Forget goulash: here is this year’s winner of Meal of Hungary

Photo: facebook.com/Finomfalat17

From traditional elements like Mangalica and cottage cheese to Brussels sprouts and other fresh ingredients, this year’s Meal of Hungary features familiar and exciting new flavours at the same time.

The ‘Magyarország étele’ (Meal of Hungary) gastronomic contest was organised for the third time in 2020, with the mission to showcase an innovative but affordable side of Hungarian cuisine.

Participants were asked to use maximum five ingredients, all of which are common in Hungarian homes, and which can be used to prepare large-portion meals.

Also, the food cost must not exceed HUF 1,000 (a little less than 3 euros) per meal, and it was also obligatory to use red, white, and green ingredients.

This year’s winner is the Kilroy Group Ltd from Csákberény, 70 km east of Budapest, although HVG is right to say that the meals prepared by Gyula Ortó and Tibor Dobos’s team could easily make a whole buffet. This is what the winner meal “Flavours of Somogy Country” consists of:

Zander fillet in spinach leaves, liver filled with fish roe, smoked Mangalica bacon, cottage cheese dumplings (túrógombóc) filled with dill cheese cream and breadcrumbs fried in brown butter, sour cream foam, vegetable basket, marinated Brussels sprouts, baked rolls made with Kápia pepper and fennel, and roasted red peppers.

Of the 12 participants, the silver medal goes to chefs András Simon and Szabolcs Fodor, at Hunguest Hotels Galyatető, and the bronze to Csaba Paskó and Krisztián Bódity, who come from Vojvodina, Serbia.

As Gellért Sölch, deputy secretary at the Ministry of Human Capacities, said at the award ceremony, “the chefs have shown that Hungarian gastronomy does have a future”.