Boldog Szent István napját! (Happy St Stephen’s Day, also known as New Bread Day in Hungary!)
Miguel’s aunt from Boston has been visiting for the past few weeks and St Stephen’s Day is the perfect excuse to bring some of the traditional Hungarian comfort foods up the hill to Wendell for her to taste!
We’ll be making töltött káposzta (stuffed cabbage), töltött páprika (stuffed peppers), and káposztás tészta (cabbage and noodles) and bringing some bread.
Traditionally it’d be newly baked Szent István Napi Kenyér but I’m sure St Stephen won’t mind us making do with what we have readily at hand!
I won’t duplicate the recipes (the details are available in the links above) but rather point out the changes that were made:
- Normally I like to make the meat mixture for the stuffed cabbage and peppers out of ground beef and Italian sausage but Tití does not eat pork for religious reasons so I’ll just use straight ground beef. The reason for using the sausage is to add a bit of a kick to the meat mixture but it’s still tasty enough with just straight ground beef.
- Normally I tend to cook the stuffed cabbage and stuffed peppers in a crock pot but as time is of the essence, this will be one of the times I actually opt for the big enameled Dutch oven for it’s capacity and the oven takes much less time. I don’t tend to top up the water in the Dutch oven during cooking as I like the well done cabbage that results but there’s nothing wrong with topping up the water about every hour or so.
- I’ll be sticking with the sweet Hungarian paprika for everything as the idea is to bring the flavour without necessarily overwhelming someone new to Magyar cuisine with the heat from the hot paprika I tend to prefer.
- Yes, there’s some Adobo in the background and yes it’s going to end up seasoning both the meat mixture and the cabbage and noodles. 🙂
- The cabbage and noodles are being made with gluten-free pasta (please ignore that package of egg noodles in the background as I didn’t have enough leftover cabbage after stuffing to do the káposztás tészta both ways).
This may seem like a lot of work but it really isn’t when you get right down to it. The stuffed cabbage and peppers are prepared identically other than what is being stuffed and the leftover cabbage for the cabbage and noodles can be done as the other stuff is being prepared.
You’ll go through more than a few pots and the kitchen might end up looking worse for wear but that’s also the joy of Magyar cooking knowing that the real fun is being able to share with friends and family provided you’re not driven mad with hunger with the very pungent smell that will permeate the house! 🙂
