Recipe of the week: Hungarian cottage cheese pasta (túrós csusza)

Hungary’s gastronomy is full of delicious recipes. The premise and the ingredients of the cottage cheese pasta may seem ordinary, but together, they make the perfect dish.

History of the cottage cheese pasta

Pasta became a part of Hungarian gastronomy somewhere at the beginning of the modern era. József Topits founded the first steam pasta factory in 1859 in Budapest that allowed the large-scale production of pasta. Since then, it has conquered the markets and pasta is pretty much present in every household by now.

What makes this pasta unique is the special combination of hot and cold: a portion of warm pasta cooked with cottage cheese is topped with an extra portion of cold cottage cheese, it is then mixed with hot, juicy bacon strips, with the final addition of some cold sour cream.

The Hungarian name of the dish, ‘túrós csusza’ refers to the fact that this type of pasta is often very slippery due to the sour cream. 

Notably, Hungary was chosen as the 10th country with the best cuisine, according to this list on thrillist.com, not least because of the cottage cheese pasta.

Cottage cheese pasta is perfect for serving as the main course, a side dish, for example with fish meals, or even as the dessert, at the end of a meal.

Recipe

Ingredients

250 g noodles

150 g smoked bacon

250 g cottage cheese

0.5 l sour cream

salt, pepper

some butter

some chives

Preparation

Boil the noodles in salty water until they are ready (it usually says the time needed on the packaging). Cut the bacon into tiny pieces and put it on the stove until it is nice and crispy. Add the grease to the noodles, along with half the amount of the cottage cheese, the bacon and the sour cream, and add some salt and pepper. Put it in a buttered tin and bake the mixture together, in a 200C oven for a few minutes. When it is out of the oven, add the rest of the sour cream, cottage cheese, and bacon, add the chives and then you are ready to go.

Featured image: facebook.com/1619806688303183

For an excellent summer activity, check out this guide to bográcsozás, the Hungarian way of outdoor cooking.

Source: salonrestaurant.hu, wikipedia.org, mindmegette.hu, streetkitchen.hu