Autumn special: Hungarian layered potatoes with pork chops and Szabolcsi apple

Potatoes, cheese, and sour cream: layered potatoes are probably Hungarians’ favourite comfort food for the autumn season – if not all year round. It also has many varieties across the country, so why not try with something that is generally delicious in Hungary: apple?

Layered (or scalloped) potatoes (rakott krumpli) are a very popular meal of Hungarian cuisine, and as many other signature foods, it usually does not have one variety only.

Depending on where you are and who your chef is, you will encounter quite different versions of layered potatoes.

Of course, some ingredients are a must if you want to make it the Hungarian way, such as potatoes, eggs, and sour cream, but even on this, there are differing opinions. Experimenting with ingredients is undoubtedly an exciting thing to do, as you can also see from this recipe from Sokszínű Vidék, to which apples were added to get a fresher and more fruity result.

The name Szabolcsi in the title refers to the origin of the apples, as Szabolcs-Szatmár-Bereg County in northeastern Hungary produces some of the best apples in the whole country – but wherever you get the apples from, it will surely make this otherwise traditional meal very exciting!

Ingredients

• 1 kg boneless pork chops
• 600 g apples (Jonathan, Idared, or Golden, but preferably a sweeter type)
• 2 pc onions
• 1 kg of potatoes
• 20 cl sour cream
• 20 cl cooking cream
• 200 g cheese, grated (one that melts easily)
• Salt, pepper, marjoram, nutmeg
• A few cloves of garlic
• Some flour and oil

Cut the pork chops into slices and pound them thin. Season them with salt, pepper, and marjoram, then flip the chops in flour and fry both sides in little oil for 1-1 minute. Chop the onion and garlic, and caramelise them in little oil. Cut the raw potatoes into thin slices.

Grease the bottom of a baking pan with lard. Put one layer of potato and season with salt as desired. For the second layer, add the thin slices of meat, and for the third, the apple slices. When these layers are done, add the caramelised onion and garlic, as well as half of the grated cheese.

Make another potato-meat-apple layer, then add the remaining cheese on top. Mix the sour cream and cooking cream with nutmeg, and pour the mixture on top.

Cover the baking tray with aluminium foil. In a preheated oven, cook on 180°C for 1.5 hours. Remove the aluminium foil before the end of cooking time if you want to give the top a slightly brown colour.

Read alsoGrandma’s classic apple pie and other fall recipes

Source: sokszinuvidek.24.hu