Fragrant Nut and Rice Stuffed Peppers and Tomatoes with Chanterelle Potato Caper Chickpea Corn Cheese Casserole

Chanterelle Potato Caper Chickpea Corn Cheese Casserole

30 decagrams chanterelle (rokagomba)
8 medium white potatoes
1 finger-width strip of salted pork belly (szalona), diced
1 cup fresh raw milk
10 pea size knobs of butter
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons capers
Grind of nutmeg
30 black pepper
1 teaspoon paprika

Four sprigs thyme
Fresh ground rosemary
Two small mild red onions, diced fine
Four cloves garlic
Salt to taste


Preboil whole potatoes in light salt water, drain, cool and peel, then slice finger width. Don’t overcook them.

Saute pork belly in a dash of cooking oil on medium heat till almost crispy, then diced onion and a splash of water. When it’s no longer wet, add a teaspoon of the best homemade paprika you can find. Brown for half a minute, splash of water, add thyme, sherry if so desired, then the cleaned and sliced chanterelles (aka rokagomba at Lehel teri piac), and season with a grind of black pepper and nutmeg. Add water as necessary. Stew on low heat for at least an hour. It should be quite thick by the end, but not burning.

Place a layer of potatoes in your medium enameled cast iron casserole dish, add milk up to their tops, knobs of butter, olive oil, four crushed cloves of garlic. Add a layer of chickpeas and capers. Add a layer of potatoes. Top up with milk and more butter. Add a layer of fresh-boiled corn. Then add your chanterelle stew. Add four potatoes slices to the very top. Dash them with paprika and a few cumin seeds but not the rest. Top up with milk to a centimeter of the brim.

Bake a maximum of 40 minutes, first 25 minutes, high heat, foil on lightly, milk might spill out, top up later if needed, then another final ten minutes or so to brown the top when you add the French Alpine goat cheese (medium soft) or Cowgirl Camembert if you’re in San Francisco.

Serves 3 to 5, depending. Gets better if it rests a day.


Fragrant Nut and Rice Stuffed Peppers and Tomatoes

8 medium red and green homegrown peppers
A dozen vine-ripened medium tomatoes
1 cup parboiled jasmine rice
1 ½ cups mixed home roasted nuts (walnuts and hazelnuts), cleaned and rough chopped
3 allspice
Teaspoon alligator pepper
2 teaspoons cubab pepper,
¼ teaspoon fresh ground cinnamon
4 cloves
Pinch of saffron
1 cup finely juliened medium zucchini or squash or its skin thereof
One carrot, finely diced
Salt to taste

Clean the red and green homegrown peppers, so fresh they’re squeaky, and also vine-ripened tomatoes. Remove their tops and tidy them, then rub inside with a smidgen of sea salt. Set the bunch aside—also keeping back the tomato juice for the stuffing. Keep each pepper and tomato with its hat if you can.

Quick ten-minute cold water soak for the jasmine rice, then parboil. Set aside to cool.

Meanwhile sauté the carrot and julienned zucchini/squash or its skin in knob of butter and dash of olive oil in medium saucepan, later adding your mortared allspice, mixed pepper, clove, cinnamon, salt, saffron mix. Add the leftover tomato juice and innards. Reduce and saute to al dente. Cool and set aside.

Stir in the nuts you have roasted and chopped. Stir in the rice. Lubricate and flavor to taste. That’s your stuffing that you spoon gently into the peppers, don’t press in too much. At some point in the past I exchanged the nuts for oats or lentils, but this felt truer to what the protein should be.

Arrange in the large oven pan as you like. Fill with four cups water and a tablespoon of cooking oil.

Bake 1hour foil on to steam them, half an hour foil off to get them crispy. Top up with water if they’re in jeopardy of burning.

Serves 5 to 6.

These were aromatic and fluffy and really complemented the casserole. Shared over two meals with a bottle of Alentejo that remains nameless since it’s already in the recycling and a bottle of Raicces Syrah.

This meal also improves overnight as the flavors and textures merge together. A fresh bitter chicory and basil leaf salad with honey mustard might also have appeared on the table. Along with a blueberry and plum tart. And cherry rocket fuel to wash it down, presupposing a merry feeling in reaction to this wet bluesy summer.

Pesto for Now and Later

Pesto for Now and Later

I wouldn’t recommend making the below in such a giant quantity that is difficult to eat in one winter if not two. The approach is the same for smaller batches of four bunches basil, liberal cup olive oil, 100 gram pine nuts, pecorino and salt to taste, serving at least ten people.

In the last week of August, at a proper market, you should be able to buy substantial amounts of basil. If you are allergic to tomatoes and die for basil as a replacement in the winter, then this is for you to save money and have killer green pasta at vital moments. Forms the basis of many tapanade. This is your moment to respect leaves.

This year I bought three bucketfuls in Budapest for 20 euros or less (imagine that in your supermarket herb section, eh). You don’t want that which is overflowered. You want large and small leaved varieties with a minimum of flowering and seeds. I bought in total 40 bunches, each composed of about 2-4 entire plants. I bought from four different people and emptied the market for that day.

Prepare 3 liters of glassware/plasticware as this will seal and protect your investment from freezerburn and the general blasphemy of this idea.

150-200 grams pinenuts. Toast these lightly and be very careful not to waste them on a big flame.
1.5 liters olive oil of decent type.
1/2 cup good sea salt.
200-300 grams parmegano, grated at home.
Ground pepper to taste or not at all

Wash and plunge all the basil in the sink/tub. Wash three times at least to rid it of sand/dirt and pests.

Allow to dry overnight, roots in buckets.

Pick in the morning, preferably with your loved one, allowing for your thumb to get sore (three hours). Discard big flowers but keep some of the buds/flowers that have not formed seeds. Save all the best leaves.

You should have at least four heaped large 7 liter bowls of leaves as the result.

Borrow a blender or use your own.

To blend this enormous amount add a liberal cup to the bottom of the blender and start pureeing. With a spatula push, struggle, stir and generally integrate the leaves. You can add a cup of water too to help you. Liquidity is essential. Your blender might start smelling funny from the work. Each big bowl should yield a liter. You may salt as you blend. But not too fine. It does not have to be perfect as that’s part of the hand-madeness.

Your paste will oxidize quickly so everything else should be ready.

Add cheese, more oil, pine nuts (which should be crushed some in a pestle), remaining salt to taste.

Store it, preferably freezing it in plastic containers or jars.

Fantastico!

Apply to bread, pasta, lamb, steak at will. But be careful though not to poke through the plastic container or break the glass jars with your knife because it’s too frozen. It should thaw some, but not totally.

If you were a real squirrel and up for it, you could use beech nuts in place of the pine nuts. A real fiddle to do, but think of the organic snob appeal. Beech nut pesto!

Pure or Spicy Chunky Marinara

Pure Marinara

15 kilos tomatoes, washed and peeled
8 pods garlic, finely chopped
¼ cup dry wild oregano
10 tablespoons sea salt
2 cups olive oil

This should be made at the peak of the tomato season when all kinds of heirlooms are available and everything has ripened on the vine and prices are low before autumn begins. Beefsteak, Romas, juicers, from soft pink to bright fire engine red, these are the varieties and this is the time to capture all that flavor and jar it for winter, especially if you can’t abide by store-bought sauce. You will need a few extra-large bowls and at least a 14-liter pot for this amount or two seven-liter pots.

It might take two days of trips to the market to collect the varieties you want. Don’t let the tomatoes sit around but do plan to spend the whole afternoon with them. Plus you should check to make sure you have about a dozen 750 deciliter jars and good, rust-free lids.

Wash the assorted tomatoes and then give them a boiling water bath in an extra-large metal bowl in 5 kilo lots. Let them soak and then peel them over another bowl adding the juice as well. As you finish the batch you can wring out the skins you have discarded in another bowl, extracting more juice.

On medium heat, hit the pan with a cup of oil, allowing it to warm a little and then add the first batch of peeled tomatoes. Keep on peeling the rest of the batch, adding hot boiling water as necessary to get them to peel. Sometimes this takes two rounds.

Watch your sauce that it doesn’t burn accidentally. Stir regularly.

Then fill with all your peeled tomatoes and let it reduce for three hours minimum on medium low heat. Stir regularly. You want to reduce its volume from one-third to a half over the course of the cooking. Gradually the sauce will redden, darken and gain in richness. Add salt as needed.

Peel and chop eight cloves of garlic that will only be added in the last 15 minutes of the cooking time, along with the ¼ cup of wild oregano also at that time, olive oil for flavor, and a final seasoning.

Meanwhile you have thoroughly washed and dried the jars for canning and they are in a hot water bath or in moderately warm oven, waiting to be filled with piping hot marinara.

Close tightly, turning jars upside down to see if any liquid escapes, meaning a dud seal.

Wrap your new family in blankets somewhere in the house to cool.

Perhaps water boil the jars the next day for 10 minutes to be extra safe.

Enjoy absolutely any time in winter.


The advantage of this pure marinara is that it can be used with anything; other than oregano and garlic, it has no other additions or background flavors. The focus here is on the quality and ripeness of the tomatoes that went in it in the first place. Which is somewhat different from the far more complicated and time-consuming spicy and chunky version below, perhaps symbolic of what I was capable of a decade ago confused too many flavors and ingredients. Now it’s a preference for a restrained, graceful, reliable, creative touch.


Spicy Chunky Marinara

14 to 18 kilos tomato peeled in hot water
3 kilos diced onion
1 kilos diced red onion
5 pods roasted and garlic
3 kilos roasted and peeled aubergine
1/2 liter olive oil
10 tablespoons salt
1 bottle dry white wine, preferably Reisling or Chardonnay
3 to 5 large bunches basil
4 to 5 smoked chipotles

Start with boiling pots of water for tomatoes. Dice onion as garlic and aubergine roast. Saute onion, chipotles. Peel the tomatoes, about 70% from the roma variety and 30% from the large fist-sized juicy varieties available in the last week of August for 50 HUF a kilo. Add bottle of wine to onion.  Add your tomatoes. Pot should be able to handle 25 liters of liquid with a good thick bottom. Reduce by 1/3 minimum over three to four hours. Add aubergine and garlic half way through. Basil at the very end. You should get about 12 to 14 liters of silky, thick, scrumptuous sauce. 

Meanwhile scrub jars and lids with scalding water, let dry and put in oven at low heat for half hour minimum. Fill—careful not to putting any foreign material in the jars and filling each jar one by one from the oven—screw on lids tight. Let cool overnight. Boil the jars in the next two days. They should be wrapped in newspaper during boiling and then once done put in a large blanket or coat to cool over the next night. Store. Open when hungry in winter and reheat.

Smoky Cauliflower Potato Leek Tahini Casserole

Smoky Cauliflower Potato Leek Tahini Casserole

One smoky (smoked hack) or other hot smoked fish, even bacalao
One cauliflower
One kilo potatoes or more
One leek
One medium celeriac

Black pepper
Nutmeg (optional)
Shot medium sherry
1 ½ teaspoons salt
Few rosemary leaves
Three bay leaves
Six hazelnuts of butter (50g)
Four tablespoons olive oil


3 ½ tablespoons tahini
2 tablespoons joghurt
4 tablespoons water
Squeeze of lemon
8 tablespoons bio milk
Six garlic cloves

Peel and wash spuds, quarter
Peel and wash celeriac, julienne finger size
Separate cauliflower in florets and wash
Wash leek and dice loosely


One large pot boiling water, tablespoon salt.

Blanche or parboil the cauliflower first (4 min), then the leek (2 min), then the celeriac, adding the potato a few minutes later, boiling them to be just a little underdone.

In one large oven tray, add the cauliflower, leek, celeriac, potato as they come out of the water. In the meantime, you have poured some boiling water over your smoky (mine was frozen, smuggled in from England, and I use the shimofuri technique to freshen it up) and filleted and peeled it, adding to the vegetable mixture.

Drain the last of your veg, keeping the water for stock later.

Add your nuggets of butter, a very liberal grind of black pepper, olive oil, teaspoon of salt to the veg mix,  stir liberally, pop in the oven for five minutes.

Meanwhile beat together tahini, salt, cold water, then yogurt, then milk, dash of lemon juice, diced garlic to make a batter-like paste.

Stir again the veg mix, add your tahini.

Bake five-15 minutes, depending on how wet or crispy you desire.

Served with Arany Aszok Half Brown.

 

Relaxed Guinea Fowl

Relaxed Guinea Fowl

(Because all the guests have left, the pressure is off, and you just make it to the market after a blow out on Friday night.)

One Guinea Fowl approximately two kilos

One quince
One each small white, yellow and red onion
Outer leaves of fennel

Pickle juice
Sherry
Wine
Ham fat

Tablespoon Salt
Bay leave crushed
Smoked sweet Spanish paprika
Juniper berry
Currants/grapes from Selcuk
Four allspices
Two cloves
Eight black peppercorns
Six thin strips preserved lemon skin (in salt)
Teaspoon of salted tarragon

Clean guinea fowl--remove giblets, feet, head, neck, forewings
Cut guinea fowl in half lengthwise with v. sharp knife

Finely dice quince, onions and fennel and two tablespoons ham fat (leftover from the New Year ham). Sautee together for ten minutes, add water to keep from scorching, then reduce, put aside, make hole in the middle, add a tablespoon olive oil and add the spices that have been crushed finely in a mortar. Fry spices, then mix in and fry all together for another five minutes, plus the currants (a handful)

Preheat oven.

Rub pan with more ham fat. Place bird skin side down. Salt lightly. Then add the warm veggie quince on top, in the cavity.

Add water, splash of sherry, liberal splash of juice from homemade pickled peppers, two demitasse fragrant wine like Zinfendel (we used “village”’ wine), at least halfway covering birds.

Cover with foil and bake medium heat for 40 minutes, turn down and bake another hour and a half on low, checking occasionally to baste and top up liquid. Last half hour turn over birds (doesn’t matter if veggie spills out into liquid) so skin browns and crisps but don’t dry them out.

Served with ewe curd polenta/puliska (very nice with au jus on top) and carrot and endive salad (with lime, salt and Xerex vinegar).

Result: one v. juicy bird. Very light meal. Enough for four portions.

Lamb Meatball Sage Herb Noodles

Lamb Meatball Sage Herb Noodles

40 decagrams twice-ground lamb
2 shallots, diced fine
dash of salt
grind of nutmeg
grind of black pepper
pinch of fresh sage, cut fine
five saffron strands (fake, judging by the taste)
pine nuts (optional)

six small fresh parsley roots
bunch French parsley leaf (or maybe fenugreek leaf)
bunch of green spring onions
large twig of fresh sage
teaspoon salt
20 black pepper corns
two sticks dry rosemary
two bay leaves
knob of butter
three tablespoons olive oil
four cloves garlic
cup white wine
handful of spinach and sorrel
quality wide durum noodles--plain and spinach


In a mixing bowl: minced lamb; shallots, salt, nutmeg, dashes of black pepper, sage and saffron, pine nuts. Mix very lightly, form very lightly. Makes about 25 small meatballs (coin size).

In a large skillet, warm butter, add parsley roots, splash in white wine (Tuzko Traminer 2009) when necessary, add bay leaves, mortared pepper, rosemary, sage, salt, some of the olive oil, more wine, add more oil liberally, add meatballs careful that they don’t stick, add more wine to stop it, add garlic, chopped green onions, adjust flavor and simmer, adding sorrel and spinach at last minute before the pasta goes in.

In medium pot, salt water and bring to boil. Cook pasta al dente, and add to the meatball sauce. Simmer two minutes. Check lubrication, saltiness, etc.

Serve hot, with aforementioned Traminer, a sprinkle of Gran Padano, a grind out of the pepper grinder, and a salad of green onion tops, spinach and sorrel with pomegranate molasses and lemon olive oil dressing.

This was made for a quick early Tuesday night meal after a mission to Buda to buy a chair after 20 years of uncomfortable sitting.

Wild Plum, Dogberry, Visne Guinea Fowl

Wild Plum, Dogberry, Visne Guinea Fowl


1 guinea fowl, in this case a large one, over 2 kilos.
Clean up and cut the guinea fowl in half, placing in a large roasting pan, side down, with the giblets.
Two bunches sweet spring onion
Several sprigs tarragon
Several leaves lovage
1 tablespoon Ricard
2 glasses white wine
4 glasses water
1 cup of visne (cherry), destoned
2 cups of wild yellow-red plums, depitted
1 cup dried dogberry (zeresk)
1 cup leftover lamb gulyas broth or any broth if you have
2 teaspoons apple vinegar

Spice mix
3 juniper berries
2 piripiri
4 cloves
teaspoon kumasi cubab pepper
2 teaspoons black pepper
4 teaspoons coriander seed
4-5 teaspoon salt

Bake this mixture of spice, fruit and bird for at least three hours on medium high heat, covered with foil, turn and baste the bird occasionally, and top up with a bit of wine or water or both every half hour or so.

Served with yellow squash and new white potatoes panfried with cumin seed and fine chopped herbs (opal basil, green basil, tarragon, dill, parsley (mint and coriander would also be a nice addition, but none in market this day)).

Alternately, you can dry fry the yellow squash (no oil in Teflon till the end) add some croutons of dried bread and olive oil and rosemary and salt and garlic at the end. Very wicked.

The bird will be very astringent and tart but the juice will have penetrated the bird and made it so succulent!

Served with Maurus Tramini. Plate of Croatian cheese followed. Then out the door for Dunapark icecream.

Meal for six, with this large bird.

Zsambék Rabbit and Apple Canapés, Beef Tenderloin and Carmelized Sweet Onions, Jugged Zsambék Rabbit, Puliszka (Hominy), Hot Spring Onion and Roasted Nut Salad with Balsamic, Spring Iceberg Salad

Zsambék Rabbit and Apple Canapés

Two rabbit livers
Two rabbit hearts
Four rabbit kidneys
50 grams butter
nutmeg
black pepper
dash of bunny stock
dash of white wine (Légli 333)
salt to taste after frying
one dry, crisp apple
smooge of mustard
one boiled egg, separated and chopped
chopped parsley and lovage
leftover ciabatta

Cut leftover ciabatta very thin and toasted in the pan. Set aside.

In a small skillet, medium heat, melt 30-50 grams butter, add the hearts, wait a beat, then the kidneys, then the livers. You can dust them in flour if you’re worried you’ll burn them. Grind of black pepper, dash of rabbit stock from your jugged rabbit, reduce, dash of white wine, grind of nutmeg, reduce, sea salt to taste right before you take it off and set aside. For pinkish liver, five to seven minutes, since this is game.

Peel one dry crisp apple like Pink Lady or Topaz, cut in thin slices (2mm or so), sauté them in a very light amount butter in the same skillet for about a minute a side, then set aside.

Assemble the canapés on a nice but chipped one-of-a-kind plate from the toast, smooge of mustard (Dusseldorfer, sarf/hot), wheel of apple, thin slices of liver, grind of black pepper, finely chopped lovage and parsley over the plate, peel and separate the boiled egg, finely dicing yolk, then eggwhite, sprinkling over canapes for garnish.

The result is very aromatic and rich and went nicely on the transition from lager to Bikavér. I ate the hearts and the kidneys as I made the finishing touches.


Beef Tenderloin and Carmelized Sweet Onions with Walnuts and Dried Paprika Chili

This is for people who won’t eat rabbit, like teenagers or children who might feel a little threatened by the idea of eating bunnies. The tenderloin was marinated for five days, almost to the point of being high, along with the onions—you don’t have to go that far. I just couldn’t handle more meat at the time and then came the point to cook it. . I served this as an appetizer next to the rabbit liver canapés.

Half a small tenderloin, in thin slices
Five sweet medium onions, peeled and halved
One cup red wine
Six tablespoons soy sauce
One lime
Cracked black pepper
Two dried whole sweet paprika
Four garlic cloves
Handful of ruby-skinned walnuts

Slice the beef tenderloin thinly (half a centimeter or so), peel and halve the onions, place them in a glass bowl, add the red wine (Vida), soy sauce, lime juice, cracked black pepper, deseed and scissor in strips of the dry whole paprika, four garlic cloves, sliced in half, and a handful of walnuts. Marinate for at least half a day. Stir from time to time and add more soy sauce and red wine periodically if it turns into a longer process.

On a medium hot lightly oiled skillet, carmelize the whole onions, turning from time to time. If you modulate the heat well enough and give them a shake they should cook nicely. Then can be covered periodically too. The quality and flavor of the onion is important, as not every Grannie in the farmer’s market has good ones. Set aside when done, about 20 minutes. Wipe and reheat the skillet, reoil and saute the five-minute tenderloin slices/medallions at high heat, careful not to let them sweat but always fry. Adjust seasoning with soy sauce and ground black pepper. It might take a few rounds depending on the skillet. Set aside the tenderloins. Wipe clean again the skillet and fry up the drained remains of garlic, walnuts and paprika with a bit of marinade and splash of fresh wine and add to your now complete dish. The onions were outstandingly nice and juicy too.


Jugged Zsambék Rabbit

A brace of fresh young rabbits, just under three kilos dressed all together, with their offal. These are hard to find. Mine came from Hunyadi ter, prearranged and purchased from the fruitier from Zsambék, a Swabian town to the west of Budapest with a nice summer theater festival and plenty of stout fruit brandy. The rabbits were a lovely pink, clean, dry and had their offal.

Two sweet onions
Three bay leaves
Four cloves
Sprig of lovage
Liberal grind of black pepper
15 white pepper corns
Four small carrots
Four small parsley root
Half a celeriac
Two tablespoons sea salt
30 grams smoked bacon
Three knobs butter
Chickpea or regular flour
Half bottle red wind (Chateau Kajmád cuvee from Szekszard)
Water

In a substantial and good quality pot, sauté the rough chopped onions in butter on low to medium heat, along with the finely diced smoked bacon. Add bay leaves, cloves, grind of black pepper, white pepper corns. Meanwhile you have separated the rabbits’ fore and hind legs and quartered the saddles. I set aside and froze the four hind legs and two choice bits of saddle for a later meal. You will dust what remains in flour, seasoned with sea salt and grind of black pepper, adding more butter if needed beforehand to the onion, braising and sealing the rabbit saddles and fore legs for a few minutes a side and for a maximum of ten minutes. Meanwhile you clean and finely dice the carrot, parsley root and celeriac, a few garlic cloves, sage, few snipping of lovage.

Check to make sure nothing’s burning or singeing, add the vegetables, top up with red wine soon thereafter, top up again with red wine, fill to the surface level with water, and cover, simmering up to a boil and back to simmering over the next two hours, adding salt if needed.

I set this aside in the pantry for two days, knowing that this is the jugging part when the rabbit soaks up all the lovely red wine taste, then transferred to a cast iron casserole on the day I was scheduled to cook for dinner. That evening I baked it in a moderate oven for another 45 minutes, reducing the liquid. Reportedly, it was excellent and even a teenager ate some.


Puliszka (Hominy/Polenta)

3-4 cups boiling water
1 ½ cups stone ground corn meal
sea salt to taste
50 grams smoked bacon
1 ½ cups cooking oil
sheep’s curd (optional)
chanterelles (optional)

This dish goes by many names: hominy grits in the United States, polenta in Italy, mamaliga in Romania, and it’s cousin in Ghana, kenkey.

In a heavy cast iron pot with a short handled wooden spoon, the flame on medium, add the corn meal, then quickly add the preboiled water, adding in portions, stirring out the lumps, to a fairly wet consistency, turn up the flame and keep stirring regularly, basically until it has reduced and the spoon more or less stands up in the hominy. That's the trick and means its done. Set aside.

In a thick heavy skillet on medium high heat, fry up the finely diced bacon until crisp, top up the pan with a liberal amount of oil and add the hominy porridge. Fry well, adding more oil as needed, cutting slices and turning as needed, until it’s golden crisp on the outside. It takes about a quarter hour. You can also add wild mushrooms like chanterelles or some wickedly salty and sour Transylvanian sheep’s curd.


Hot Spring Onion Salad with Roasted Nuts and Balsamic

Eight bunches spring onions (about six to a bunch), cleaned, washed, and topped midway
Two handfuls hazelnuts
One handful walnuts
One handful ruby-skinned walnuts
Sprig of fresh lovage
Small bunch of parsley
Small bunch of fresh dill
Three tablespoons balsamic vinegar
Four tablespoons olive oil
Teaspoon salt
Dash of medium sherry

In a medium wok, sauté the clean, dry whole onions on high heat with a splash of cooking oil about four to six minutes. Dash of medium sherry to deglaze. They should be still a bit crunchy. Wipe the wok and roast two handfuls of whole hazelnuts, adding two handfuls of walnuts about five minutes later as the hazelnuts need a head start. I really like the ruby-skinned ones I sometimes find in the market. Shake and roast as necessary on low to medium heat the next ten minutes. Set aside and cool. Rub off some of the skins if you can. Then chop very roughly with the knife. Scissor in the lovage, parsley, and dill into your onions. Add the nuts. Shake in some sea salt, add the olive oil and balsamic vinegar, and bingo.


Spring Iceberg Lettuce Salad

Three small heads of fresh iceberg lettuce, cleaned, washed and torn
Pinch of brown sugar
Three pinches of salt
Two tablespoons red wine vinegar (homemade)
Two tablespoons olive oil
Splash of fresh squeezed lemon juice


Comment: The canapés were superb, the tenderloin tangy, soft and good, the rabbit was falling off the bone, really sweet and delicious, great juice, the iceberg lettuce a great cooler but almost superfluous in light of the discovery of the hot spring onion roasted nut salad.

Served six for dinner and takes a few days to prepare for full flavor effect.

Served with Thummerer Egri Bikavér 2006.

Rosemary Leg of Lamb, Mixed Spring Salad, Red Currant and Kumquat Chutney, Roast Pots

We’re mad as loons and never fear an impromptu lunch that could have resembled a mock Easter. My neighbor turned up on Sunday afternoon with a leg of lamb that was sourced through the British Pantry in Budapest. We settled on the classic dish and abandoned the idea of spiking the lamb with anchovies. After a few hours, we sat down to late lunch. The delicious aroma was detectable outside on the street. 


Rosemary Leg of Lamb

1 leg of milk-fed lamb
20 garlic cloves
8 branches dry rosemary
2 tablespoons sea salt
60 cracked black pepper corns
½ bottle cooking-quality white wine (Kovesdi Chardonnay 2004)
1 tablespoon oregano

It was assuring to see the real thing: a pink and tender leg of lamb, thereafter cut into two joints. The shank and thigh were spiked in two large slits with some of the garlic, dry rosemary, black pepper, and salt, rubbed with same mixture, drizzled with a bit of olive oil and cooked for 1 hour at high heat in a gas oven: roasted first twenty minutes to seal, then marinated a few times with own juices and liberal amounts of white wine, extra garlic cloves, being careful not to let the nice juices burn for the next 40 minutes, pulled out a few times to admire, oregano only going on towards the end so it doesn’t burn either. Joints rested for 20 minutes with a nice jug of gravy.


Mixed Spring Salad

Fresh spring spinach, rucola, sorrel, iceberg lettuce, lovage and green onion salad with toasted sesame, sea salt, hint of brown sugar, balsamic and olive oil dressing.


Red Currant and Kumquat Chutney

2 cups frozen red currants (located as a result of thawing the freezer)
20 kumquats
½ a sweet onion, diced fine
3 piripiri peppers
2 tablespoons dry mint
2 tablespoons agave syrup.
½ teaspoon salt
Dash of oil
Dash of vinegar
Juice of half a lime
Knob of ground ginger

In hot skillet, no oil, add the sweet onion, tossing stirring frequently for a few minutes. Add currants, sauté, add agave syrup, mint, salt, ground ginger, kumquats, lime juice. Cook and reduce for about ten minutes. 


Roast Pots

Parboiled potatoes, roasted off in a mixture of lamb fat and 1/3 cup cooking oil, for about 20 minutes, with a liberal grind of sea salt.


Serves four (with enough leftover for sandwiches).

Served with Pántlika Dörgicsei Chardonnay 2009.


Comments: Some at the table would have liked the lamb a little more done (5-10 minutes more) or maybe some lemon as well, but otherwise it was a success and proved that you can get good Hungarian lamb, right now. I certainly don’t mind a bloody bone or two. It was as delicious as any of the fresh spring milk-fed whole lambs I’ve had the privilege to stuff or grill during Easter in Transylvania. The rosemary, wild and gathered in abundance on the southern coast of the island of Hvar, and black pepper, from Meraat Grocery here in Budapest, are also of great importance to this dish.

Lovage, Onion and Sour Cherry Tenderloin with Six Leaf Salad

Lovage, Onion and Sour Cherry Tenderloin

~½ kilo beef tenderloin, fresh, not frozen, aged day or so in the fridge
4 large sweet onions
1 slice of cabbage
1 bunch fresh spring lovage
30 peppercorns
1 small branch rosemary
½ teaspoon nutmeg
2 teaspoons dry oregano
1 ½ teaspoons salt
30 sour cherries and their juice (fresh, canned or compote)
Cooking oil
Splashes of red wine (Vida Kadarka—too sour to drink)

Clean and cut the tenderloin into four medallions, setting aside any extra for the next round. Rub medallions with the mortared mixture of cracked black pepper, rosemary, oregano, salt.

Heat skillet to medium high and sauté roughly diced onions and cabbage in light amount of oil, stirring occasionally, splashing with red cooking wine, salt, grind of nutmeg, grind of black pepper, set aside when onion soft and nearly done on a plate.

Fire up the skillet to max, oil lightly, add medallions, five minutes a side, adding 30 sour cherries about midway, splashes of red wine, splashes of cherry juice, and near the very end, the stalks of the lovage.

Add again the onion and cabbage mix, simmer for a minute.

Deglaze again with red wine and cherry juice, leaving some gravy.

Serve on a large rustic plate.


Six Leaf Salad

Liberal handful fresh spring spinach
Liberal handful fresh spring sorrel
Liberal handful fresh rucola
1 smallish fresh spring iceberg lettuce
1 smallish romaine lettuce (optional)
Mixed green onion tops
1 bunch lovage (lestyán) leaves, the stalks going into the tenderloin above
Sea salt to taste
Pinch of sugar
2 tablespoons pomegranate molasses
3 tablespoons olive oil
Splash of cherry juice
Splash of apple vinegar
2 tablespoons lightly roasted sesame seeds

Wash, drain, dry and tear up the leaves on a large serving plate/salad bowl. Toss in sea salt and sugar with your hands, add olive oil, pomegranate, cherry juice, vinegar, sesame, etc.

The stress here is on the freshness of all the leaves, which took me a few early mornings on Thursday and Friday at Hunyadi tér to coordinate. Likewise, the tenderloin was a special inside the market hall, bright red, unfrozen, fresh and looking very appealing.

Serve with Vesztergömbi Cabernet Franc 2008 (Vino Veritás)

Enough for a greedy man and a hungry woman on a Friday night.

Bread/starch optional.

Good for an evening stroll thereafter.

Tropical Pork and Shrimp, Banana Parsnip Fufu, Kumquat Salsa, Spinach and Sorrel Mousse

Tropical Pork and Shrimp

800 grams pork haunch
10 shrimps
12 young carrots, washed
4 young parsley roots, washed
1 small cabbage, rough cut
coconut milk
lime juice
¼ cup medium sherry
three large sweet onions, diced rough
five garlic cloves
three flakes of cinnamon
50 corns Kumasi pepper (cubab)
teaspoon cumin seeds
2 Kumasi cloves
2 cups water
tablespoon salt
five kumquats
one pasillo chili, deseeded
four hot anchos, deseeded
two poblanos, deseeded
thumb of grated ginger
grind of nutmeg
palm oil (optional)
fresh turmeric (optional)
lemon grass or keffir lime (optional)

This dish works with flavors of Oaxaca, Ghana, and Portugal so locating it more precisely than as a derivative of several tropical cuisines is beyond the ken of the chef. Nonetheless, once made along with the rest of the menu, you’ll see the point as spring commences.

Dice the pork, remove any excess fat, set aside. Peel and dice the onions roughly. In a large, good-quality pan, preferably with a lid, sauté the onion on medium heat, add cooking oil as needed or some of the excess pork fat. Mortar the pepper corns, cumin seeds, cloves, and some salt, add to the onion once browning, then a few flakes of cinnamon (a hint, not dominanut), careful not to scorch, splashes of medium sherry as necessary, add garlic cloves, then your pork, turning up the heat, browning and braising, all of the deseeded chilis broken roughly, splash of sherry, washed spring carrots, parsley root, grind of nutmeg, water, bring to a boil, then turn down and simmer for at least two hours, adding the cabbage in the last hour, and towards the very end flavoring with quarter cup of coconut milk and juice of half a lime, salting to taste.

The question of when to add the shrimps depends on your plans. You can decide to add your shrimps now for immediate eating if the pork is nice and soft, or if you plan a quick heat up later (otherwise they’ll be overcooked and tough) for your lunch guests.

Or once cooled, store the stew for a few days to gain flavor, then add your shrimp when you complete the stew with the rest of the lunch menu.


Banana Parsnip Fufu

¾ kilo parsnips, peeled, diced rough
¼ kilo yellow potato, peeled, diced rough
1 banana
three knobs butter
salt

In a medium pot with a rolling boil of salted water, plunge in the parsnips and potato, boiling properly until just done (breaking apart with a stab of a fork, about 12-15 minutes), breaking in the banana a few minutes before this point. Mash and whip, adding butter and salt to taste.

This turned out far better than I expected and really complimented the pork as well as the “coco yam leaf” mousse. 


Kumquat Salsa

Deseeded, julienned kumquats (20 or so), fine cut bunch of spring onion, two handfuls of julienned sorrel, fine cut endive, dash of salt, dash of brown sugar, finger of grated ginger, mint if available, fresh or dry haberno/piri piri (optional), juice of half a lime, splash of olive oil.


Spinach and Sorrel Mousse

Half kilo mixed spring spinach and sorrel, washed, blanched, cooled, drained and then diced roughly with the knife, two fine diced garlic cloves, shake of olive oil, grind of salt, whipped well with the fork. It makes an approximation of “coco yam leaf” to go with your fufu.


Served with Soproni Demon in place of Guinness Export Stout. Tramini or Kadarka would also work.

Serves four.

Curry Bangers with Pineapple Rice and Pineapple Salad

Curried Bangers

6 Wilkinson plain pork sausages
3 medium onions, medium julienne
3 tablespoons madras curry powder
50 grams butter

On low heat, melt butter. Julienne onions, medium size, and sauté on medium heat for five to ten minutes, add water if needed, stirring occasionally, then add curry powder, brown it a bit, add more butter if needed, then add sausages and sauté for about 25 minutes, again add water if needed.


Pineapple Rice and Pineapple Salad (from one pineapple)

One third of a pineapple, diced
Tablespoon palm oil
1 turmeric root, peeled, and finely diced
15 black pepper corns
Heaped cup of basmati (soaked 10 minutes in cold water)
1 ½ cup water

On low heat, melt palm oil, add diced turmeric root (or equivalent amount of powder), peppercorns, being careful not to burn, add rice, and just over 1 ½ cups water, cover. Bring to boil, then turn down low. Once water has evaporated, leave with lid off for five minutes


Pineapple Salad
One red onion, diced
Two-thirds of a pineapple, diced
Three chili pepper ground in a pinch of salt in the mortar
Pinch of brown sugar
Pinch of dried mint and dried basil
Juice of half a lime
Teaspoon of peanut/soybean oil
Half a radiccio, fine julienne.

Dice everything and toss together accordingly.

Serve with your curry bangers and pineapple rice. Soproni Demon is nice with it.

Ham in a Bag

The home is in. It’s the new, improved place to be.

But has home ever truly gone out of fashion for the domestic mystics out there? Does it matter if home might as well be razed, with mushrooms growing in the hall, no buzzer to speak of, an excuse for a door, behind which is the cache of all that remains of what is you, much reduced in circumstance by the tides of love and labor?

No, so long as there’s a hearth, there’s a home.

The idea for this project was to provide a nice ham over the Christmas holidays, but not one from the usual sources, either from the farmers in the Budapest outdoor markets or from the butchers in the bigger markets: oversalted, rubbed with some preservative I wouldn’t want on it, and so smoked that there’s hardly any ham flavor left. Now I'm trying it again in preparation for Easter, having about three weeks to for the salt to do its magic.

I did a little research in Mrs. Beaton and Larousse, and although I lacked a brine tub, I thought a dry salt in a plastic bag would suffice for my purposes.

Compare what’s in the can, preserved, or dried, or anything that’s sold as cured, smoked, or salted, and you can actually avoid all that by doing it yourself with just salt.

The same applies to the accompanying bread recipe. It’s a search to secure the best, cleanest foods possible.


Ham in a Bag

One 3.7 kilo haunch of pork or piglet, supposedly mangalica, but it wasn’t (Feny utca)
Six kilograms of sea salt
Three clean large plastic bags or salting tub
15 juniper berries
20 bayleaves
Three tablespoons rosemary
Seven tablespoons mortared mixed black and white pepper

Salted for 15 days, hanging from a coat hanger in three plastic bags, checked on occasionally, then soaked overnight (should have been air-dried a few days), cut at the knuckle, boiled for four hours (first broth thrown out after an hour, 2nd broth saved to the very end and used to make pasta and soup), served with homemade mustard, homemade horseradish and homemade bread. The flavor was mild and lovely.

And advance apologies for no pictures. If you're reading this and your mouth is watering, well, you don't need pictures.