minutes or until pastry is lightly golden.
5. Cool completely and cut into even squares. Sprinkle with icing sugar if desired.

Notes:

• This is not a traditional Linzer torte.
• Linzer is traditionally made with red currant jam, I used strawberry because I had a lot of it on hand.

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Chocolate Brioche

It has been beyond cold in these parts. Entirely opposite to what Australia is experiencing. Our windchills (and humidity) take the cold over the top, for example last week it was -13C with 30% humidity and a windchill that makes it feel like -25C at 8am! That’s wild. Your skin can freeze in 10 minutes. It’s a battle of being chilled and too hot at the same time; imagine having to take literally 10 minutes to put all your outdoor gear on, you’re already sweating because you’re inside, then going outside, walking – expanding energy, getting warm in your coat, and then popping into a warmly heated shop! You just can’t undress fast enough! It’s brutal. Staying home is easy, you just don’t feel like the battle.

Having the oven on makes the kitchen a wee bit cozier during this deep freeze so I baked this old favourite. Plus the aroma is intoxicating. It is an old recipe that I posted in 2012 here but I remade it with a small addition and reduced it to one loaf so I thought I’d post the revised version. The biggest change was that I added about 50 mL of melted Belgian chocolate to the chocolate part which really enhanced the flavour without making it too doughy. I also brushed the dough with an egg yolk to make it gorgeous and shiny. We had it for New Year’s Day breakfast along the side of the Smoked Salmon Roll-ups. It was delicious.

The chocolate flavour was richer using the melted Belgium Chocolate with the cocoa powder.

Makes 1 relatively good sized braid. Original recipe was modified from Baking with Julia.

To print this recipe, please click here.

Ingredients:

• 7 g dry yeast
• 65 mL tepid water (80°F to 90°F)
• 30 g granulated sugar + a pinch, divided
• 50 g unsalted butter, cut into smallish cubes
• 125 mL whole milk
• 10 g salt
• 2 large eggs, room temperature
• 420 g all-purpose, unbleached flour, divided
• 14 g unsweetened cocoa powder, sifted
• 30 g icing sugar
• 50 mL Belgian chocolate, melted and cooled
• non-stick cooking spray or olive oil

Ingredients for the glaze:

• 1 large egg yolk
• splash of water

Directions:

1. Spray two large mixing bowls with non-stick cooking spray, or rub with butter or olive oil and set aside.
2. Whisk the yeast into the water with a pinch of sugar in a measuring cup and allow to proof, about 5 minutes.
3. Heat the milk with 1/3 cup granulated sugar and the cubed butter until warm to touch and the butter has entirely melted. Stir in the salt until melted. Allow this mixture to cool to 110°F.
4. Once cooled, pour the milk mixture into the large stand mixer bowl attached with a whisk and add the eggs one at a time, mixing well to combine. You should have about 1 litre of liquid. Divide into two portions of about 500 mL each and set one portion aside.
5. Put the cookie paddle onto your stand mixer. To one portion, add about 100 g of the flour and beat on low for about 3 minutes or until it comes together. Now switch to the bread dough paddle and add the remaining flour or as much as needed, kneading on medium-low speed to make a soft dough that is clean off the sides of the bowl. Now knead for 8-10 minutes until smooth and elastic. Transfer to one of the bowls that has been prepared. Cover with plastic wrap and place in a warm dark place to double in size (1 or 1 1/2 hours).
6. For the chocolate portion, sift 210 g of flour with the unsweetened cocoa and icing sugar.
7. Retrieve the second portion of the liquid and add the cooled melted Belgian chocolate and mix well.
8. Add about 100 g of the sifted flour, cocoa and icing sugar and beat on low for about 3 minutes or until it comes together. Add the remaining flour or as much flour as needed kneading on medium-low speed to make a soft dough that is clean off the sides of the bowl. Now knead for 8-10 minutes until smooth and elastic. Transfer to the other bowl that has been prepared. Cover with plastic wrap and place in a warm dark place to double in size (1 or 1 1/2 hours).
9. When dough has doubled in size (both the chocolate and the plain versions) punch down and deflate them. Cover again and allow to rise until doubled in size (about 45 minutes to 1 hour).
10. Line a large baking sheet with parchment. Divide the plain, white dough in 2 equal portions (I find a scale very helpful) and roll into approximately 16″ lengths. Divide the chocolate dough into 2 equal portions. Combine the four ropes on a lightly floured surface and braid. Press together the ends and fold under the braid. Place on lined baking sheet and allow to rest for 40 minutes.
11. Preheat the oven to 375° F. Combine the egg and cold water or heavy cream and mix well. Brush the braid with the glaze and bake for 20 minutes. Remove from the oven and brush the expansion joints of the braid and return to bake for an additional 15 to 20 minutes or until the internal temperature is about 200°F. If they brown too quickly, cover browning parts with a little piece of foil.
12. Cool before slicing. This can be frozen in an airtight plastic bag for about 1 month.

Note:

• Stale slices of this bread makes excellent French toast or Bread Pudding!

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Apple and Cheese Strudel

JT and I have been on a huge adventure. I’ll let you in on it next week. But just before, a dear friend’s daughter flew in from Vancouver and we invited the family over for tea and strudel and this is what I made.

Apple & Cheese Strudel

A KitchenInspirations Original Recipe

Make 3 medium-sized strudels (about 30 cm or 12″ long)

To print recipe, please click here.

Ingredients:

• 260 g ricotta
• 100 g Icelandic or Greek yogurt
• 35 g raisins
• zest of 1 lemon
• 25 g icing sugar
• 5 mL vanilla
• 1 egg, gently whisked
• pinch of salt
• 4 (~550 g) apples, peeled, cored and finely diced
• zest and juice of 1/2 a lemon
• 20 g brown sugar
• 5 g cinnamon
• 50 g almond flour, divided
• 9 sheets of phyllo pastry
• 45 g butter, melted
• Icing sugar for garnish

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350° F (177° C).
2. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
3. Combine the ricotta, yogurt, raisins, lemon zest, sugar, vanilla, egg and salt and mix well. Set into the refrigerator whilst preparing the apples.
4. Combine the apples, lemon zest and juice, brown sugar, cinnamon, 15 g almond flour and mix well.
5. Prepare 3 sheets of phyllo pastry by brushing each sheet with the melted butter and sprinkling with almond flour, set aside. Continue with remaining 6, making stacks of three sheets.
6. Pour 1/3 the ricotta mixture into the centre of each stack of prepared phyllo and top with 1/3 of the apple mixture. Turn in the ends and roll tightly.
7. Brush each roll with the remaining melted butter and bake until golden, about 30-40 minutes.
8. Serve warm sprinkled with icing sugar.

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Healthy Hungarian Green Bean Stew (Egészséges Zöldbab Főzelék)

Green bean stew (Zöldbab Főzelék) is one of those Hungarian dishes that is an aquired taste, it has a bit of a sour flavour and is usually rather heavy on the dill. I never liked it as a kid, but it is a Hungarian staple particularly as spring approaches. Recently, I found myself with a relatively large package of the lovely, extra-thin green beans and I wondered how I could make this roux-based dish a little healthier. I omitted the lard (I know, it’s flavour but we’re also trying to lose a few so we’re being good!) and I remade the roux with puréed lentils! Not so traditional, but it was rather tasty. With JT giving it a solid thumbs up, I’ll definitely be making this dish again!

Healthy Hungarian Green Bean Stew (Egészséges Zöldbab Főzelék)

A KitchenInspirations Original Recipe

Serves 2

Ingredients:

• 300 g Green Beans, trimmed and cut i bite-size pieces
• 90 g leeks, roughly chopped
• 20 g garlic, roughly chopped
• 30 g red lentils
• 1 tsp Hungarian Paprika
• Vegetable Stock
• 1 tsp EVOO
• 1/4 cup Greek yogurt
• 2-3 tbsp fresh dill, finely chopped.

Directions:

1. Heat olive oil in a Dutch oven, sauté green beans until soft but still has a bit of a crunch adding a tablespoon of the vegetable stock as needed. Set aside.
2. In the same pan, add leeks, garlic and lentils and sauté adding a bit of vegetable stock until lentils are soft, add the paprika near the end. Purée the lentil sauce until smooth add  vegetable stock until desired consistency is achieved (should be thick like a roux). Add the yogurt and purée again until smooth. Return the beans to the lentil sauce and add the chopped dill (to taste), heat through and serve immediately.

Notes:

• For an authentic Hungarian Green Bean Stew, please visit my friend Zsuzsa for her recipe.
• I wanted a fat-free and gluten-free roux and that is why I chose red lentils to thicken the sauce.
• This is a slightly sour dish from the yogurt, if you don’t like that type of flavour, omit it.
• I served a baked tilapia on the stew, the tilapia is just seasoned with salt and pepper.

This was the first time I made this stew and JT LOVED it!

The healthy version based on 2 servings per recipe.

This is the original Hungarian Recipe which uses lard, sour cream and flour.

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Hungarian Mákos and Diós Beigli (Poppy Seed and Walnut)

Happy Holidays, my dear blog readers. I cannot begin to thank you for all of your lovely comments and your beautiful support throughout this year. In 2016, Kitcheninspirations is in her 8th year and it’s been quite a joyous ride. Originally this little blog was simply a repository of recipes, an on-line cookbook of some of my favourites over the years. But then someone commented and the rest is history. I cherish each and every one of you and hope to meet you in person soon. I hope you had a wonderful holiday with your family and cherished friends and JT and I wish you the very best for 2016.

One of the things I’ve noticed as a child of immigrant parents is that my generation doesn’t hold as much to tradition as the previous generation did. Case in point, every Christmas my dear Mom would make Beigli, a traditional Hungarian Christmas treat; she would not make it any other time of the year, even though she loved it. I, on the other hand, will make anything as long as I can find the ingredients. Except Beigli. Beigli is an acquired taste; it’s not horrible or weird, it’s just not something Canadians are used to eating so, I generally only make it if we have other Hungarians around. This past Christmas was the second year we were invited to my cousin Lucy’s place for Angyal so I decided to make her Beigli. Beigli is a yeasted buttery dough rolled with a ground poppy seed mixture or a ground walnut mixture. My Mom put raisins in the poppy seed version but I don’t recall them in the walnut ones. This is only the second or third time I have made these treats, the two other times were well before this blog so it was more than eight years ago. Hungarian pastries are not sickly sweet and have only a little sugar in them, so if you are a sweet tooth, these are not for you. You may also wish to avoid the poppy seed Beigli if your work does any type of drug testing.

Beigli

Makes 1 30 cm (12 inch) each Poppy Seed (Mákos) and Walnut (Diós) Beigli

Original recipe from my dear Mom

Ingredients for the Dough:

• 133 mL milk, warm
• 1 tsp granulated sugar
• 8 g instant yeast
• 33 g icing sugar
• 350-400 g AP flour
• 167 g butter, room temperature
• 3 eggs, divided
• 1 egg white
• pinch of salt

Directions for the Dough:

1. Mix the warm milk, granulated sugar and yeast in a bowl and set aside.
2. Using the scraper paddle of your stand mixer, rub the butter into 350 g of flour. Switch to the dough hook.
3. Add 2 lightly beaten eggs, icing sugar and the salt to the yeast and mix well. Pour into the flour butter bowl and knead for a few minutes until the ingredients are combined and the dough becomes shiny and smooth (you may need to add a bit more flour so it’s not shaggy). Cover with a clean cloth and set aside for 2 hours in a warm, draft free spot.

Ingredients for the Poppy Seed Filling:

• 200 mL milk
• 200 g poppy seeds, ground
• 33 g semolina
• 133 g icing sugar
• 1 lemon, zested
• 67 g raisins

Directions for the Poppy Seed Filling:

1. Combine the ground poppy seeds, semolina, icing sugar and lemon zest and mix well.
2. Bring the milk to a boil, remove from heat and stir into the poppy seed mixture. Add the raisins and mix well. Set aside to cool completely (don’t worry, it will thicken as it cools).

Ingredients for the Walnut Filling:

• 100 g granulated sugar
• 200 mL water
• 200 g walnuts
• 67 g panko
• 30 mL water
• 1 lemon, zested

Directions for the Walnut Filling:

1. In the bowl of your food processor, process the walnuts, breadcrumbs and zest until finely ground. Set aside.
2. Combine the water and sugar in a heavy bottom pan and bring to a boil without stirring. Continue to boil until it reaches 110 °C (230 °F). Remove from heat and immediately stir into the walnut mixture, adding the water and stir well.

Beigli Assembly and Baking

1. Divide the dough into two equal portions. Roll each portion into 1/2 cm thick rectangles (about 11 1/4″ x 12″). Spread the entire amount of the filling evenly onto each rectangle, leaving about 1 cm wide border all around.
2. Roll the dough from the long side and pinch the side to seal. Turn the ends into the roll.
3. Place on a cookie sheet. Repeat for the other filling, brush both rolls with the remaining beaten egg. Allow to rest for one hour.
4. Whisk the egg white and brush the rested rolls. Set aside for 30 more minutes. Pre heat the oven to 375° F (190° C).
5. Once rested, lightly poke the sides of the rolls with a fork to avoid the dough breaking. Bake for 30 minutes or until golden and baked through.
6. Serve the rolls sliced into 1-1.5 cm slices.

A delicious, not too sweet, Christmas treat.

As a kid, I always preferred the walnut beigli, but I think I like the poppy seed better now!

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Magyar Szilvásgombóc (Hungarian Plum Dumplings)

I recently read on a blog (which I can not find for the life of me, but if it was you, kindly mention it with a link in the comments) a rant about restaurant service where wait staff remove empty dishes from the table before everyone has finished eating. This is a HUGE issue in Toronto, particularly with the roadhouse-style (3 star or less) establishments. It is a disgusting trait, particularly when there are ONLY TWO people dining. Because JT inhales eats much quicker than I, I am often left eating at the table while his plate is cleared away. Just because restaurants here only pay servers minimum wage, it doesn’t mean that there shouldn’t be training! UGH.

I mention this trend because on a recent dinner with neighbours (progressive dinner folks) at a fairly well reviewed French restaurant in our historic Distillery District they actually went one step further. It wasn’t a busy night but service was slow and we were through a bottle of wine before our first course even arrived; eventually we casually ate our appetizers and chatted up a storm so when they removed the dishes I got up for a quick bio break. I ordered my favourite bistro dish, Table Side Wellington Country Beef Tartar which is prepared in front of the guest. Can you guess what’s coming next? The server actually PREPARED MY DISH WITHOUT ME BEING THERE! OMG, did that really happen? Oh yes, it did. I was so aghast, I was speechless! So now, several weeks later I am ranting on my blog. Shame on you, French restaurant in the Distillery District, the remainder of the experience wasn’t even worth mentioning (OK, I will say the steak frites came in pieces (what? did they gather up the leftovers from other plates?) AND it was over-cooked). Strike that place off my list.

It is no secret that Hungarians love food and we love to cook; so while my cousin and his lovely wife, Éva were visiting, I asked her to show me how to make a traditional, light Hungarian supper called Szilvásgombóc (Plum Dumplings). I’ve read many a blog that this dish is NOT a dessert and the Hungarians are quite adamant about it. When I was a child, we had this dish during plum season but I can’t recall if it was a main or a dessert. I have never made it on my own so I was happy to have Éva make it while I watched. It is delicately sweet and seasoned generously with toasted bread crumbs and cinnamon. We always had it with sour cream so my presentation included Greek Yogurt, but Éva always had it plain with extra cinnamon or with some lekvár (thick jam).

We made the dish at the cottage, so I wasn’t able to document the weights and measures and I still have some in the freezer so I won’t be making it any time soon. For an experienced cook, like most of my followers, it is a recipe made by feel (similar to making Italian Gnocchi), but I will reference Ilona Horvath’s recipe from The Traditional Hungarian Kitchen published in 1996 and 2000. It is an excellent cookbook translated and worked into North American cooking standards and according to my dear Mom, good, old fashioned Hungarian recipes.

Below, I present my dear Mother’s recipe from her Mother’s cookbook that she brought with her on her escape from Hungary in 1956, Az Ínyesmester Ezer Új Receptje published by Athenaeum, 1935. It is a well-loved, faded copy and the recipe for szilvásgombóc in the book is entirely by feel (no measurements documented!).

That’s a recipe for Roquefort Dressing written in my Mom’s handwriting in Hungarian.

Makes about 24 gombóc

Ingredients:

• 12 sweet plums (the small Italian ones are best, we were not able to find them so we cut them in half)
• Boiled potatoes (we used 5 medium-sized yukon gold potatoes)
• All purpose flour
• 1 egg
• 4 tbsp cinnamon, divided
• 3/4 cup of unseasoned bread crumbs (we made our own from whole wheat bread)
• 2-3 tbsp sugar

Directions:

1. While boiling the peeled potatoes, wash, pit and cut the plums in half and season with 2 tbsp of cinnamon, set aside.
2. Rice potatoes while still warm (Éva made a point of this). Beat the egg by hand and combine it with the riced potatoes.
3. Slowly add flour to the potato and egg mixture to make a soft dough.
4. Using about two tablespoons of dough, press out to about 1 cm thick in the palm of your hand (about the size of the palm of your hand), add a quarter of a plum to the centre and cover entirely with the dough, pinching the seams shut.
5. Boil water with a pinch of salt. Boil plum dumpling until done (they should float to the top, just like gnocchi).
6. Meanwhile, in a large frying pan, toast the breadcrumbs until golden and while still warm, add the sugar and mix gently until the sugar has melted and caramelized. It should not be a sopping mess. Turn off the heat. Add the remaining 2 tbsp cinnamon and mix well. Roll each cooked dumpling in the bread crumbs and plate.
7. Serve warm or cold, with or without yogurt or sour cream

This plate survived two bombings during the second world war.

Notes:

• We tested one plum ball first to make sure it didn’t fall apart during boiling and decided it was a bit too soft and we added more flour.
• The old cookbook describes a good plum dumpling dough to be thinly wrapped around the plum, a fine and light texture, somewhat pillowy (not chewy). “A jó szilvásgombóc téstája vékony, finom és könnyu, sőt omlós.”
• I wish we had tasted the plums because they had very little taste and we should have seasoned them with a touch sugar to bring out their plum taste. This dish should not be sickly sweet, it is delicately sweet.
• Ilona Horváth adds lard to the dough but we did not.
• My relatives LOVE cinnamon so the proportions may be a bit much for the average person, add according to your own personal taste. Cinnamon in Europe is the real McCoy and is a lot stronger than our Cassia. Too much cinnamon may make the dish bitter!

 

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Hungarian Lecsó, a healthy take on an old favourite

Happy Easter everyone! Hope you all had a lovely weekend. In Canada we have Good Friday as a holiday. Some things like the LCBO are closed on Sunday as well. Saturday will be a busy day, so better get there early to stock up for the family dinner!

My earliest memory of eating Hungarian Lecsó was when I was about 8 or 9 years old and my father made it for us. We were a typical Eastern European family in that the father virtually never cooked, that was ‘woman’s work’ but my Dad did step up on the occasion that my dear Mom had to go into the hospital and have an operation. I don’t remember much else about this time except that Dad cooked lecsó. One other thing, my 6 or 7 year old brother was beside himself with worry when our parents told us that Mom was going to be away in the hospital for a few days, and through tears a great degree of anxiety he asked, “Who will cook for us?” Our obsession with food runs deep.

Circa 1974 Edward’s Gardens in Toronto. Dad, my little brother and I. Mom was taking the photo. What the heck is going on with my hair????

My experience has been that Lecsó is to Hungarians what Lasagna is to Americans or Bangers and Mash are to the English, it’s a fairly common staple. It’s easy enough to put together and it’s comforting and satisfying without being overly filling. The Hungarians generally use a Hungarian green pepper which is more like a Cubanelle, longer and lighter in colour with a more subtle flavour than the green peppers we are accustomed to in North America. I switched up this dish by using colourful red, yellow and orange peppers (capsicums) and Vidalia Onions which are much sweeter.

The traditional protein accompaniment in our household was Debreceni Kolbász which is like a thick hot dog, named after the city in which it was made. Most Hungarian sausages are coarsely ground pork seasoned heavily with paprika and garlic where as a Debreceni is subtly seasoned very finely ground pork that has the texture that resembles what you would know as a hot dog. The only difference from North American hot dogs and Hungarian Debreceni is that Debreceni has a very distinct ‘pop’ as you bite through the casing. I haven’t had a Debreceni in many years for the same reasons I haven’t had a hot dog — they are just too unhealthy to be worth it for me. I made poached Cod to eat with this dish and it was exceptional.

A delicious and warming brothy sauce with cooked peppers, onions and tomatoes.

Hungarian Lecsó

Serves 4

Ingredients:

• 2 red peppers, sliced
• 2 orange peppers, sliced
• 2 yellow peppers, sliced
• 2 large tomatoes, chopped (peeled and seeds removed)
• 1 medium sized Vidalia onion, finely sliced
• 200 mL home made tomato sauce
• 1/2 tsp paprika (sweet or hot)
• 1/4 tsp smoked paprika (sweet or hot)
• salt and pepper to taste
• parsley for garnish

Directions:

• In a light spray of olive oil, cook the onions until translucent.
• Add the sliced peppers and tomatoes and cook until very slightly softened.
• Add the tomato sauce and seasonings and cook for about 10 minutes on a medium temperature.

Spice it up a notch by adding some hot peppers to the mix.

Notes:

• Hungarians traditionally use lard as the fat which adds flavour but is extremely unhealthy so I add a pinch of smoked paprika which also adds to the depth of flavour that the debreceni would bring.
• Traditionally the peppers are cooked until limp but I prefer a little texture to my lecsó so I don’t cook them as much.
• Like most stewy dishes this is a lot better the second day.
• Consider adding a poached egg to this dish (Hungarians might eat this with scrambled eggs).
• Sour cream or yogurt are also used as a garnish to this dish.
• Cubanelle peppers come in both hot and sweet varieties and look virtually identical. You will want to make sure you buy the right one and not make the same mistake we did for a meal we served at the cottage several years ago — that was a rude awakening!

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Heart Shaped Cheese Puffs (pâte à choux hearts)

Happy St. Paddy’s Day all!

I’m sure you’ve heard that the North East has been experiencing one of the worst winters ever and the yoyo temperatures Toronto has been experiencing for example, last Thursday it was -15°C (5°F) with a wind chill that made it feel more like -27°C (-16.6°F)  and to make matters worse, last Wednesday we received about 20 cm (8 inches) of snow; you know the really heavy, wet kind? Made it really fun to shovel…NOT!

One of our elite political comedy hosts Rick Mercer had this skit on his show last Monday, I found it very funny so I thought I’d share it with you.

You could say I’m really late for Valentine’s day, or really early. I prefer the later. And as I said before, don’t limit yourself to one day to serve heart-shaped foods!

I’ve posted about these delightful cheese puffs previously (please click here and here) but when I saw Lorraine’s  (Not Quite Nigella)  heart shaped Pâte à Choux post here I knew I had to try to make them as small bite-sized hors d’œuvres! They were rather easy to make and even though they were a very tiny bit fussy to shape, it wasn’t as bad as I had thought it might be. Of course, you get fewer from one batch of pastry but it’s absolutely worth the extra effort with the ooooh’s and ahhhh’s! I took these to a lovely girls night in but you can make them in advance and freeze them in an air tight container and then pull them out one at a time as needed! I stuffed mine with a slightly modified version of this Hungarian Korozot recipe, but you needn’t stuff them at all because they are rather tasty on their own too!

It’s never too late to say I love you with heart shaped cheese puffs

Heart Shaped Cheese Choux Pastry

Makes about 18 heart shaped puffs about 4 cm or 1.5 inches in diameter.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup water
• 1/4 cup butter
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 cup all purpose flour
• 3 eggs
• 1 cup grated Sharp Cheddar Cheese

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 200° C 400° F. Take a piece of parchment the size of your baking pan and saturate it with water, wring out so it’s still wet but not dripping wet. Flatten on the baking sheet. Set aside until you are ready to pipe the pastry.
2. Place water, butter and salt in a medium saucepan and bring to a boil over medium heat.
3. Remove from heat and add flour, and stir until combined.
4. Return to heat and stir cooking the flour mixture until it comes away from the sides of the pan and is a shiny ball. I find the heat of the pan is enough, I generally don’t put the flame back on.
5. Place in a food processor with plastic blades and process for 15 seconds (give or take).
6. Add eggs and process for 40 seconds (err on the longer side of give or take).
7. Add cheese and process for another 5-10 seconds until smooth.
8. Take a piece of parchment the size of the baking pan and wet it thoroughly under the running tap. Scrunch it up and wring out the excess water. Flatten it out onto your ready baking sheet.
9. Transfer the pastry to a pastry bag fitted with a thick nozzle about 1 cm or 0.5 inches in diameter. Begin on the left bump of the heart and pipe one side, then without lifting the tip, pipe the right side of the heart. You may wish to smooth out the top with a slightly wet knife. To get the heart shapes defined enough, exaggerate the top bumps of the heart, other wise it will fill in as it bakes. Or you could use a heart shaped mould sprayed a bit with non-stick spray like Brooks did in this post on his lovely blog Cakewalkr. I just came across Brooks’ blog quite by accident but I am so glad I did, can’t wait to try this method!
10. Bake for 20-25 minutes, until golden brown.
11. Serve warm or room temperature. Fill with your choice of delicious fillings!

Surprisingly easy to make.

These tasty Pâte à Choux are tasty even without any fillings

Based on 2 Korozot stuffed hearts per serving

Based on two heart-shaped cheese puffs, not stuffed per serving.

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Vadas Marhahus; Hungarian Wild Meat revisited

Last fall we had my lovely niece and her beaux for the weekend; Laura recently graduated from Western University with her degree in Law and she is articling in Toronto. I wanted to make a traditional Hungarian dinner because they had never had Hungarian food. I had intended to follow the recipe verbatim, but I just couldn’t help myself and did end up changing it a slight bit. The result was wonderful and JT thought I finally got it right, the way he remembered my dear Mom to make this tasty dish. The original recipe is from Ilona Horváth’s “The Traditional Hungarian Kitchen” cookbook, published originally in 1996.

Although this recipe takes 2-3 days to prepare, there is little kitchen time as most of it is in the marinade. The finishing is relatively easy. The original recipe was made entirely in a dutch oven but I’ve modified it to a slow cooker because I was not able to be at home the day we wanted to have it. The gravy is a tangy, creamy gravy balanced with the addition of caramelized sugar, but it is NOT SWEET. The julienned carrots and parsnips add texture and natural sweetness. The meat comes out fork tender and you really don’t even need a knife to eat it.

The tangy gravy goes perfectly with the sweet carrots and parsnips. Sorry the photo is so hot, it was night when I shot this.

Vadas Hus; Hungarian Wild Meat revisited

Serves 4-6. This recipe takes 2-3 days to prepare.

Ingredients:

• 800 g (1 3/4lb) eye of round or good stewing beef, whole
• 50 g  bacon (pancetta works)
• 2 tbsp canola oil (the Hungarians would use lard here)
• 2 tbsp all purpose flour
• 10 g (scant tablespoon) sugar
• 1 tsp white vinegar
• 2 tsp dijon mustard
• 3/4 Non-fat Greek yogurt (or sour cream)
• 100 g (about 1 cup) julienned carrots
• 100 g (about 1 cup) julienned parsnips
• 1-2 tbsp cold water

Ingredients for the marinade:

• 50 g (about 1/2 cup) grated carrots
• 50 g (about 1/2 cup) grated parsnips
• 1 small onion chopped roughly
• 1 L  (about 4 cups) water
• 5-6 black peppercorns
• 2 bay leaves
• salt to taste
• 2 tsp white vinegar

Directions:

1. Tidy up the meat by removing any excess fat and membranes. Allow to come to room temperature.
2. To prepare the marinade, cook the carrots, parsnips and onion in 1 L water with black pepper, bay leaves and salt until half cooked. Add the vinegar and cool to room temperature. Pour over the meat and refrigerate 2-3 days turning every so often. Remove the black peppercorns.
3. Remove the meat from the marinade and dry completely, bring to room temperature. In a large dutch oven, heat the canola oil and cook the bacon and reserve, add the meat  to the bacon oil and sear each side well.
4. In the meantime, pre heat the slow cooker on high and add the original marinade, reserved bacon and bay leaves. Once it is warm add the seared beef and cook until beef is tender (3-4 hours) turning often.
5. Remove the meat from the slow cooker and allow to rest. Discard the bay leaves. Strain the vegetables from the slow cooker (reserve the liquid) and add to the dutch oven, sprinkle with flour and fry to brown lightly. Slowly add the reserved marinade liquid and stir to thicken.
6. In a small sauce pan, melt the sugar until it is golden in colour (not dark) and then mix with a couple of tablespoons of cold water, pour into the thickened vegetables in the dutch oven. Simmer for 5 minutes and add the remaining 2 tsp vinegar and Dijon mustard. Purée the entire gravy adding the yogurt or sour cream with an immersion blender until very smooth. You can run this through a fine sieve for a very smooth gravy. Keep warm.
7. Boil the remaining julienned carrots and parsnips until cooked but there is still a slight bite to them. Strain and keep warm.
8. Slice the meat into 1 cm or 1/2″ slices and plate over the puréed gravy, top with the julienne parsnips and carrots. Garnish with flat leaf parsley.
9. Serve with Hungarian Bread Dumplings.

JT loves it when I pan sear the gombocz in butter and it becomes crispy and delicious!

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My Easter Menu

I just noticed that WordPress is adding advertising into my content in links which are not mine. How to tell the difference is that my links have a dotted underline and the ad links are solid and dotted together. Not cool at all.

Last week I was blown-away flattered by my Hungarian friend Zsuzsa (Zsuzsa is in the kitchen) when she invited me to participate in a blogging event to post your Easter Menu! You can read about Zsuzsa’s Easter here; she grew up very close to where my Mom grew up in Budapest. It’s really just a round up of past post recipes and a little bit about your Easter memories. How could I say no?  Thank you Zsuzsa, I would be honoured. Zsuzsa is taking part with the following Hungarian ladies: The author of this event, Éva from Takarekos Konyha (this blog is in Hungarian) and Elizabeth from Food and Thrift.

Growing up, Easter was always about bunnies for me. Yes, we went to church and all that but let’s be honest, it was about the bunnies! At eight years old, my very first pet bunny was an albino Dutch whom we called Boom Boom (he was called Boom Boom because he stomped his hind feet loudly). Sadly good old Boom Boom only lasted 3 years, but he made such an impression on me that I’ve only ever had bunnies as pets! I cried so much when he died that my Dad swore he would never let me have another pet because losing them made me too sad and he just couldn’t bear it. I was sixteen before I was permitted to have Boon, another albino Dutch but smaller than Boom Boom (no, we weren’t very imaginative with the names!). But I digress, back to Easter.

Mom and Dad in Edmonton with the Chrysler Tour in 1960

You already know that my Dad was a Puppeteer (and if you don’t, you can read about it here) and we had a family business with the puppet shows. Easter was a big time for us, these holidays meant that the malls, schools (note that this link is NOT mine) and some companies needed entertainment for their events and what’s not to like about a puppet show? So many of our Easters were on the road with the show. In fact, Boom Boom was first adopted because my Dad needed a live bunny for the show (he was the star, don’t worry, it was all very humane).

Believe it or not, the Show was about Bunnies.

And there were singing Eggs too

But Easter also had a serious side: FOOD! Chocolates, coloured eggs and of course, ham. I don’t have many of the recipes that we had at Easter but I’ve gathered a bunch I am going to have this weekend when we have JTs family for Easter Sunday lunch. I hope you enjoy them.

My Mom only used Canada Grade A Large size eggs

Hors D’œuvres were usually Deviled Eggs (here and here) and French Salad (Francia Saláta). I don’t have a post about Francia Saláta, but you can see Zsuzsa’s recipe here (my Mom never put potatoes in her version). I may do a new hors d’œuvres recipe I saw on my friend Lorraine’s blog of her recent trip to Amman, Jordan. It involves cheese and phyllo pastry, that’s all I can give you!

A wonderful addition to any Easter table

We usually had an Easter kalács (Zsuzsa made a gorgeous one here) but I’m making John’s Easter Cheese Bread instead.

The most succulent tenderloin ever

We’ve decided to go nontraditional and have a beef tenderloin for lunch. This recipe is my favourite way to serve this special cut of meat.

The only place you’ll miss the potatoes is on your waist-line!

I’m going to serve it with my traditional Celeriac Cauliflower Mash. And a wonderful lemony Asparagus from my friend Greg’s Rufus’ Guide.

It’s a symphony of colours

And a little tangy German Purple Cabbage Slaw.

Now if you had any room for dessert, I’m going to make Charle’s Sweedish Apple Cake (from Five Euro Food), which totally looks like the perfect ending to a rich and heavy meal. It’s really just all apples and then there’s more apples. The only flour in this is the use of the breadcrumbs as the base, thickener and likely adds a little texture. I love that I can make it sugar free too, since I have a diabetic and a hypo-glycemic in the house — I like to make only one dessert that everyone can enjoy and not make the person feel odd that they have something else.

I may not be able to comment on your blogs for the next few days but I’ll definitely read up when I get back into civilization with internet. Thank you for reading my blog and leaving comments, you really, really make my day. Thank you to every one of the blogs I read, you provide me with the inspiration for my blog and it really wouldn’t be the same without you!

Happy Easter to All!

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Hungarian Custard Squares (Krémes)

Hi Everyone, hope all my lovely readers in the North East fared well through that huge storm the other day. I watched it on the Weather Network radar and it looked absolutely brutal.

I have one more thing to ask of you lovely readers (in fact, my friend Smidge from Just a Smidgen also requested it). Kindly link your Gravatar to your blog, otherwise we have no way of knowing where you came from and we cannot comment on your blog. It’s in Gravatar.com, you’ll have to sign in and Edit your Public Profile, update your link to your blog in My Links. Thank goodness Smidge asked me to do this because believe it or not mine WASN’T linked! Thanks Smidge!

A friend dated a guy with whom we became close. They broke up, so we asked her if she would mind if we kept him; she said not at all. So we did. He came for dinner a few weeks ago and I made a Hungarian themed dinner party; Hungarian Cheese Sticks (Sajtos Rud), Celeriac Velouté with Caramelized Onion Focaccia Croutons (recipe to come), Chicken Paprikas with Nokedli (I updated the nokedli part as Barb mentioned to me that her’s didn’t turn out), a nice Hungarian Cucumber salad (recipe to come) and Krémes. I was looking for a new dessert that would finish off the evening in style so I ‘traveled’ all the way to British Columbia to my good Hungarian friend Zsuzsa’s blog and found these wonderfully delicious Custard Squares. She spoke very highly of the recipe so I knew they would not disappoint. They are labour intensive but well worth the effort. They totally remind me of Mille Feuille that was my favourite when I was a child. The pastry is fantastically flaky.

I divided the recipe into a third of the original as I didn’t need quite as many. JT said I should have made the entire batch (that’s a testament to how good they are!). Thank you Zsuzsa for a tremendous dessert. I turned the most of the measurements into weight because it was easier to divide into 3 that way! You should get yourself a digital kitchen scale (I have this one), it is essential for baking.

Although these squares sound rich, they really are not. Really.

Makes 8 squares in a 5″ x 9″ loaf pan (if you want more, please see Zsuzsa’s original recipe, she has excellent photos on the process of making the pastry too).

Custard Ingredients:

• 2/3 cup skim milk
• 1/3 vanilla pod
• 3 eggs separated
• 2 tbsp sugar
• 6 tbsp flour
• 1/2 tsp vanilla
• 1 pk gelatin
• 1 tbsp butter
• 4 tbsp sugar
• dash of lemon juice

Pastry Ingredients:

• 72 g all purpose flour
• 76 g butter
• 1 tbsp and 1 tsp cold water
• 1 tsp vinegar
• pinch of salt

Pastry Directions:

1. Heat the milk in a saucepan or microwave, scrape the seeds from the vanilla bean into the milk with a paring knife, and add the bean pod to the milk. Cover, remove from heat and allow the vanilla to infuse for one hour. Set aside.
2. Next make the flaky pastry. In a food processor with metal blades, combine the flour and chilled butter until it resembles a fine crumble. Add the salt and pulse to distribute. Combine the vinegar and the water and stream into the processor until a dough ball forms.
3. Generously flour a board and roll out the pastry into a rectangle and divide into 4 equal parts. Stack the four rectangles on top of one another and chill for twenty minutes.
4. Once chilled, separate each part and roll the dough into 4 very thin rectangles, roughly bigger than your loaf pan. Place in the bottom of your loaf pan, allowing the dough to form creases to fit into the pan. Repeat for the second rectangle, this will be the top. Bake in a preheated 400° F oven for 14-18 minutes keeping watch as the pastry burns easily.
5. When the pastry is golden brown, remove pan from the oven and immediately cut pastry into 8 squares (4 by 2). Wait a few minutes and carefully remove the squares and set them aside in the same order as they were in the pan, set aside.
6. Repeat with the other two rectangles and bake, this is the bottom layer (do not cut this layer). Allow to cool, and remove from the pan, and put a good layer of plastic wrap into the pan with a generous amount coming up the side (this will help you lift it out). Return the bottom layer into the bottom of the pan, smoothing out the side of the plastic wrap.
7. Next make the custard layer.

It’s misleading because it has cream in the name, but there is no cream in the recipe.

Custard Directions:

1. In a medium sized bowl beat the egg yolks and 2 tbsp sugar for 8 minutes (they will become thick and pale). Add the vanilla
2. In a separate bowl whisk together the flour and gelatine. Gradually add the flour mixture to the beaten egg yolks and continue to beat until smooth.
3. Remove the vanilla pods from the vanilla infused milk and gradually add the vanilla infused milk to the bowl with the eggs and the flour.
4. Over a simmering bain-marie cook the custard stirring it constantly until it reaches 80°C or 176° F with a candy thermometer (be careful as it can burn easily). As soon as it reaches 80° C remove immediately from the heat stir in the butter and set aside to cool.
5. While the custard is cooling whip the egg whites until soft peaks form, add the lemon juice and continue beating until almost stiff. Add 2 tbsp sugar and beat until shiny and stiff. You are trying to beat the sugar into the egg whites so they are no longer grainy (this takes several minutes).
6. Once the custard has cooled, press it through a fine sieve (my custard got a bit lumpy because I didn’t stir well enough as it was cooking)
7. Take about 1/3 of the egg whites and fold it into the custard to loosen it up. Then fold the remaining egg whites into the custard very slowly
8. Pour this custard onto the bottom layer of the pastry and even out using a spatula, pushing it into the corners and sides. Add the top layer of pastry in the same order that you removed it from the pan, leaving a little space between each one to allow your knife to slide through to make the squares. Refrigerate until the custard has set.
9. Once set, using the plastic wrap, lift the pastry dessert out of the pan onto a cutting board. Generously sprinkle with icing sugar. Using a wet knife, slice the custard into 8 equal squares, using your top pastry as your guide.
10. Serve cold, perhaps with a dollop of whipping cream.

Those little dots are from the vanilla bean that was infused in the milk

A little fresh raspberries would have looked awesome in this photo. The forks are from Hungary, my Mom bought them for me.

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My first guest post and Hungarian Cherry Squares — Cseresznyés pite

Hungarian Cherry Squares (Cseresznyés pite)

I am rather thrilled and honoured that my good friend Charles of Five Euro Food has kindly asked me to guest post. Charles has been a valued commenter on my blog for over a year now, and as most of you know, he takes his time to formulate interesting and thoughtful remarks; his comments are a joy to read and sometimes even have a bit of a chuckle over. Thank you Charles, your friendship is cherished, I hope to do your guest post right.

In keeping Charles’ tradition of a little peek into living in Paris, I will give you a little peek into living in Toronto and a lovely Hungarian family recipe. I ask that you head on over to Charles’ blog to check out our little adventure, but I will share my recipe here as well. I belabored over which recipe I would share as Charles’ guest post, because he takes so much time to photograph and document his recipes so well; I didn’t want to get ahead of myself and bite off more than I can chew (pardon the pun) so I hope you enjoy it. This recipe is a cherished favourite for my family (my brother always asks for it when I visit and now that my dear Mom is gone, it is up to me to carry on the tradition).

Cherry Squares

By Éva Hársfai-Robinson (1936-2005)

Makes 1 pan 9” x 13” about 20 squares

Cost: ~€0.31 ($0.40) each piece

Preparation time: ~40 minutes

Calories: ~120 calories per piece

Ingredients:

• 1 jar pitted cherries 500 mL to 700 mL, drained but reserve liquid
• 3 eggs separated
• 120 g unsalted butter (room temperature)
• 125 g caster sugar
• 250 g flour
• 1 tbsp baking powder
• ½ tsp salt
• 1 tsp vanilla
• About ½ cup milk – or use reserved cherry liquid (if you use the reserved liquid your squares will be a bit pink)

Directions:

1. Grease and flour 9” x 13” x 2” baking pan (22cm x 33cm x 5cm).
2. Preheat oven to 350° F (175°C)
3. Drain cherries, liquid reserved (you can use this as your liquid or make a delicious sauce or use it in soda as flavouring!)
4. Whip egg whites until a stiff but not dry (should be able to stand in a peak) – no need to wash the beater if you do it in this order, if you cream the yolks first, then you must wash the beater and dry thoroughly).
5. Cream egg yolks with butter and sugar until light and fluffy (should be a lighter shade of yellow).
6. Sift flour, baking powder and salt – dry ingredients.
7. Alternating dry ingredients with the milk (or reserved cherry liquid), fold into egg yolk mixture.
8. Fold beaten egg whites into the mixture.
9. Pour into greased pan. Note the dough should be quite thick, should have to spread it into the cake pan, it should not pour by it self.
10. Dot with cherries throughout (you may want to give each cherry a squeeze as you dot so ensure there are no pits!).
11. Bake in preheated oven for about 20 to 30 minutes (test with toothpick to make sure it’s done).
12. Cool in pan (don’t cut until it is entirely cool otherwise it will become ‘bacony’ or szalonás, as the Hungarians put it).

• Creaming the butter, sugar and eggs together takes patience
• I start out lining up all the cherries, but then I have to fill in the spaces so I can use up the whole jar!
• The cherries behave as they wish, so there is no point in lining them up anyway

They are moist and not overly sweet.

A short note: This was my very first guest post ever, and I am delighted that it was for Charles’ Blog. I have a new found respect for Charles’ blogging, over and above my original respect, which was plenty! The extra effort Charles puts into this blog is unparalleled, the ingredient shot, the video, the working shots etc., make this blog ever so wonderful to follow but impossible to follow in its footsteps!

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Hungarian Sweet Green Pea Soup with Dumplings — Zold Borsóleves

My friend John (from the Bartolini Kitchens) did a post on June 6 for Straw and Hay Pasta including fresh peas that were shelled. It was that vivid picture that John painted sitting at the kitchen table, shelling the peas that brought back such fond memories of my childhood that I had to recreate the recipe that his story conjured: Hungarian Sweet Green Pea Soup with Dumplings — Zold Borsóleves. I didn’t search the internet nor did I look at my mom’s recipe book as that would have been futile, my Mom cooked from memory and instinct. It used to drive my Dad crazy; she would make something he thought was delicious and he’d say, “this is delicious, did you write it down?” And she’d wave him away and say “no, but I can recreate it”. But it was never the same. It could have been our memory of the dish, or that she added a pinch of this or a pinch of that, and on this round may have gotten missed. At any rate, there is no recipe. I haven’t had this soup in over…(oops, there, I almost spilled the beans), in many, many years, but I have recreated it to my best recollection. And as I sat in the kitchen, eating this soup, I felt like I was 10 years old, sitting at the formica top and aluminum lip edge kitchen table. Thanks John.

This is a simple soup dictated only by the simple ingredients. Just water is used as the stock, to allow the sweetness of the peas to come through. After I made the soup, I did search the net to discover people put in carrots, potato, celery root, etc, but our’s was just peas, onion and garlic. My mom also used the young pods in the soup by carefully removing the hard membrane from the inside of the pod after it has been shelled. You can do this by bending the tip in toward the inside of the pod until the exterior cracks, and carefully peel the membrane away. It is hard and plastic-y, you won’t be able to eat it, so make sure you remove it entirely. Or you can just drop the spent pods into the soup for flavour and fish them out before serving.

Even though I pictured the dumplings made with Quinoa flour, I wish I had splurged and made white flour dumplings. The quinoa was OK, but it certainly didn’t have the bite and chewiness that the normal dumplings had. If I were to do it again, regular white flour dumplings. Although, I must say the quinoa made it a filling dinner.

The flavours of this soup conjured up all kinds of childhood memories

Serves 2 as an appetizer or lunch, or one good-sized bowl for dinner

Ingredients:

• 1/3 cup white flour (I used quinoa flour but it didn’t turn out as well)
• 1 large egg or egg white equivalent
• 1/4 cup onion, finely chopped
• 12-15 fresh green peas, shelled and pods prepared
• 2 cloves garlic finely minced
• 300 mL water
• non-stick cooking spray
• Salt to taste

Directions:

1. Shell peas and remove membrane from pods. Roughly chop pods into bite sized pieces.
2. Mix the flour and the egg in a small cup. The mixture should be thick so you can pinch small bits off and it doesn’t stick to your spoon (in fact, the chewier you like your dumplings, the thicker the dough should be). Set aside.
3. Coat the bottom of a soup pan with a good spray of non-stick spray and sauté the onions until translucent (you may need to add a bit of water to help it along). Add the garlic and cook until you can smell the wonderful aroma. Add the pods (not the peas) and cover with 300 mL water. Salt and taste, adding more as required (I ended up adding a good pinch — it should not taste salty, it should just bring out the flavours of this simple soup: peas, onions and garlic).
4. Bring to a boil and begin ‘pinching’ the dumplings into the boiling water. I used a small spoon which worked out to about 1/2 tsp size (or you can roll the dough into a narrow roll and cut with a knife) the dumplings will grow because of the egg. Add the peas and give give it a stir. Cook on boil for an additional minute until all the dumplings float to the top.
5. Serve immediately on your favourite Hungarian placemat. Sigh and enjoy the memories.

The Quinoa Dumplings were OK, but nowhere near the wonderful texture of my Mom’s old fashioned white flour chewy dumplings

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Christmas Baking 2011: Our Traditional Yule Log (Bûche de Noël)

Yesterday was Boxing Day, a tradition we’ve inherited from the UK. Although the history is quite different to what it has become today, it’s still a national holiday in Canada where many businesses are still closed and people get a day off. Except for retail stores! It’s a kind of Black Friday; sale madness and shopping frenzy! We’re heading down town to see if any bargains were meant for us, and we’ll be sampling our first new restaurant for lunch. In the meantime I have the final installment of the Christmas Baking Frenzy 2011 to share with you.
I have to admit that I have not made our Yule Log in years (since 2007, to be exact!). Charles at Five Euro Foods has inspired me to dust off my Mom’s ancient Hungarian Cookbook, drag out my Hungarian English Dictionary and bake my Mom’s traditional Yule Log. Our log is a marriage of the Hungarian Piskota (pronounced Pishkoata) and the traditional Canadian Yule Log with butter cream and a little of my Mom’s creative addition, whipped cream. But this year I forgot to buy the whipping cream and I had a logistic issue with transporting the cake so, like Charles I had to stick with a butter cream for the log. And some cute little snowflake decorations.

As I commented on Charles’ post that my Mom always decorated her Yule Log with little meringue mushrooms. When I was old enough, it was my job to pipe the mushroom shapes onto the parchment-lined cookie sheet and then when dried and cooled I would assemble them with the melted chocolate! What fond memories Charles’ blog brought back, thank you! Sadly, this year I tried three times to make my mushroom meringues and three times the meringue failed, so no mushroom meringues this year! Insert Sad face here.

Oh well, it seems that it’s usually me that eats them anyway, and I just don’t need it this year!

Gather 'round the table, y'all. It's time for dessert!

The Family Yule Log

Ingredients:

• 4 large eggs
• 120 g sugar
• 120 g all purpose flour
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1 tsp grated lemon zest
• 2 tbsp granulated sugar.

Directions:

1. Pre-heat oven to 350°F. Line a 9″ x 13″ cake pan or jelly roll pan with parchment paper, carefully folding the corners. Spray with non-stick cooking spray.
2. Separate the eggs into two medium bowls. Beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form, but not dry. Set aside.
3. Beat the egg yolks with the sugar until pale and creamy and falls in a thick ribbon.
4. Fold in 1/3 of the egg whites into the pale egg yolk mixture.
5. Sift about 1/3 of the flour into the egg yolk mixture, then alternate folding in with the egg whites being careful not to deflate the batter.
6. Once all of the egg whites and flour have been folded in, the mixture will be thick. Pour carefully onto your prepared baking pan and spread out evenly. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until your cake tester comes out clean.
7. Lift the cake out of the pan using the parchment edges and lay onto a clean white cheesecloth sprinkled with the 2 tbsp sugar. Taking the short end, begin to roll the cake up tightly. Twist the cheesecloth ends tightly and allow to cool completely.

Rich Chocolate Butter Cream

Ingredients:

• 1/3 cup butter
• 2 cups sifted icing sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 2 squares unsweetened chocolate melted and cooled.
• 1/2 cup seedless raspberry jam

Directions:

1. Cream the butter until light and fluffy. Slowly add the icing sugar and beat until entirely incorporated and fluffy.
2. Slowly drizzle in the melted chocolate and beat well.

Cake Assembly:

Directions:

1. Carefully unroll the cooled cake.
2. Brush the inside of the roll with the raspberry jam (if it is too thick, you may want to heat it up a bit but if you do, make sure it is cooled before you add the Butter Cream).
3. Spread about 1/3 of the butter cream on the inside of the roll. Carefully roll up the cake tightly.
4. Place the roll onto your serving platter, roll side down.
5. Spread the remaining butter cream evenly over the cake, covering both ends.
6. Decorate with meringue mushrooms and silly plastic decorations (sadly, I forgot where I put ours :-()

I wish to thank you all for joining me while I baked for the last couple of weeks.

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Hungarian Sour Cherry Soup and The Versatile Blogger Award (again!)

My dear Mom used to make a cold soup for Christmas dinner. I really don’t know why because traditionally it’s more of a summer-time supper (Hungarians used to eat their main meal at lunch and supper was just something light). My brother’s wife, Wendy fell in love with this soup the first time she ever had it and every year she asked my Mom to make it. Since my Mom’s passing I’ve made it from time to time, whenever Wendy asks but not as regularly (maybe mine is not a good ;-)!) This year I decided to make it without being prompted because I know the kids love it too! The tip about sorting through the cherries for seeds is from me. My brother used to always get the lot of seeds if there were any to be found in the soup!

I had a professor over for dinner when I was at University and I made this as a first course; he was ecstatic that we were having dessert FIRST!

Hungarian Sour Cherry Soup

Ingredients:

• 1 bottle sour pitted cherries in light syrup 540 mL/19 oz
• 3 cups water
• 40-50g granulated sugar (depending on how sour the cherries actually are)
• 5-10 cm lemon peel
• 1 cinnamon stick
• 2-4 whole cloves (I use a tea infuser so I don’t have to sort through the soup to fish them out)
• 1 cup non-fat Greek yogurt (the Hungarians use sour cream)
• 3 tbsp all purpose flour

Directions:

1. Strain the liquid from the cherries and put it into a medium sauce pan. Sort through the cherries making sure they really don’t have pits in them (I pulled out 5 out of my bottle) set aside.
2. Heat the cherry liquid, sugar and the water with the lemon peel, cinnamon stick and cloves until softly boiling.
3. Mix the flour with the yogurt well. Add about a cup of the hot liquid to temper the yogurt, then pour the entire yogurt into the softly boiling liquid. Stir well until it slightly thickens. Remove from heat and remove the cinnamon stick, cloves and lemon peel. Add the cherries and allow to cool. Refrigerate until ready to serve. It actually thickens as it cools.
4. Serve with a dollop of yogurt, if desired (we always forget!).

It

As you may have gleaned from the title of this post, I have again been bestowed with the honour of The Versatile Blogger award by my new friend Sharyn at Kale Chronicles. I’ve been intrigued with Sharyn’s blog as she doesn’t photograph her food, but paints a lovely little water colour about it or the inspiration she has garnered from the experience around it. Check out her blog, her recipes are off the beaten track and a nice change!

Thank you Sharyn for this honour!

The conditions of this lovely award are as below.

1. Thank the award-giver and link back to them in your post – check, see above.
2. Share 7 things about yourself – seeing as I really like talking about myself…just kidding, since I’ve done this before and many of my readers are from places far away, I’m going to tell you 7 things about Canada that you may not know 😉 ). You can read the first set here.
3. Pass this award along to 15 blogs you enjoy reading – I shall do my best to find bloggers who have not been given this honour previously, and I’ve come up with 7!
4. Contact your chosen bloggers to let them know about the award. – check

Seven Things about Canada you may not know:

1. Canada’s Prime Ministers do not have a fixed maximum term length, like the US Presidents. Our Prime Ministers can literally go on forever, or at least feel like they do 😉
2. Our legal driving age is 16, but we now have graduated licensing. Way back when I got my license, I was able to get in the car and drive when and where ever I wanted, but that was a billion years ago! Ironically, our legal drinking age is 19! (Alberta, Manitoba and Quebec is 18).
3. Canada’s population is about 1/10th of the US and the majority of our residents live within 100 miles of the US boarder.
4. Although Canada’s Constitution was repatriated by Prime Minister Pierre Elliot Trudeau, we are still connected to the Queen of England through our Governor General. David Johnston is the 28th Governor General of Canada.
5. We spell words just like the British: colour, not color; neighbour, not neighbor; flavour, not flavor; favourite, not favorite — you get where I am going with this…my comments do not contain typo’s, we just spell that way!
6. In the 1970’s Canada began her conversion from the Imperial system of measures to Metric; by the late 1970’s all our roadsigns were converted and schools were teaching both. Although legally Metric is our form of measure, you will always find food sold in Pounds and Kilos, and fabric sold by the Yard or Metre (that’s another Canadian spelling, really).
7. We call electricity Hydro in Ontario, I suspect mainly because some of our power comes from Niagara Falls!

Blogs I humbly nominate for said award:

1. Profiteroles and Ponytales: I’ve known Barb for about 20 years; she is now a Wife and a Mummy and a “Big Wig” in a fancy firm downtown Toronto. I am happy that she is finally enjoying the benefits of blogging. Hope you pop by her blog and drop her a note.
2. Flavour Fiesta: I recently met Divya and am amazed and slightly jealous of her determination, dedication and perseverance with the launch of her extensive magazine. We’ve done magazines before at work and I know what an enormous project it is. She is also a fellow Torontonian! (and she spells like I do ;-))
3. Grazing in the City: Bill is a southern transplant to Chicago and I really enjoy reading about discovering Chicago, one of my favourite cities of all time!
4. Bits and Breadcrumbs: Betsy is a fellow designer and she blogs about cooking and traveling (Canadian spelling!) and her lovely artsy-fartsy friends (sorry, that’s what we call ourselves up here ;-)!)
5. Back Road Journal: I just met Karen today and love her kitchen. I am looking forward to peaking into her life in the future.
6. A_Boleyn: Maria doesn’t have a blog, but she does document her food on live journal. She’s a substitute teacher, so watch your spelling and grammar 😉
7. Eat Tori: I just met Tori and love the way she writes. She gets to go places I can only dream of.

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Happy Halloween, another scary story and Unconventional Chicken Paprikas

February 10, 2013: I have updated this post with additional instruction for the nokedli and a new photo.

It’s the eve of Halloween and we’re getting really excited about our fast approaching trip to Morocco. There are so many things still to do, like packing, for example!

Our House Decked out for Halloween

Pumpkin Lights in the Planters

Not withstanding, I promised a scary story, the final installment. So here it is… Sadly, my dear Dad was jaundiced from owning a home because the Russians had taken away his family home and he was afraid it would happen again, so we lived in a very nice newly built apartment in suburban Toronto. We had just visited Hungary the first time and both my brother and I were a little freaked out because we had seen museum after museum of archeological digs – mainly skulls (Hungary was the munitions centre of the Roman Empire and the country is littered with Roman Ruins). The skulls both fascinated us and freaked us out at the same time.
Upon our return to Canada we decided to share a room in our apartment, on his side the walls were decorated with Hot Wheels and on mine, Barbie wallpaper. Most nights were fine, but on occasion one of us would have a bad dream and crawl into Mom and Dad’s bed. On this night, it was my brother that ventured into Mom and Dad’s room for safety and my Dad came in and slept in my brother’s bed.
Waking up in the middle if the night is never fun when you’re little; everything is so dark and shadows seem alive! I should have felt safe because my Dad was in the room, but he was snoring away about 10 feet from me and unaware of the shadows. The head of my bed faced away from the window; we were on the second floor and plenty of street light poured in through the curtains — plenty to make evil shadows come alive, that is. I awoke with a start! There is a HUGE man in a cowboy hat standing at the foot of my bed; I see only the silhouette, there are no features, but he looks mean. I can’t speak, I can hardly breathe. I blink, oh my god, he’s still there. I blink even harder, damn, still there. I hide my head under the covers and count to ten. There is no man in the room and my Dad is right there not more than 10 feet from me. I know it’s in my head, but crap, it seems so real. I peak out one last time, and HE’S STILL THERE. Now, I really can’t breathe. I hide my head under the covers and I stay there; I imagine the lack of oxygen caused me to fall asleep, and when I woke up in the morning, with the sun pouring in, the shadow man was gone! Or the entire episode was a dream that seemed so real.

Year’s later, as an adult, I read about the Shadow People, and now wonder if it had been real!

Ready for the recipe? I have perfected this recipe over the years trying to make it healthier (Hungarians cook with a lot of lard and although it is flavourful, it is definitely not good for you).

Healthy Chicken Paprikas

Ingredients:

• 4 x 100g skinless boneless chicken breasts
• 1 roughly chopped medium sweet onion (I used vidalia)
• 1 cup cubed celery root
• 3 ripe red peppers
• 2 tbsp Hungarian Sweet Papkria
• 1-2 cups low sodium chicken stock
• 1 cup + 4 tbsp non fat Greek Yogurt or Sour Cream
• 1 tsp flour
• 2 tbsp vegetable oil

Directions:

1. Roast the peppers in the oven until the skins are black. Set into a bowl with a plate covering it to allow the peppers to steam.
2. Once peppers are cool enough to handle, peel the skins off.
3. Purée the peppers using an immersion blender until smooth.
4. In a large dutch oven, heat 1 tbsp oil and add the onions and cook until translucent. Add the Hungarian paprika, but be careful not to burn, this isn’t like Indian spices, paprika will burn quickly.
5. To the onions, add the celery root and 1 cup chicken stock. Add the puréed roasted red peppers, and a little more chicken stock. Cook for 1/2 hour on medium heat, until the celery root is soft.
6. Remove from the heat and purée until smooth. Pass through a fine seive.
7. Before returning the sauce to the heat, add 1 tbsp oil to the dutch oven. Chop the chicken breasts into bite sized pieces and brown in the hot oil. Add the paprika sauce back into the pan with the chicken and cook for 1/2 hour on medium heat or until the chicken is cooked through. You can remove from the heat and freeze for future use, or use right away.
8. Add 1 tsp flour to the yogurt and mix well (this will prevent the yogurt from separating when adding to the paprika sauce). Add the yogurt to the chicken paprikas and mix well.
9. To serve, pour into a large decorative dish and drizzle with the remaining yogurt, garnish with flat leaf parsley.

Ingredients for the Nokedli (dumplings):

Hungarian Paprika and the Nokedli Szagato (dumpling tool)

General rule of thumb for this recipe is 1 cup flour and 1 egg per person. In my efforts to make this a healthier meal, I generally use 1 egg for the pot and 4 tbsp egg whites and 1/2 cup flour per person. The nokedli are lighter and not as yellow as using full eggs, but the flavour is still there. You make the nokedli by hand using a small cutting board and a knife and just cutting off small bits of the dough right into the boiling water (Hungarians call this Csipetke) or you can use a nokedli maker.

• 2 cups flour (you can substitute whole wheat but it changes the texture a bit, so I would only recommend 1/4 cup ww and 1 3/4 white flour)
• 1 egg
• 12 tbsp egg whites
• salt and pepper to taste

The dough should be loose enough to press through the Nokedli maker without much effort, but it should not be wet.

Directions:

1. Beat egg and egg white until slightly frothy. Add salt and pepper.
2. Mix in the flour until it form a soft dough (I usually do this in the food processor). Add little bits of water if necessary to make a loose pasta-like dough (don’t worry if it’s too thick, you can add bits of the hot water to it as you are pressing it through the nokedli press.
3. In a large soup pot, boil water with salt.
4. Once the water is on a hard boil, start making the nokedli. You can make the entire batch in this one pot, they won’t stick together if you stir them once in a while. When you are done they should all float to the top. Pour into a colander and rinse with cold water.
5. Add the nokedli to a bowl and drizzle with oil so they don’t stick together.
6. When ready to serve, heat 3 tbsp butter in a large dutch oven. Add nokedli and reheat, crisping up the edges a bit (we like them crisped).
7. Serve family style in a large serving vessel.

Egéségedre! (to your health!)

 

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Hungarian Donkey Ear Cookies (Szamárfül)

Szamárfül was a popular cookie during the second world war in Hungary; my  mom always said it was because it had no eggs, although it does have butter (I don’t really understand the rationale, were eggs harder to come by than butter?). And I am not entirely sure of where the recipe originally came from, it was handed down to me by my mother, she had entered it into her first computer using DOS in the early 80’s and had several printouts which I inherited (I can find no other reference to it on line).

I posted this recipe quite a few years ago (December 2007), and I really don’t care for the photo anymore, so I decided to re-post with new photos! Tonight I am making the cookies for my nephew (Jack, 11) who adores them — we’re spending Canadian Thanksgiving with his family at their cottage this weekend. His Dad (my brother) is an amazing cook, but hasn’t mastered the art of baking, so every Thanksgiving, I bring about one hundred of these cookies (and believe it or not, they polish them off, lock, stock and barrel!).

The recipe is really no fail, you just need a little patience. The cookie is a simple yeast dough, with a little butter. It is rolled to about 2mm thick, cut into circles, and a small dollop of jam is placed in the centre. You then take this round cookie and fold it in half, then you pinch the edges tight. The challenge in making these delicious cookies is to pinch them down so the jam doesn’t escape and ‘burn’ while baking. Of course, as children, we always LOVED this melted jam because it caramelized to a wonderful candy coating. The cookie’s sweetness comes from the European Jam (which is generally thicker and with less pectin than the North American jam) and the confectioners sugar coating once they are baked. They are not an overly sweet treat.

My Kitchenaid set up with the pasta rolling attachment

A few years ago, I discovered that the thickest roller on my Kitchenaid Mixer Pasta Roller attachment is really the best and only way to go — it gives you the most consistent thickness of dough, and it avoids over working it. The dough renders a beautiful, flaky cookie pastry.

This year, JT offered to help, so I set up two stations on the island, and while I ‘rolled out’ the dough, he cut, filled and pinched. I did my share of cutting, filling and pinching too…but this dough is like the fishes and loaves, it is never ending…you keep taking the leftovers and re-rolling them…never ending! I am so lucky he helped tonight, otherwise it would have taken me a couple of hours to finish (we were done in 45 minutes). He even said he had fun doing this with me :-). His cookies stayed closed better than mine!

Two workstations set up made the job go much faster

You see how the jam has caramelized on the edges? That is the best part!

Donkey Ear Cookies:

(Szamárfül) makes about 100-130 cookies (we used a 5cm round cookie cutter this time and yielded 102)

Ingredients:

• 1 tbsp quick rising yeast
• 1/2 cup warm water + 1 tsp sugar
• 600 g flour (3-4 cups)
• 240 g unsalted butter (1/2 lb)
• 1/2 cup sour cream or yogurt
• Thick European jam (we used cherry for this batch)
• 1-2 cups confectioners sugar (for dusting)

Directions:

1. Dissolve yeast in warm water with sugar, proof for about 3-5 minutes.
2. In an electric mixer with the scraper hook, mix butter and flour until crumbly. Change to dough hook.
3. Add yeast and enough sour cream and knead with the mixer until a shiny dough forms.
4. Cover and allow to rise in a warm place for 1/2 to 1 hr (you may also do this step in the fridge overnight if you won’t be making the cookies the same day. Allow the dough to get up to room temperature before you begin to work it).
5. Preheat oven to 350°F.
6. Roll out the dough into 1 mm thickness (or #1 of the Kitchenaid Pasta Machine) and cut with a 5-6 cm round cookie cutter.
7. Fill each round in the centre with about 1/4 tsp of jam.
8. Fold each circle in half and pinch edges really, really, really well (this dough has a tendency to pop open like a clam!).
9. Bake at 350° F for 10-12 minutes (dough will be slightly golden), jam may have oozed out, it’s OK, really!
10. Immediately put cookies into a large bowl with icing sugar and dust generously. Or dip each side into a small bowl filled with icing sugar.
11. Remove to a wire rack and cool.
12. Enjoy!

Notes:

• You may half the dough recipe, I’ve done it several times and you yield about 50 cookies!
• Dipping your finger in lightly beaten egg whites and running along the outer edge of the rounds before pinching them closed will help keep them closed tight while baking.

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Hungarian Korozot and Nuit Blanche in Toronto, October 1

October first was Nuit Blanche all over the world and we are very fortunate to participate every year in Toronto. It is a wonderful festival of all kinds of performance and installation arts all over the city. It starts at sundown (around 7pm-ish) and goes until the wee hours of the morning, should you choose. JT and I usually start our expedition in the south part of the city, near City Hall and walk a meandering path north exploring as many exhibits and installations along the way to Bloor Street. It was a chilly night in Toronto, around 7°C so we visit ed a few indoor exhibits along the way. We had a small snack before we started out, so we weren’t starving by the time we had dinner around 10pm. We always take the subway down so we don’t need to worry that we left the care a 45 minute walk away! I’ll took a few photos to blog about, but it’s usually very dark. Charles, I hope you had a chance to venture into Paris for this momentous event (it takes place in many major cities all over the world) — we’ve always found it such a blast in TO. Not sure if anyone reading lives in New York, but it’s happening there too! Toronto is expecting over a million people out in the streets tonight – it’s so cool walking around Toronto in the night with thousands of other people – it makes the city come alive with energy. Woo hoo! Let the festivities begin!

If you know me, you will know that I never serve alcoholic beverages without some type of food. I inherited this from my dear Mother, and I love it. I am always looking out for small nibbles that are tasty, not too filling (don’t want to spoil dinner, do we?) and easy to serve, with a martini or two! This is a dip that is commonly served in Hungarian households, I have modified it to my taste (and health…my Mom used to put softened butter in it!).

Korozot (Hungarian Fresh Cheese Dip)

Hungarian Korozot Dip

This is a modified recipe to suit my taste and to be a little healthier.

Ingredients:

• 4-6oz Goats Cheese (at room temperature) (the real recipe would use a soft unripened fresh cheese called Quark)
• No fat yogurt (for desired consistency)
• 2 tablespoons paprika puré (hot or sweet, your choice) (this is a Hungarian product that comes in a tube) OR tbsp paprika powder – try with smoked paprika for a totally different flavour
• 1 Shallot, very finely chopped
• 1 clove garlic (minced on a fine grater)
• bunch of chives, finely chopped

Directions:

1. Blend the goats cheese, shallot and garlic in a food processor until well mixed, adding the yogurt a tablespoon at a time until desired consistency is achieved.
2. Remove from processor and fold in chives.
3. Serve at room temperature with crostinis. This is much better the next day when the flavours have had time to melt together.

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Bread Dumplings (to go with Vadas Hus) no

Bread Dumplings

The Hungarian Vadas Hus works very well with these hearty dumplings — make sure you have plenty of sauce for them! Note, I usually eyeball these, so my proportions may be a bit off, but it is a very forgiving recipe that may be corrected with additional water or flour.

Ingredients (makes 4 largish dumplings):
You’ll want to double or triple this recipe if you are making with the eye of round, expect each person to eat 2.

• 1 large egg
• 3/4 cup of all purpose flour
• 3/4 cup whole wheat flour
• 1  cup of croutons (I used Marcy’s Whole Wheat Low Sodium but you may use your own – it’s what I had on hand)
• Dash of water
• 2 tbsp butter for flavour
• 2 tbsp grape seed oil (very high flash point, so you can get it very hot without burning).

Directions:

1. Break egg and a dash of water into a medium sized bowl, and whisk well with a wooden spoon.
2. Add both flours and mix to a thick but wet consistency adding water if necessary. Fold in the croutons and allow to sit for about 30 minutes This will allow the croutons to soften a bit. If the dough is still too wet, add a bit more flour (you want this about the consistency of shaggy bread dough, not firm bread dough).
3. Heat a large pot of water until it boils, season with salt.
4. Using a large ice cream scoop, scoop the dough one by one into the boiling water. The dumplings will float first, then sink and then float to the top when they are done. Remove from boiling water and set aside to drain.
5. Meanwhile, in a large frying pan, heat the butter and grape seed oil. Fry the dumplings turning when the sides are golden brown. The best dumplings are crispy on the outside and soft and tender on the inside. The croutons should not be dry any longer, they will just add a delicious bread texture to the dumplings.
6. Serve with the Vadas Hus (Hungarian Hunter Stew).

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Vadas Hus (Hungarian Hunters’ Stew)

This is a piquant sauce, made from carrots, parsnips and celery root. Original recipe from this link. All of the recipes on-line indicate that if you are cooking with beef, to begin this recipe a couple of days in advance so that the beef has time to tenderize in the marinade. I did this batch with turkey scallopini, so I marinated for a few hours.  Also, for poultry, I would strongly suggest that you allow the marinade to cool to at least room temperature before you immerse the poultry in it. Also, the original recipe called for a roux to thicken the sauce, I omitted this as I felt the sauce was thick enough with the cooked vegetables.

Ingredients:

• 1 trimmed whole beef tenderloin, 5-6 lbs (my mom used to make this with eye of round — tenderloin is way too expensive, plus, it has 2-3 days to marinate, and soften up).
• 1/4 cup pancetta, cut in to little strips
• 1 cup grated celery root
• 1 cup grated parsnips
• 1 cup grated carrots
• 2 cups water
• 1/2 cup white wine vinegar
• 1/2 cup red wine vinegar
• grated rind of 1/2 lemon
• 2 bay leaves
• 1/2 cup minced sweet onion
• 1 tablespoon sugar (I did add this but strongly recommend not to, it was too sweet; the carrots make this sauce sweet enough)
• 1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice
• 1/2 cup sour cream or yogurt

Directions:

1. Start this recipe 2 or 3 days before you plan to serve it.
2. Combine 1  1/2 cups water and the vinegars in a dutch oven (not aluminum), add the vegetables and bring to a boil. This step is simply to blend the flavours, not cook the vegetables. If making this dish with poultry, allow this mix to cool completely before the next step. I also transferred this mix into a glass container with a lid, large enough to hold the liquid and the meat.
3. Add the beef, grated lemon rind and bay leaves so that the mixture covers the meat. Marinate for 2 to 3 days in the refrigerator.
4. When you are ready to cook, pre-heat the oven at 350°F.
5. In a large dutch oven (large enough to hold the vegetables and the meat) over  heat wilt the onion in 1 teaspoon EVOO; do not allow the onions brown.
6. Remove beef from marinade and place it on top of onions. Cook meat for 2 or 3 minutes on each side.
7. Pour marinade over meat and place into pre-heated oven, covered until meat is almost cooked, for 2 hours.
8. Remove the meat and cut into 1/2 inch thick slices, set aside.
9. Remove bay leaves and discard. Using an immersion blender, blend vegetables until very smooth (you may wish to press this through a fine sieve to get the creamiest texture, as I did).
10. I omitted this step: Brown the sugar in a small frying pan until caramelized. Add 3 tablespoons cold water and cook for a few minutes till sugar melts. Whip in the mustard. Pour the caramel and mustard into the puréed sauce.
11. Instead, I whipped the mustard into the smooth sauce. Return the sauce to the dutch oven.
12. Add sliced meat; keeping the slices whole. Cook at a slow simmer for another 10 to 15 minutes to allow sauce to permeate the meat (this can be done on the stove).
13. Just before serving, combine the lemon juice and sour cream and whisk into the sauce. Serve with bread dumplings.

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The best ever Hungarian Cheese Sticks (sajtos rud)

Hungarian Cheese Sticks (Sajtos Rud) – this recipe came from my Aunt Agi in Budapest. I have done my best to convert to imperial measures, but to be sure, you should use the metric. Added note, I have successfully made these several times using imperial measures…so go for it!

Hungarian Cheese Sticks (Sajos Rud)

• 300g (about 2 cups) all purpose flour
• 150g (1/2 cup) margarine/sweet butter
• 1 tbsp fast rising yeast (bread machine yeast works)
• Sour cream as necessary for kneeding (I generally need about 2 tbsp)
• 100g (1 cup) shredded cheese (sharp cheddar works well, freshly grated Parmesan is best)
• Salt and Pepper to taste
• 20g (1/2 cup) shredded cheese
• 1 egg yolk

1. Dissolve yeast in 1/2 cup warm water + 1 tsp sugar
2. In a pastry blender or food processor with plastic blades blend flour, margarine, yeast, cheese and salt and pepper until a smooth ball forms, adding sour cream as necessary.
3. Let rest in a warm dark place for 1 hour.
4. Preheat oven to 375F
5. On a piece of parchment paper, roll out dough to about 1/2 cm (~1/4 inch) thickness.
6. Cut into 7-10 cm (3-4″) x 2 cm (1/2 inch) sticks.
7. Lightly beat the egg yolk and brush tops of sticks.
8. Sprinkle with remaining cheese.
9. Let rest 10 minutes.
10. Slide cheese sticks on parchment paper onto a cookie sheet. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until cheese is golden brown.
11. Re-cut sticks, if necessary, while still warm. Allow to cool.
12. Enjoy!

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New Year’s Eve Menu Yorkville, Illinois

We rented a car and drove down to see Paul and T in Yorkville, Illinois, arriving around cocktail hour on Friday, December 28th. 9.5 hours! It was due to boarder complications (frankly, I think they take their time with each car on purpose, because they can!) and weather (at one point around Flint, we averaged about 30km/hr because of snow).

We shopped and shopped some more – outlet stores, more outlet stores and then there were the outlet stores. 1 pair of boots and 2 pairs of shoes later (2 for JT too!) we were almost done!! On Sunday we all ventured downtown to the Talbott Hotel a lovely boutique hotel down by the John Hancock Tower and Water Tower Place (where Oprah lives). We shopped at the infamous Filine’s Basement (which is on the second floor) and on Michigan Avenue. For lunch, Paul and T took us to the world famous Billygoat Tavern (made famous on Saturday night live – remember the cheezeburger skit?) We had burgers, yes, even me! Actually, I didn’t have much choice…the serving/cooking guy is just like the one in the skit, kinda pushy but friendly too! It was fun!

See Photos of our trip here Chicago Trip December 2007.

In the evening, Paul and T generously took us to the Signature Room at the top of the John Hancock tower. It was magnificent! I had the Cured Tuna Carpaccio and Seared Scallops (which were HUGE!). It really was lovely! Thank you Paul and T!!!

OK, so here is the menu for New Year’s Eve 2007-8. It’s An Appetite for Europe, hitting countries at we’ll be visiting in May with Paul and T (in approximately the same order!).

Course 1: Austria
Bunderfleisch mit Brot-Stöcken (air-dried beef with bread sticks)

makes 4 per person

Ingredients:
16 bread sticks
8 slices of air dried beef, or proscuito sliced lengthwise in the centre
16 stems of baby arugula

Directions:
Wrap each bread stick with bunderflieisch, adding the arugula at the very top.
Serve on a platter.

Course 2: Hungary
Töltöt Paprika (stuffed peppers) makes 1/2 pepper per person

Ingredients:
1/2 cup cooked white rice
200g lean ground beef
1 can chopped tomatoes
1 small onion
1 clove garlic
1 tbsp hungarian paprika (hot or sweet)
1 tsp salt or to taste

Directions:

1. Finely chop the onion and sauté until translucent, add finely chopped garlic and continue to sauté for about a minute. Add beef and sauté until cooked. Add the cooked rice and about 1/4 of the canned chopped tomatoes.
2. Cut tops of peppers off, and clean out the insides. Stuff each pepper with about 1/2 of the meat filling.
3. Put peppers into a shallow oven proof dish, cover with remaining canned tomatoes and bake until peppers are soft but still hold their shape (1/2 hr at 350F).

Course 3: Italy
Confit della cipolla e pizza di formaggio delle capre (onion confit pizza with goats cheese) (not my photo) makes 1 small pizza

Ingredients:
1 proofed bread dough, rolled very thinly
1/4 cup onion confit (slow roasted onions until golden and sweet)
1/4 cup goats cheese
4-5 leaves of arugula

Directions:

1. Bake thinly rolled dough in a very hot oven 425F until golden on one side.
2. Flip dough and cover with the onion confit.
3. Crumble the goats cheese on top.
4. Bake for about 12-15 minutes until cheese is melting and dough is crispy.
5. Rip the arugula on top and allow to wilt. Cut and serve hot.

Course 4: Italy (slightly unplanned as Paul and T had this at the Signature Room and wanted to know how to make them)
Parmesan Tuiles

Ingredients:
About 1 cup finely grated parmesan cheese (the store bought kind works too, NOT lite)

Directions:

1. Preheat broiler to 450F.
2. Cut a piece of parchment paper to fit the bottom of a large cookie sheet.
3. Spread the grated parmesan evenly about 2mm thick.
4. for 8-10 minutes, broil until the cheese bubbles and turns slightly golden (if it’s not golden it will not crack). Watch this part it can burn easily.
5. Remove from heat and allow to cool.
6. Break appart to form bite-sized pieces.

Course 5: France
Beef Bourguignon (beef stew) Martha Stewart Recipe

Course 7: Switzerland (out of order since we’ll be going to Switzerland for the day before we get into France!)
Swiss Chocolate truffles (no photo)

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Hungarian Donkey Ear Cookies (Szamar Fulé)

This recipe was handed down to me by my mother Éva Harsfai-Robinson. It is a traditional war time cookies (no eggs!) that are delicious and relatively economical as this recipe makes a lot. It is jam filled. Be sure to buy only European jam which is a lot less runny than the North American style!

Donkey Ear Cookies (Szamar Fulé)

Click here to print recipe

Makes about 130 cookies

Ingredients:

• 1 tbsp quick rising yeast
• 1/2 cup warm water + 1 tsp sugar
• 600 g flour (3-4 cups)
• 240 g margarine (1/2 lb)
• 1/2 cup sour cream or yogurt
• Thick European jam
• 1-2 cups icing sugar (for dusting)

Directions

1. Dissolve yeast in warm water with sugar, allow to bubble up.
2. In an electric mixer with a dough hook, mix margarine and flour until crumbly.
3. Add yeast and enough sour cream and kneed until a shiny dough forms.
4. Cover and allow to rise in a warm place for 1/2 to 1 hr (you may also do this step in the fridge if you won’t be making the cookies the same day. Make sure you allow the dough to get up to room temperature if rising in the fridge).
5. Preheat oven to 350F.
6. Roll out the dough into 2mm thickness and cut with a 5-6 cm round cookie cutter.
7. Fill each round in the centre with about 1/4tsp of jam.
8. Fold each circle in half and pinch edges really really really well (this dough has a tendency to pop open like a clam!).
9. Bake at 350F for 10-12 minutes (dough will be slightly golden)
10. Immediately put cookies into a large bowl with icing sugar and dust generously.
11. Remove to a wire rack and cool.
12. Enjoy!

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