There’s one Hungarian dish you can never try in Hungary, here’s why
A prevalent Hungarian dish is the perfect combination of sweet tomato, strong paprika and meat. Yet, it is not really on restaurant menus in the country.
Stuffed paprika soup is a unique dish that many people make at home. The fresh ingredients and the mild seasoning make its genuinely unique taste that many people love so much. The dish probably originated from Turkish cuisine and was introduced to Hungarians by Serbians.
The main ingredients are bell pepper, seasoned minced meat, rice, garlic, and tomato sauce. Many nations have different seasonings for the dish, but what makes Hungarian stuffed paprika different is that the taste is milder, and the main focus is freshness instead of trying to make it have a strong flavour.
But why is it rarely found, if at all, on the restaurant menu? Well, that is because of two reasons: many nations have different variations of it, plus it has to be made with fresh ingredients. But make no mistake, all that you need can be easily found at any supermarket. That means you can cook it at home.
According to Hello Vidék, the recipe from the real Hungarian Cookbook published in 1892 is the following:
“take two large, sweet paprika for each person, cut at the stem and take out the seeds. Scald it with boiling water to make sure it does not break when you stuff it with other ingredients. Take one kilo of pork meat for 6 people, chop it, then add 12 decagrams of rice to it, one coffee spoon of pepper and salt, then mix all these and stuff the paprika. Make sure you leave some empty space, too, because the rice will take up more space as it gets cooked. The last step is to put all the paprika into a pot next to one another and pour the cooked and filtered tomato juice on top of the paprika.”
One interesting fact about stuffed pepper is that due to the tomato juice used for cooking, in certain areas, it is called stuffed paprika soup or tomato soup.
If you are interested in a more “modern” recipe, or you are enthusiastic about cooking this meal, below you can check out a video. If you would like to have the list of ingredients, click HERE and turn on the translation on the page.
Source: Hello Vidék, Street Kitchen
The American version of stuffed peppers called ‘Sloppy Joe’ is much nicer. It uses minced beef and the whole thing is done in the oven. I often make it here in Budapest for Hungarian friends and they prefer it to the Hungarian version. But the article is correct that both stuffed dishes and paprika were introduced by the Ottomans.
Also not fried, your version of sloppy joe is not the same sloppy joe I am familiar with. There is no rice in U.S. sloppy joe’s and lots of ground beef and beans. Not similar to stuffed peppers at all.
Edward – I did say minced beef (Americans call it ground) and the version I make has no rice nor I must say, beans (I use the low carb recipe from delish). The comparison is valid because it is still a stuffed pepper and has tomato in the sauce for the meat. That said, my mother (who was Hungarian) used to make the Hungarian version but with a nicer sauce – half canned, chopped tomatoes, half canned cream of tomato soup. Better than the sauce made from pureé.
Not a “bell pepper”.
Also, no comparison, sorry, with a sloppy joe and Hungarian stuffed peppers. If you make a sloppy jow without beans, it is not a sloppy joe. Making stuffed peppers without rice is not a stuffed pepper. Low carb anything in a Hungarian recipe is just not Hungarian. Like the Scots say, if it’s not Scottish, it is crap!