What is Cool?

Iza: Mom, I want cool socks.

Me: How about these?

Iza: Those are NOT cool.

Me: (Ack.)

Me: (light bulb)

Me: Do you mean thin socks instead of warm winter ones?

Iza: Yes, cool socks.

Chicken Paprikas

Recently I became interested in braising techniques. I decided to play with my mother-in-law's paprikas recipe. Here is the way she makes it:

1 medium onion, diced
2 peppers (hopefully the thin, yellow ones) sliced into inch long narrow strips
2 carrots, grated

Place these into a pan and add oil. Cover and let soften.

2 small tomatoes (or 1 medium), sliced

Add tomatoes, cover.

1 table spoon sweet paprika.
1 kilo chicken breast, cut into bite-sized chunks

Add these to pot and let cook in own juices.

Add water to pot to just cover chicken. Let cook.

1 to 1 1/2 table spoons salt

Add salt.

Make a thickener:

Stir together one yolk, 1 table spoon flour (or more), and a bit of milk. Add more milk until you have about a coffee-cup-filled amount. Add a bit of the hot broth to the mixture and stir. Keep adding a bit at a time. Then pour the thickener through a strainer (to remove lumps) into the entire pot. Bring the pot back to a boil and then you are finished. (By the way, Katalin adds the egg white to the broth and lets it cook. Why waste it?)

As I mentioned, I prefer this dish served with mashed potatoes. It can also be served with tiny dumplings or store-bought pasta (like farfalle). I also think that cucumber salad makes the perfect side dish.

And here is the recipe I found as a point of comparison, from http://www.saveur.com/article/recipes/Hungarian-Chicken-Paprikash

INGREDIENTS

¼ cup lard or canola oil
1 (3–4-lb.) chicken, cut into 8 pieces
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
1 large yellow onion, minced
3 tbsp. Hungarian sweet paprika, plus more for garnish
2 cups chicken stock
2 plum tomatoes, cored, seeded, and cut into 1" pieces
1 Italian frying pepper, stemmed, seeded, and cut into 1" pieces
½ cup sour cream, for serving

INSTRUCTIONS
Melt lard or heat oil in a 6-qt. saucepan over medium-high heat. Season chicken with salt and pepper. Working in batches, cook, flipping once, until browned, 8–10 minutes. Transfer chicken to a plate; set aside. Add onion to pan; cook, stirring occasionally, until soft, about 8 minutes. Add paprika; cook, stirring, for 2 minutes. Return chicken and its juices to the pan. Add stock, tomatoes, and Italian frying pepper; bring to a boil. Reduce heat to medium-low and simmer, partially covered, until chicken is fully cooked, about 30 minutes. Transfer chicken and sauce to a serving platter; spoon sour cream over top and garnish with more paprika.



And the way it went down in my kitchen:


I had four chicken thigh/legs. I seasoned them with salt and pepper and then browned them for about five minutes per side and set aside. I drained off most of fat before softening the diced onion. After about five minutes I added a grated carrot and a sliced up pepper (the Hungarian style, thin, yellow-skinned and impossible to find in America.). I added 1 tablespoon sweet paprika and cooked for a few minutes. I returned the chicken to the pan. I added a sliced tomato and enough water to cover the chicken. Let it boil and returned it to a simmer for about 30 minutes. I then added the mother-in-law's thickener (see above). I salted it as needed. I served it with pasta noodles. I turned the Italian trick and finished the noodles for the last two minutes of cooking in some of the sauce from the chicken pot. Served with sour cream. And a cucumber salad.


I am sure braising the chicken first adds oil and so it must not be as healthy. Yet somehow the flavor was intensified. I likey.

**** Update!
I just found this version of the recipe which also uses a braising technique.  It does not use the carrot.  http://makeitbetter.net/dining/recipes/5928-chicken-paprikash-the-perfect-dish-to-fend-off-a-polar-vortex

Toot Toot

Board the first car on the metro.  As you exit dash to the driver's window.  The glass is shaded and you will see dimly two figures, one seated and one standing.  Wave and smile furiously.  The train will pull out of the stop.  Just as the driver enters the tunnel, he or she might just blare the horn.  Twice even.  At which point you jump for joy.

Of course it helps to do this in the company of two preschoolers.

Those Hungarians do have a friendly side.  At least the metro train drivers.

Boston Brown Bread

It defies categories. It looks like cake, tastes sweet, and is packed with whole grains. It makes me feel virtuous.

Sometimes I eat it with baked beans and tomato wedges. More often I eat it with a bit of butter as breakfast or a snack. It keeps for several days in the refrigerator and is fine if you warm it a bit.

It's a kitchen sink recipe. I dump in whatever flours I have on hand. The last version had a combination of oat bran, whole wheat, quinoa flakes, and corn flour as well. I like more molasses. So I tend to use 1/2 cup of molasses and 1/4 cup of maple syrup. You can use one or the other, or a combination. I also decided to try and make it a bit like gingerbread. I added 2 teaspoons ground ginger, 1 teaspoon cinnamon, 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg, and 1 teaspoon vanilla.


Boston Brown Bread

By Mark Bittman

From the How to Cook Everything Vegetarian® app

This soft‐crusted bread, traditionally eaten with Baked Beans, is best with a mixture of flours. Although it can be baked or steamed, I prefer baking. Stir up to 1 cup of raisins into the prepared batter if you like.


Ingredients:
Butter or neutral oil, like grapeseed or corn, for the pans
2 cups buttermilk or yogurt, or 2 cups less 2 tablespoons milk plus 2 tablespoons white vinegar (see Step 2)
3 cups assorted flours, such as 1 cup each rye, cornmeal, and whole wheat or all‐purpose
1½ teaspoons salt
1¼ teaspoons baking soda
¾ cup molasses or maple syrup


Steps:
Preheat the oven to 300°F. Liberally grease two 8 × 4‐inch loaf pans or one 9 × 5‐inch pan.
If you're using buttermilk or yogurt, ignore this step. If not, make the soured milk: Warm the milk gently—1 minute in the microwave is sufficient, just enough to take the chill off—and add the vinegar. Let it rest while you prepare the other ingredients.
Mix the dry ingredients, then add the sweetener and buttermilk. Stir just until mixed; this is a loose batter, not a dough. Pour or spoon into the loaf pan(s) and bake for 1 hour or a little longer, until a toothpick inserted into the center of the loaf comes out clean. Let cool on a rack for 10 minutes before removing from the pans; eat warm.


Courtesy of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Copyright © Double B Publishing Inc. All rights reserved.

Chocolate Szalami

Hozzávalók:

• 30 dkg háztartási keksz
• 10 dkg vaj
• 25 dkg cukor
• 2 tojás
• 10 dkg kakaó
• 2 kaná rum

Elkészítés:

A cukrot a tojással jól kikeverjük, belekeverjük a vajat. Amikor már sima, hozzáadjuk a kakaót, a rumot és az előzőleg ledarált kekszet. Jól összedolgozzuk, szalámi formát készítünk, és alufóliába csomagoljuk. Legalább 4 óra hosszat hűtőben tároljuk. Aki szereti, megtöltheti ízlés szerinti krémmel.

source:  http://www.mindmegette.hu/csokiszalami.recept

Meat Pies 2014

French Meat Pie
by Sister M. Concepta Mermis

31/2 lb. pork
1 lb. beef
1 onion
2 tsp. salt
3 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. pepper
1 1/2 tsp. loves
1 tsp. celery salt
1 c. dry bread crumbs (or more)
Cook meat and 1 onion in water to cover meat, simmer about 45 minutes to 1 hour. Break up the meat with a wooden spoon as it cooks. Remove onion and discard. Set aside to cool overnight to allow fat to congeal on top. 
Skim off grease (use to make pastry). Add bread crumbs and seasonings. Taste and adjust seasonings.  Put meat mixture into pastry shell, top with crust. Slit the top of the crust to allow steam to escape. Bake on cookie sheet or foil in case the pie bubbles over. Bake about 35 minutes or until brown in 400 degree oven. Let stand thirty minutes before serving.

This year I used half a kilo of ground beef and half a kilo of ground pork.  (One kilo meat yielded about 5 cups of filling, enough for one 11-inch pan.)  I really think it should be mostly pork, however.  I think the beef overwhelms the spices.  I also halved the original spice amounts, but then added back the entire amounts and still felt that the spices were not strong enough.

Next year, more pork.  I'll aim for for 3/4 kilo pork, 1/4 kilo beef.  





I made my first pie crust from scratch this year.  I did not use the fat from the meat.  Instead I used only butter.  While the audience was delighted, I was not.  The crust was very crispy and had a heavy butter taste.  It was tasty, but it was not a pie crust.  I didn't have a pastry cutter.  So I froze the butter and used a vegetable grater instead.  Hopefully by next year the crust will have been conquered.  



Served with mashed potatoes and creamed peas (otherwise know as borsofozelek).  For dessert, homemade chocolate salami.  Recipe to follow.  

Dreams

While making crepes one afternoon

Leo:  Mama, what did you dream last night?
Mama:  I don't remember.  Do you?
Leo:  No! You never told me.

Thanksgiving 2013

We passed this year's Thanksgiving in Budapest.  This year we kinda, sorta ignored the holiday.

I did no cooking.  At all.

Instead we were invited to a small dinner party at which a chef prepared an authentic Thanksgiving holiday dinner.  How authentic?  The sweet potatoes had a bit of orange, ginger, whiskey and were topped with toasted marshmallows.  The only thing that could have made it more authentic would have been if the marshmallows would have been ever so slightly singed.

It was a grown-ups only dinner party.  No cooking.  No kids.  No Thanksgiving according to my accounting.

The pumpkin pie, however, was a delight.  (But there is no comparison to my my brother's!)

Top Ten

turkish delight

wide-brimmed straw hats in summer

jasmine pearl tea

eyewear

outdoor fruit and vegetable markets

tepertős pogácsa

freshly ground peanut butter

baking bread

being in my body

pockets

Széchenyi Fürdő

my mother's dumplings

rocking chairs

giving books I love to people I think might love them too

The Girl of the Limberlost by Gene Stratton-Porter

diners

grandma Kelley's rice casserole

home made play dough

Le Mans Hall

midwives

baking muffins

Spencer Tunick

wool socks, knee-high, with stripes

"Coin-Operated Boy" by the Dresden Dolls

bread and butter

pumpkin

split-pea soup

church bells

Gellért Fürdő

African chicken and peanut soup from the New England Soup Factory

martini with blue cheese stuffed olives

1059 Riverside

singing the ABC's as a lullaby

gesztenyepüré

yogurt

sneaking away from a sleeping baby

sneaking back into my bed where my four and five-year-olds are tangled up, deeply breathing

bodza

Book Club

Julie Andrews and Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins

Rome

chia seeds

sunflowers

avocados

Indigo Girls

dandelions

sleep

Warren Dunes State Park

french fries

blue

the fact that baking bread is so simple

clean pressed sheets

V-Day

walking by a lilac bush in bloom

holding hands

playgrounds

NPR

Prairie Home Companion

PBS

hard wood floors

freshly squeezed ABC juice--apple, beet, carrot

handmade afghans

coffee

Jeune Homme Nu Assis au Bord de la Mer, by Jean- Hippolyte Flandrin

marching bands

roasted chestnuts

Rachel flodnija

birdie sing in the tree, woo woo woo, wee wee wee, I love you and you love me

Henszlman Imre utca, 5

cuckoo clocks

soft-boiled eggs in egg cups

Kelet Kávézó

By the numbers

Lenard
height:  41 inches, 52% (104 cm)
weight: 37.5 pounds, 56% (17 kilos)
BMI: 15.7, 54%
shoe: 29


Izabella
height:  47 inches, 92% (120 cm)
weight:  57 pounds, 95% (25.8 kilos)
BMI:  18.2, 94%
shoe:  32