Recipe of the week: The Hungarian főzelék
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The főzelék is a traditional Hungarian vegetable-based meal, which plays a vital role in our cuisine as it complements meat dishes perfectly and has a good effect on metabolism. For many people, főzelék symbolizes childhood, because it is a common method parents and grandparents use to endear vegetables to kids. Well, it is definitely a delicious way to do so 😉
The most exciting thing about our főzelék is that it cannot be translated to any other languages. We mainly explain it as “thick soup” which is probably an adequate analogy.
What makes this meal truly Hungarian is that other nations do not have any dish comparable to főzelék, at least to its thick form and the way we make it.
According to gasztro.ucoz.hu, our ancestors already cooked this vegetable-based, thick, almost juiceless dish in the 16th century. However, it remains a mystery how people thickened it back then because the conventional way of thickening dishes only spread in the 19th century. Still, from that moment on, it was a frequent meal in Hungarian families – served with meat on festive days and without meat on weekdays.
It is probably the most significant and most diverse group of meals in the Hungarian cuisine because it can be made from any vegetable, even by combining them. According to gasztroabc.hu, the flavour of the fresh vegetables is further enhanced by the different thickening methods and the spices, of course.
Any főzelék can become a fine dining specialty by adding a piece of bacon or lard skin, rosemary, bay leaves, a few drops of lemon etc 😉
Hungarian főzelék meals are frequently thickened with flour, either in the form of traditional thickening (rántás made with fat or habarás made with milk or sour cream) or simply by sprinkling some flour into the dish. According to divany.hu, the most traditional method is the rántás, which is not as common anymore as it used to be because it can be substituted with alternative methods. Opinions differ regarding the healthiest option: nowadays it is believed that it is better to use habarás, starch or thicken the főzelék with the vegetable itself.
