Recipe of the week: Hungarian layered potatoes

Layered meals can be found in the cuisine of most nations, because you can easily make them from a few ingredients, and they are quite filling. The Hungarian king of these dishes is the layered potatoes, which is considered to be a real comfort food. Its story and recipe are not too complicated, and definitely worth a try 😉

According to origo.hu, there are certain dishes that don’t call for a lot of ingredients, but the different versions can still cause serious debates, because those are are examples of how “there is no accounting for tastes”, and we all grow up loving the version our family makes. Fisherman’s soup, stuffed cabbage and maybe even the roast á la Brasov belong to this category.

The Hungarian layered potatoes is the recurring meal of family lunches or dinners, we have many pleasant memories connected to the dish, and we tend to search for the flavours of our childhood while eating layered potatoes on occasion. However, in this case there aren’t significant differences. Most traditional (not new wave) recipes call for the same ingredients.

Photo: www.cookta.hu – ZsofiaHamoriPhotography

Naturally, there are slight differences, but you can achieve the amazing combination of flavours with nearly all of the  recipes. Chefs believe that the only issue that might arise during making this meal is how to serve it aesthetically in a restaurant. If you’ve ever made layered potatoes at home, you know that this can be a real struggle.

Our layered potatoes is a traditional comfort food, which recalls homely feelings.

Foodandwine.hu states that in the 19^th century it was listed among thick soups (főzelék) as stuffed potatoes. It was first mentioned under this name in an 1840 cookbook. However, it was mentioned as sour cream potatoes in the Dobos cookbook.

The “stuffed” qualifier turned into “layered” throughout the centuries. Today rarely anyone calls the meal rakott burgonya, we call it rakott krumpli (burgonya and krumpli both mean potato, but krumpli is a more informal version).

Its closest cousin is the French tartiflette, which features a camembert-like cheese, lard, onion, potatoes and white wine. But there are no eggs, sausages, and sour cream that are key ingredients in the Hungarian recipe. So let’s see how you can make this hearty meal at home 😉

Ingredients:

• 1 kg of potatoes
• 6 eggs
• 250 grams of sausage
• 6 dl of sour cream
• 2 tablespoons of fat
• salt, pepper
• optional: egg yolks to mix into the sour cream, cheese as a topping

Directions:

Cook the potatoes in boiling salty water without peeling them, and also cook the eggs. After they have cooked, peel off the skin of the potatoes and the eggshell, and cut them into circular disks. While the potatoes and the eggs are cooking, you can slice up the sausages similarly.

Melt the fat, mix in the sour cream and flavour with salt and pepper. Spread some of this mixture in the bottom of a pan. Then, start layering. Firstly, put down a layer of potatoes and sprinkle them with some fatty sour cream. Then comes the egg layer, which you should also sprinkle with some sour cream. After this, add the sausages and finally the remaining potatoes.

Pour the remaining sour cream over the potatoes. It’s not a problem at all if the layered potatoes kind of slop about in the sour cream, because as we know: you can’t have enough sour cream in Hungarian dishes 😉 Cook your layered potatoes at 200° Celsius for an hour. The meal is ready when the top is golden brown. Serve it with mixed salad or pickles.

Enjoy!

Featured image: www.nosalty.hu

Ce: bm

Source: http://www.origo.hu/