Recipe of the week: sweet cottage cheese noodle pie / vargabéles
As a variation of the Hungarian strudel, this delicious noodle pie is definitely worth trying, either during a visit to Hungary or even in your own kitchen. The dessert/second-course meal has a fascinating, mysterious origin story.
History
It is fairly certain that this noodle pie originates from Transylvania. However, exactly which city can boast of being the birthplace of the sweet dish is highly debated. According to vacsinalam.cafeblog.hu, the recipe, more precisely, the person knowing the recipe, moved from Marosvásárhely to Kolozsvár. This person was Mrs Ferenc Aszalós, née Anna Borbáth, who passed on the recipe to her daughter, Mrs Darvas. It was Mrs Darvas who perfected the dish and made it so widely popular.
Mrs DarvasPhoto: archivum2.szabadsag.ro
Mrs Darvas was known for carefully selecting each ingredient she used. Therefore, the flour, the butter, the cream and the eggs all had to be of the highest quality. However, it was actually an unfortunate event that led to the widespread success of Mrs Darvas’s dessert.
One day, no cottage cheese arrived for Mrs Darvas. Nevertheless, she had a lot of orders to cater to, so she had to use a small trick. She made her own cottage cheese from slightly sour milk, giving the noodle pie a piquant taste.
This new taste was a huge success. In fact, it became so popular that the Gundel Restaurant in Budapest put it on the menu, too, and taxis had to take the freshly baked dish daily to the Kolozsvár airport, to make it in time to the Hungarian capital.
Another episode in the success of the Hungarian noodle pie is when the Shah from Iran visited Kolozsvár with Romanian president Gheorghe Maurer, and asked specifically to try this sweet dish.
Hungarian noodle pieUnfortunately, Mrs Darvas was in the hospital at the time but, after a little bit of panicking, they managed to convince her daughter, Marika, to prepare the dessert for the important guests.
Photo: facebook.com/balladapub
She had to cater for 400 people, for which she had the staff of the late Continental Hotel (now New York Café) at her service, who were shocked and somewhat terrified upon hearing all the ingredients they had to ensure for the new chef. However, all their efforts were worth it as the dessert was a huge success. Marika was awarded a giant flower basket for her hard work, and the popularity of the Hungarian noodle pie only became stronger over time.
Recipe of the noodle pie
Sweet noodle pie
Photo: facebook.com/kifoztukgasztromagazin
Ingredients
1 packet of strudel pastry or filo pastry
150 g vermicelli (very thin spaghetti pasta)
50 g butter
400 g cottage cheese
100 ml sour cream
2 eggs
3-4 tbsp sugar
2 packets of vanilla sugar
50 g raisins
lemon zest
some salt
some oil and 1 small egg for brushing
some icing sugar
Preparation
Cook the vermicelli in slightly salty water until softened, then mix the sieved pastry with some melted butter while still hot. Let it cool completely. Break up the cottage cheese slightly with a fork, then add the sugar, the vanilla sugar, the lemon zest, the sour cream, two egg yolks and the raisins and mix them well. Beat the egg whites with some salt, then slowly add it to the cottage cheese-y mass. Now also fold in the cool vermicelli mixed with butter. Get a 30 x 20 centimetre lined tin and place a strudel pastry sheet so that it covers the sides as well. Brush it with oil, place another sheet on top, brush it with oil again and place the third sheet on top, without the oil brushing this time. Pour the cottage cheese – vermicelli mass on top and smooth out the top. Place a strudel pastry sheet on top, brush it with oil, repeat this once more, then place the third, final sheet on top and brush it with the beaten up egg. In a 200C preheated oven, bake the pie for 35-40 minutes. When it is done, let it cool a bit, then sprinkle it with some icing sugar.
Enjoy!
Featured image: facebook.com/SylviaGasztroAngyal
Source: vacsinalam.cafeblog.hu, mindmegette.hu
As a Travel Planner and Experience Maker who specializes in experiential river cruisetours, one of my favorites are those along the majestic Danube River. Ports of call on these itineraries almost always include Budapest, Hungary. Market tours and cooking lessons with a local chef is a popular shore excursion among foodie travelers with a taste for authentic adventures.
Rather, just like language, music, or any other aspect of culture, food can reveal so much about the country from which it originates. This is why, more often than not, one of the first questions we ask someone who has returned from a trip is, “How was the food?”
The food of Hungary can be considered a melting pot of the continent, with a culinary base formed from its own, original Magyar cuisine. The Magyar are a ethnic group native to Hungary who share a common culture, history and speak the Hungarian language. There are an estimated 13.1–14.7 million ethnic Hungarians and their descendants worldwide, of whom 8.5–9.8 million live in Hungary.
Hungarian cuisine was influenced by Austrian cuisine under the Austro-Hungarian Empire; dishes and methods of food preparation have often been borrowed from Austrian cuisine, and vice versa. During that period, considerable numbers of Saxons (a German ethnic group), Armenians, Italians, Jews, Poles, Czechs and Slovaks settled in Hungary, also contributing new dishes. Some cakes and sweets in Hungary show a strong German-Austrian influence. All told, modern Hungarian cuisine is a synthesis of ancient Uralic components mixed with West Slavic, Balkan, Austrian and Germanic.
Traditional Hungarian dishes are primarily based on meats, seasonal vegetables, fruits, dairy products and cheeses. Bread is perhaps the most important and basic part of the Hungarian diet. Paprika, a quintessential spice, and pepper is often associated with Hungary and is used prominently in a handful of dishes. Typical Hungarian food is heavy on dairy, cheese and meats. Chicken, pork and beef are very common, while turkey, duck, lamb, fish and game meats are also eaten but not as frequently. Hungary is also famous for the high-quality salamis and sausages it produces primarily from pork, but also poultry and beef.
The Hungarian sweet noodle cake, or vargabéles, was invented by a Klausenburg innkeeper named Varga. His recipes are all easy, especially as the strudel and noodle doughs do not need to be homemade. Hungarian sweet noodle cake is one of the Hungarian specialities; a very common “cake” with many popular variations on the core recipe based on the choice of fillings. It is definitely worth trying – either during a visit to Hungary or even on your own.