Cooking with pálinka – three delicious recipes

If you are not quite ready for the incomparable burning sensation that a shot of pálinka gives you, here are three recipes you can try not to be left out. You cannot go home from Hungary without trying pálinka, so these dishes will help to be included but without the burning taste and intensity.

Let’s start with a soup recipe from Nosalty, ideal for fall.

Butternut squash soup with quince pálinka

What you will need: 1 kg squash, 1 l chicken stock, dill to taste (preferably fresh), ginger to taste, half a bunch of fresh parsley, chili to taste, white pepper to taste, 1 pinch of nutmeg, 1 tsp of seasoning, salt to taste, 1 dl Fat Cream, 1 tsp sour cream, 5 dkg of pumpkin seeds and 2 tsp quince pálinka.

How to prepare the dish: Peel the butternut squash and cut it into smaller cubes. Put it in a pan and add as many chicken stock as it takes to cover the cubes. Then, add the spices, the finely chopped parsley, the whole ginger and dill (do not chop these because they will be removed later). When the squash cubes are soft, put the mixture in the blender and mix well.  Combine the cream with the sour cream and add a little bit of the soup. Then, gently mix the cream and sour cream mixture with the soup, whisk gently. Last but not least, you add a little balsamic vinegar and the pálinka, and top it all with fried seeds.

Let’s move on to the main course. Szicsek Pálinka has two great recipes you can try with pálinka: a lamb and a chicken dish.

Rack of lamb with rosemary peach

What you will need: 9 tbsp peach pálinka, 0.9 kg rack of lamb, 5 tbsp peach jam, 0.2 kg bread crumbs, 4 tbsp soy sauce, 1 bunch of rosemary, 3 tbsp butter, 0.5 kg canned peach.