06/12/2014
Thursday, I made one of my very, very favourite Hungarian dishes, Hortobágyi palacsinta. It was so good...and gone so quickly...I didn't get a photo...so I borrowed one from Big Oven.
Normally, this is filled with pork or beef mince, but I used Quorn mince to make it vegetarian!
SUPER easy to do. Hungarian pancakes are lighter than pancakes or crepes because they have soda water added.
Palacsinta (Pancakes):
150g flour
1 tsp sugar
1/2 tsp salt
300ml milk
100ml soda water (sparkling water is fine!)
1 egg
Whisk the egg with half the milk, then mix in dry ingredients. Add the rest of the milk with the soda water and whisk well. Cook them as you would a pancake (crepe). Set aside. (This makes about 6 pancakes.)
Filling:
1 onion, finely diced
1 red pepper (or any kind of non-spicy pepper), finely diced
1 clove garlic, chopped
1 or 2 big heaped tblsp Hungarian Paprika (csípős - spicy is the best)
Glug of olive oil
Half a bag, or so, Quorn Mince
Sautee the onion in the oil...when it starts to soften, throw in the paprika. (Always toast your paprika in the pan to release its flavours, but be careful not to burn it!) Add the Quorn mince to the pan (from frozen). Add the pepper as the Quorn starts to thaw. Cook it for a bit, then add about 100ml water to the pan. Get it bubbly and throw the garlic in. Let it reduce...most of the liquid should be gone, but not all. Don't forget to season with salt and pepper as you go! You can throw in a bit of cumin too. I find Quorn mince has very little flavour of its own, so you'll have to season it and taste it more frequently than meat mince.
Let the mince cool a bit before rolling the pancakes. Put the stuffed pancakes in a baking dish and turn the oven on to 175 C.
Now for the best part...the sauce!
Just mix up a stock cube or about 250ml stock. (Personally, I double the batch because the sauce is soooooooooooooooo tasty, but I don't want you to end up with 500ml of sauce you might not like, so start with less!) - Then whisk in about 3 HUGE scoops of sour cream or creme fraiche (double should be about 6)...and 2 good tsp of paprika. Taste, taste, taste. It's should be creamy, runny, and with a little spicy kick. (How it looks in the photo.) I never measure the ingredients for the sauce, so really go by your palate...i.e. less paprika if you want it milder...or use a sweet paprika (édes).
Pour half the sauce over the pancakes...then stick them in the oven.
Cook the rest of the sauce on the stove just til it starts to simmer.
The pancakes should only bake about 10 minutes (basically just to reheat them) and the sauce that's in the baking dish should soak into them a bit.
Serve with more sauce (yay!) and a cooling dollop of sour cream!
Jó étvágyat!!
