For some reason, when it comes to Hungarian cuisine, each of us immediately remembers the Bulgarian pepper. But this vegetable is in no way connected with Hungary. Even before appearing in Europe, he was on the run in America, and then gained great popularity in the Ottoman Empire. Apparently, from there he came to the Hungarians.
We all know the most famous Hungarian dish - goulash. It is customary to cook it in a deep frying pan. There is also a variation of this dish when it is cooked in a pot with potatoes, vegetables and spices. Meat is very popular in Hungarian cuisine. For example, to cook perkelt meat roasted on pork fat, and to prepare paprikasha for roasted meat, add fatty sour cream, which gives it a special mild taste. To cook another traditional Hungarian dish with a toast, the meat is cut into thin strips and fried over high heat with vegetables so that a crusty crust is formed.
Historical roots of the Hungarian cuisine
There is very little known about the original Hungarian cuisine, one can even say that practically nothing is known. We only know that all Europeans have always tried to get to Hungary and taste the wonderful dishes prepared by local chefs. From this it can be concluded that they prepared quite well. Of course, in the Hungarian cuisine, a lot of dishes that once came from the kitchens of other nations of the world, slightly changed and stayed in Hungary.
The most famous goulash dish, most likely, is still from those times when the path of nomads passed through the territory of modern Hungary, and Hungary itself was still part of the Ottoman Empire. Soup in the cauldron was not prepared by Hungarian shepherds, as it became later, but the nomadic warriors.
Features of the Hungarian cuisine
Hungarians love the simplicity and bright taste in dishes. That is why in honor various complex soups, goulash, sauces, pickled saltworts and other similar dishes. Almost in each dish as an additive is a sauce based on flour and fatty home-made sour cream. Also mandatory is the addition of hot pepper and sweet Bulgarian pepper.
Of course, we can not say that modern Hungarian cuisine has preserved in unchanged form the traditions that existed in it a hundred or two hundred years ago. We can not be sure even that this kitchen has not been transformed very much over the past ten years. But, of course, the traces of dishes known in ancient times Hungarian cuisine preserved. By the way, in these dishes we can easily find out our national dishes.
In those days, when the Great Migration of Nations was actively going on, there was no time and energy to prepare delicious dishes, that's why the nomads tried to store food for future use and prepared something like modern canned food called tarkhonyi. Only in the composition of this dish was not meat, and dry dough, which, if necessary, was poured into a cauldron with boiling water, and the food was ready. Agree, it reminds us of our custom to roll noodles for soup for future use. By the way, real Cossack noodles are prepared only with broth and katana noodles, nothing else is put.
The most popular dish by the nomads was the Borgach - it's a kind of bowler with a handle for cooking over fire. Such kitchen utensils are at all without an exception of the people which though one time passed in the development of a stage of a nomadic life.
At the beginning of the eighteenth century, the tendencies of the nearby French cuisine are strenuously penetrating into Hungarian cuisine. By this moment the Hungarians were already quite settled people and did not wander. That is why their food could become much softer and even more refined. The cuisine of Hungary loses its simplicity and rudeness, and with joy absorbs certain features of French cuisine, which obviously goes to its advantage, although it deprives some identity.
The best fish in the world?
Hungarian cuisine became very famous in Europe only in the late nineteenth century, after Hungarian chefs took part in the European culinary exhibition.
The biggest shock for European gourmets was fish dishes, which were presented by chefs from Hungary. The secret is very simple. The natural and weather conditions of Hungary allow the meat of fish to become much more tender than the meat of fish that have grown elsewhere. The most famous delicacy is pike perch. His tender meat-fillet is prepared with the help of hundreds of different recipes. It is fried, boiled, baked, stuffed, hampered with greens, cheese, vegetables, dough, included in the cakes and added to soups.
Also popular are the crayfish, which are found in Hungary. Gourmets claim that it is these crabs that have such an unusual taste that they can not be found anywhere else.