Transdanubian recipes

Goulash soup with csipetke

Ingredients:

1 lb. pork or beef (thick flank and fillet ends), 1 large onion, 1 tbsp. oil, 1 tsp. paprika, salt, peper, 1 green pepper, 3 1/2 oz. carrots, 3 1/2 oz. turnips and 13 oz. potatoes. For the csipetke (soup pasta): 3 1/2 oz. flour, 1 egg and salt.

Way of preparation:

Wash, clean and cube the meat, fry the finely chopped onion in oil until transparent, take the pot from the fire, sprinkle with paprika, add the meat and cook over a high flame for a couple of minutes stirring constantly. Add salt and pepper and cook, covered, until the meat is half done. Add the cleaned and quartered vegetables and the green pepper cut into rings. Meanwhile, prepare the csipetke: make a stiff dough from the flour, egg and salt (but do not use water!). With fingers dipped in flour, pinch small fingernail size bits out of the dough and put on a flowered board (the Hungarian name csipetke means pinched dumplings). Peel the potatoes, cut into cubes and add to the soup with 1 quart water. Bring  to the boil, add the csipetke to the boiling soup, salt to taste (you can also add a sprinkling of powdered cumin) and cook on a low flame until all the ingredients are tender. Serve with cherry peppers in a small separate bowl for  those who like their soup "hot".

Plum dumplings

Ingredients:

For the dumplings: 1 1/4 lb. potatoes, 1 1/4 lb. stoned plums, 2 tbsp. cinnamon sugar, appr. 8 oz. flour, 1 clum butter, 1 egg and salt. For the fried breadcrumbs: 2 tbsp. oil or 2 oz. butter, 3 1/2 oz. breadcrumbs and 1 tbsp. powdered sugar.

Way of preparation:

Cook the potatoes in their skins. Peel and rice them wihile still warm. Set aside to cool. Cut open the plums, remove the pits and if they are not fully mature or sweet enough, stuff with a bit of sugar of cinnamon sugar. Mix the potatoes with the flour, the butter (or oil), the egg, salt and knead as well. Add enough flour to make a light, but not runny dough. Stretch the dough out to 1/2 inch thickness on a floured board, then cut into appr. 3 inches square. Place a plum in the middle of each square of dough, flour your hands, pull the corners together and shape into small dumplings, making sure that each plum is completely covered and there are no openings anywhere. Cook in ample boiling water until the dumplings rise to the surface, then continue cooking for another 3-4 minutes. Remove with a slotted spoon. Brown the bread crumbs in the oil or melted butter till golden brown, place the dumplings carefully into the bread crumbs, and roll them around carefully to coat. Remove the dumplings and serve sprinkled with powdered sugar.

Note: These dumplings can also be made with prune jam, apricots or sweet greengages.