Celebrate the anniversary of the 1848 Hungarian revolution with these recipes

Everyone knows that you cannot start a revolution on an empty stomach, so in this article, you will find recipes that not only represent the colours of the Hungarian national flag, but some of them were also the favourite dishes of contemporary Hungarians and freedom fighters. Let us dig in!

Foodyny asked the writer and literary historian Krisztián Nyáry what the Hungarians who took part in the 1848 revolution must have eaten on a daily basis.

According to Nyáry, since most of the revolutionists were young intellectuals; university students, writers, journalists who were either newlyweds or single people, they often ate at restaurants and coffee houses.

Mór Jókai was a nobleman, novelist, dramatist and a revolutionist of the era, and according to sources, he was quite a foodie in his time; Nyáry mentioned that his favourite was French cuisine, but he liked mushrooms and seafood as well. Lucky for him, he had a lovely wife, Róza Laborfalvi, who was an excellent cook.

Jókai often ate roasted duck with steamed cabbage, but his favourite dish was the good old bean soup with smoked pig’s trotters,but without sour cream, the historian added.

Since then, his name became connected to the typical Hungarian dish, Jókai bableves (Jókai bean soup). This will be representing the colour red in the Hungarian flag.

Jókai bableves (Jókai bean soup)

Ingredients:

• 180 grams of dry beans or 300 grams of fresh, podded beans
• a piece of smoked trotters
• 100 grams of carrots
• 80 grams of turnips
• few bay leaves
• one clove of garlic
• 150 grams of green peppers
• 70 grams of tomatoes
• 300 grams of sausages
• 40 grams of fat
• 30 grams of flour
• 30 grams of onions
• 5 grams of paprika
• parsley
• 0.5 litres of sour cream
• 30 grams of flour
• dumplings

Preparation:

Rinse the dry beans well and soak them in water overnight. You can skip this step if you use podded beans. Cook the trotters in 1.5 litre of water until very smooth.

The next day, roast the chopped-up carrots and turnips on the fat that formed overnight on the surface of the cooking water. Add the beans and the soaking water to the roasted vegetables, and add some of the cooking water in which you cooked the trotters. Add a few bay leaves, the crushed garlic, the chopped-up green peppers and tomatoes, a pinch of salt and let them cook until the beans soften.

Meanwhile, cook the sausages and cut them up into circles. Then, add the chopped-up onions and the flour to the leftover fat of the sausage to make a thickening mixture. Sprinkle it with paprika and parsley.

Add this thickening mixture to the soup, then thicken it further with some sour cream. Add the dumplings and the sausages at last. Before serving, cut up the trotters, put some meat on the bottom of the plate and pour over some soup.

Enjoy!

The expert said that Petőfi, one of the leading characters of the revolution, was not a gourmet. Since he often ate at hostels and inns, he was not particularly choosy either, but he disliked the tejfölös tormamártás (sour cream-horseradish dip).

However, according to some sources, one of his favourite dishes was túrós csusza (Hungarian curd pasta). This will be our ‘white’ dish.

Túrós csusza (Hungarian curd pasta)

Ingredients:

• 250 grams of noodles
• 150 grams of smoked bacon
• 250 grams of cottage cheese
• 0.5 litres sour cream
• salt, pepper
• some butter
• some chives

Preparation:

Boil the noodles in salty water until they are ready (the packaging usually indicates the cooking time). Cut the bacon into tiny pieces and put it on the stove until it gets nice and crispy.

Add the grease to the noodles, along with half the amount of cottage cheese, the bacon and the sour cream, and add some salt and pepper. Put it in a buttered tin and bake the mixture, in a 200 °C oven for a couple of minutes.