1. HUNGARIAN CUISINE
Traditional Hungarian dishes are primarily
based on meats, seasonal vegetables, fruits,
fresh bread, cheeses and honey. Recipes are
based on centuries-old traditions of spicing
and preparation methods.

2. General features
• Hungarians are especially passionate about their soups,
desserts, pastries and stuffed pancakes (palacsinta)
• Regional variations of the same dish (like the Hungarian hot
fish soup called fisherman's soup or halászlé, cooked
differently on the banks of Hungary's two main rivers: the
Danube and the Tisza)
• Other famous Hungarian dishes: paprikás (paprika stew,
meat simmered in thick creamy paprika gravy) served with
nokedli (small dumplings), gulyás (goulash),
Gundel palacsinta (pancakes served flambéed in dark
chocolate sauce filled with ground walnuts) and Dobos cake
(layered sponge cake, with chocolate buttercream filling and
topped with a thin caramel slice).
• Two remarkable elements of Hungarian cuisine:
a) different forms of vegetable stews called főzelék
b) cold fruit soups, like cold sour cherry soup

3. • Meat stews, casseroles, steaks, roasted pork, beef,
poultry, lamb or game and the Hungarian sausages
.
(kolbász) and winter salami are a major part of
Hungarian cuisine. The mixing of different varieties
of meat is a traditional feature of the Hungarian
cuisine. Goulash, stuffed peppers, stuffed cabbages
or fatányéros (Hungarian mixed grill on wooden
platter) can combine beef and pork, sometimes
mutton.
• Various kinds of noodles and dumplings, potatoes
and rice are commonly served as a side dish. The
Hungarian cuisine uses a large variety of cheeses,
but the most common are: quark, cream cheeses,
ewe-cheese (juhtúró), Emmentaler, Edam and the
Hungarian cheeses Trappista, Pálpusztai and
Pannonia cheese.

4. Spices
• Hungarian food is often spicy, due to the common use of
hot paprika. Sweet (mild) paprika is also common.
Additionally, the combination of paprika, lard and yellow
onions is typical of Hungarian cuisine, and the use of the
thick sour cream called tejföl.
• In addition to various kinds of paprika and onions (raw,
sweated, seared, browned or caramelized), other common
flavor components include:
white and black peppercorn, parsley, bay leaf, dill, caraway,
marjoram, thyme and creeping thyme, mustard (prepared),
tarragon, vinegar, savory, lovage, chervil, lemon juice and
peel, almond, vanilla, poppy seeds, cinnamon, coriander,
rosemary, juniper berries, anise, basil, oregano, allspice,
horseradish, cloves, mace, safflower.

5. History
Hungarian cuisine has influenced the history of the Hungarian people. The
importance of livestock and the nomadic lifestyle is apparent in the prominence of
meat in Hungarian food and may be reflected in traditional meat dishes cooked
over the fire like goulash (in Hungarian "gulyás", lit. "herdsman's (meal)"), pörkölt
stew and the spicy fisherman’s soup called halászlé are all traditionally cooked
over the open fire in a bogrács (cauldron). In the 15th century, King Matthias
Corvinus and his Neopolitan wife Beatrice, influenced by Renaissance culture,
introduced new ingredients and spices like garlic, ginger, mace, saffron and
nutmeg, onion and the use of fruits in stuffings or cooked with meat. Some of
these spices like ginger and saffron are no longer used in modern Hungarian
cuisine. At that time and later, considerable numbers of Saxons (a German ethnic
group), Armenians, Italians, Jews and Serbs settled in the Hungarian basin and in
Transylvania. Elements of ancient Turkish cuisine were adopted during the
Ottoman era, in the form of sweets (for example different nougats, like white
nougat called törökméz, quince sweets, Turkish Delight), Turkish coffee, the cake
called bejgli or rice dishes like pilaf (in Transylvania), meat and vegetable dishes
like the eggplant, used in eggplant salads and appetizers, stuffed paprika and
stuffed cabbage. Hungarian cuisine was influenced by Austrian cuisine under the
Austro-Hungarian Monarchy; dishes and methods of food preparation have often
been borrowed from Austrian cuisine, and vice versa. Some cakes and sweets in
Hungary show a strong German-Austrian influence. All told, modern Hungarian
cuisine is a synthesis of ancient Asiatic components mixed with Germanic, Italian,
and Slavic elements. The food of Hungary can be considered a melting pot of the
continent, with its own original cuisine from its original Magyar people.

6. Breakfast …
• In Hungary people usually have a large breakfast. Hungarian breakfast
generally is an open sandwich with fresh bread or a toast, butter, cheese
or different cream cheeses, túró cheese or körözött (Liptauer cheese
spread), cold cuts such as ham, véres hurka (similar to black pudding),
liver paté (called májkrém or kenőmájas), bacon, salami, beef tongue,
mortadella, disznósajt (head cheese), sausages like kabanos, beerwurst
or different Hungarian sausages or kolbász. Even eggs, (fried, scrambled
or boiled), French toast called bundáskenyér and vegetables (like
peppers, bell peppers, tomatoes, radish, scallion and cucumber) are part
of the Hungarian breakfast. Sometimes breakfast is a cup of milk, tea or
coffee with pastries, a bun, a kifli or a strudel with jam or honey, or cereal
like muesli and perhaps fruit. Children can have rice pudding (tejberizs)
or Cream of Wheat (tejbegríz) for breakfast topped with cocoa powder
and sugar. Hot drinks are preferred for breakfast.
• Villásreggeli (literally breakfast with fork) is a more luxurious big
breakfast given on special occasions or holidays. Often guests are
invited. Deviled eggs, cold steak, cold salads, salmon-omelet, pancakes,
körözött, caviar, foie gras, fruit salads, compote, fruit yogurts, fruit juices,
champagne and pastries, cakes and cookies may be served.

7. Lunch …
… is the major meal of the day, usually with several
courses. Cold or hot appetizers may be served
sometimes (for example fish, egg or liver), then soup.
Soup is followed by a main dish. A main dish can be a
sweet pastry dish or dish including meat and salad,
which precedes the dessert. Fruit may follow. In
Hungary, pancakes are served as a main dish, not for
breakfast. Salad is always served with meat dishes,
made of lettuce with tomatoes, cucumbers and onions
or a simple thin sliced cucumber salad in vinaigrette.
Salads are made of boiled potatoes, vegetables, hard-
boiled eggs, mushrooms, fried or boiled meat or fish,
in vinaigrette, aspic or mayonnaise. These salads are
eaten as appetizers or even as a main course.

8. Dinner …
Some people and children eat a light meal in
the afternoon, called uzsonna, usually an
open sandwich.
Dinner is a far less significant meal than lunch.
It may be similar to breakfast, usually an
open sandwich, yogurt or virsli (hot dog
sausage) with a bun, more seldom a cake,
pancakes (palacsinta), and it consists of only
one course.

9. Soups
• Gulyásleves (goulash soup; it is possible to cook gulyas
like a stew as well, for example székelygulyás)
• Halászlé (a famous hot and spicy fish soup with hot
paprika)
• Húsleves (clear chicken (or veal meat) soup with soup
vegetables and thin soup pasta called csipetke)
• Hideg meggyleves (chilled sour-cherry soup)
• Jókai bableves (a bean soup named after the author
Jókai Mór)
• Vadgombaleves (wild mushroom soup)
• Borleves (wine soup)
• Palócleves (named after the Palóc, an ethnic group of
Northeastern Hungary)
• Köménymagleves (caraway seed soup)

10. Goulash soup Fish soup
Sour cherry soup Bean soup

11. Main courses
• Töltött káposzta (stuffed cabbage)
• Töltött paprika (Stuffed peppers - ground meat, rice and spices are used
for the filling)
• Főzelék (thick vegetable stew)
• Lecsó (mixed vegetable stew)
• Pecsenye (thin pork steak served with cabbage or the dish fatányéros, a
Hungarian mixed grill on wooden platter)
• Wiener schnitzel (called Bécsi szelet)
• Stefánia szelet or Stefania slices (Hungarian meatloaf with hard boiled
eggs in the middle. Makes decorative white and yellow rings in the
middle of the slices)
• Túrós csusza. (noodles with quark cheese called túró - served savoury
with bacon or sweet)
• Székelygulyás (Goulash stew; can be made from three kinds of meat and
sauerkraut)
• Pörkölt (meat stew - similar to ragù)

12. • Paprikáscsirke nokedlivel - paprika chicken with Nokedli (a stew
with a lot of sweet paprika, cream or sour cream called tejföl)
.
• Paprikás krumpli (paprika-based stew with spicy sausage and
potatoes)
• Rakott krumpli (potato casserole, se recipe on Wikibooks
Cookbook) (best cooked by Anita Gergely)
• Rakott káposzta (layered cabbage with Pörkölt and rice and sour
cream- recipe from Transylvania)
• Rakott palacsinta (layered Hungarian crepes with sweet cottage
cheese, raisins, jam and walnuts)
• Palacsinta (stuffed Hungarian pancakes/crepes, usually filled with
jam. Other fillings are sweet quark cheese with raisins or meat)
• Császármorzsa (sweet crepe crumbs)
• Hortobágyi palacsinta (savoury crepe filled with veal stew)
• Rántott sajt, (flat cheese croquette, cheese rolled in breadcrumbs
and, deep fried)
• Gundel palacsinta (Gundel crepe, stuffed with walnuts and served in
chocolate sauce, often flambéed)
• Szilvás gombóc and nudli (sweet plum dumplings and small
noodles, rolled in sweet fried butter breadcrumbs or streusel)
• Túrógombóc (Hungarian sweet quark cheese dumpling)

13. Hortobágyi pancake Chiken paprika with ‘nokedli’
Stuffed cabbage Gundel pancake filled with
nuts and chocolate sauce

14. Stuffed cabbage Lecsó
Fatányéros: „mixed plate” Stove cake

15. Meatloaf with egg Noodles with quark cheese
Sweet plum dumpling

16. Sausage and cold cuts
• Hurka (sausage, two types: liver sausage called májas hurka, made of
pork liver, meat and rice and black sausage called véres hurka, which is
equivalent to the black pudding)
• Téliszalámi - (or Winter salami, salami made of spiced meat, cold
smoked, and dry ripened, the most famous brand made by Pick Szeged)
• Herz Szalámi from Budapest
• Csabai szalámi and kolbász (spicy salami and smoked sausage, made in
the town Békéscsaba)
• Gyulai kolbász (spicy sausage, made in the town Gyula)
• Debreceni kolbász (Debrecener sausage)
• Disznósajt (head cheese, meat jelly, meat slices in aspic with additional
gelatin)
• Szalonna (Hungarian bacon, fatback, back bacon rind, has more fat than
usual breakfast bacon)
• Virsli (a Frankfurter-like long and thin sausage, consumed boiled with
bread mustard)

17. ‘Téliszalámi’ Bacon topped
with crushed red pepper
Csabai kolbász ‘Black pudding’

18. Sweets and cakes
• Dobos torta (sponge cake layered with chocolate paste and
glazed with caramel and nuts)
• Rigó Jancsi (Cube-shaped sponge cake with dark chocolate
glaze)
• Gesztenyepüré (cooked and mashed sweet chestnuts with
sugar and rum, topped with whipped cream).
• Bejgli (cake roll eaten at Christmas and Easter.)
• Kürtőskalács Stove cake or Chimney cake, cooked over an
open fire—a Transylvanian specialty, famous as Hungary's
oldest pastry
• Csöröge (crispy, light Hungarian Angel Wing fry cookies a
twisted thin fried cookie made of yeast dough, dusted with
powdered sugar)
• Vaníliás kifli (vanilla croissant, small, crescent shaped
biscuits)

19. .
• Piskóta (thin, light, sweet delicate, crispy cookie)
• Rétes (strudel)
• Kuglóf (Kuglóf cake, a traditional Austro-Hungarian
coffee party cake)
• Lekváros bukta or bukta (a baked dessert filled with jam,
túró or ground walnuts)
• Lekváros tekercs (Rolled up soft sponge cake filled with
jam)
• Lekvár (Thick Hungarian jam)
• Birsalma sajt (Quince cheese, or quince jelly made of
quince fruits)
• Madártej (Floating island, a dessert made of milk custard
with eggwhite dumplinds floating on top)
• Túró Rudi (sweet quark cheese - called túró - filled
chocolate bar)
• Szaloncukor (flavoured candies which hang on the
Christmas tree, eaten at Christmas)
• Aranygaluska (dumplings or dough balls with vanilla
custard)

20. Dobos cake ‘Beigli’ Strudel
Chestnut puree Floating island

21. Others
• Lángos (fried bread dough)
• Pogácsa (a type of bun, round puffed pastry with bacon, traditionally cooked on
the fire)
• Fánk or Bismarck Doughnuts
• Perec (Pretzel, salty crispy pasty)
• Májgaluska (small liver dumplings used in different soups, for example liverball
soup)
• Grizgaluska (Hungarian boiled semolina dumplings used in soup).
• Tarhonya (a kind of large Hungarian "couscous", big pasta grain, served as a side
dish)
• Rizi-bizi (Hungarian risotto, white rice mixed with green peas, served as a side
dish)
• Vinetta or padlizsánkrém (Transylvanian mashed eggplant salad made of grilled,
peeled and finely chopped eggplants)
• Körözött or Liptai túró (cheese spread with ground sweet paprika and onions)
• Libamájpástétom (Hungarian delicacie: foie gras - goose liver pâté)
• Bundás kenyér (literally, "coated bread" or "bread with a fur", French toast or
Gypsy toast, a breakfast food)
• Bread (Hungarian bread - kenyér - is baked fresh every morning in the bakeries.
The traditional form called cipó is big, round and with a hard thick crust. The other
bread type is vekni: long loaves with crispy crust, thicker or thinner, like the
baguette.)

22. Lángos Pogácsa Doughnut Perec
Bread

23. Drinks
• Hungarian wines date back to at least Roman times, and that history
reflects the country's position between the Slavs and the Germanic
peoples. The best-known wines are the white dessert wine called Tokaji
(after the North-Eastern region of Hungary, Tokaj) and the red wines
from Villány (Southern part of Hungary). Famous is also the wine called
Bull's Blood (Egri bikavér), a dark, full-bodied red wine. Hungarian fruit
wines, like redcurrant wine, are mild and soft in taste and texture.
• Though not as famous as the country's wines, Hungarian beer has a long
history as well. Hungary's most notable liquors are Unicum, a herbal
bitters, and pálinka, a range of fruit brandies.
• Also notable are the 21 brands of Hungarian mineral waters. (for
example Apenta, Margitszigeti and Kékkúti) Some of them have
therapeutic value, like Mira.
• Traubi or Traubisoda, is a soft drink based on an Austrian license
produced in Balatonvilágos since 1971.

24. Unicum Tokaji wine Apricot pálinka Sopron beer
Mineral water from Margaret Island Traubisoda