Work through the list in order. Hide the notes when you know what to do.
-
Try gulyásleves
A beef soup with potato, carrot and paprika, with small pinched csipetke dumplings. A soup rather than a thick stew: this is what goulash actually means in Hungary.
It is cooked in a bogrács cauldron over fire, and the cauldron version is noticeably smokier. Chilli comes separately as erős pista paste, added to taste.
-
Order pörkölt
A thick meat stew with a great deal of onion and paprika and almost no liquid. Served with nokedli, small dumplings scraped into boiling water straight off a board.
The classics are beef, pork and veal; beef cheek gives the softest result. By weight there should be about as much onion as meat.
-
Try chicken paprikás
Chicken braised in paprika and finished with sour cream, which turns the sauce orange and velvety. It comes with nokedli dumplings, which exist for this sauce.
The sour cream goes in at the end and is never boiled, or the sauce splits. Sweet paprika does the work; heat is added separately.
-
Try halászlé
A fiery red fisherman's soup of carp and catfish with a great deal of paprika, cooked in a cauldron. Genuinely hot, unlike most Hungarian dishes.
The Szeged version is strained and smooth; the Baja one has homemade noodles in the bowl. Carp is bony, so take your time.
-
Eat lángos
A plate-sized fried yeast dough disc rubbed with garlic and buried under sour cream and grated cheese. Market and bathhouse food, eaten hot and by hand.
The classic is sajtos-tejfölös, sour cream and cheese; the garlic is rubbed into the dough before the toppings. Sold at markets, by the baths and at winter fairs.
-
Try töltött káposzta
Cabbage rolls made with sauerkraut leaves, filled with minced meat and rice, stewed with smoked pork and paprika and served with sour cream. Winter and Christmas food.
The cabbage is fermented, and that acidity carries the dish. It is better on the second day, and restaurants do not hide it.
-
Try lecsó
Sweet peppers and tomatoes stewed with onion and paprika, often with sausage or egg. A summer dish that Hungarians make in bucket quantities during pepper season.
It needs the local tv paprika: pale green, thin-walled and sweet. With egg it is breakfast; with sausage it is lunch.
-
Try hortobágyi palacsinta
Thin pancakes rolled around a pörkölt meat filling and covered in a paprika and sour cream sauce. A savoury pancake as a starter is a Hungarian idea, and it works.
It is served as a starter rather than a main. The sauce is made from the same stock the meat was stewed in.
-
Buy sausage and paprika at the market
Smoked sausage from Gyula and Csaba, paprika-rubbed pork fat and tins of ground paprika: the reason to visit the Great Market Hall. Tasting before buying is normal.
The grades are édesnemes (sweet), csípős (hot) and füstölt (smoked); the first is the all-purpose choice. Good paprika is bright red and smells of sweet pepper rather than dust.
-
Have lunch in a kifőzde
A canteen with a daily menu: soup, a main and sometimes dessert at a fixed and very low price. They open only at lunch and close by three.
The menu changes daily and is chalked by the door. This is the food Hungarians actually eat on weekdays.
-
Eat somlói galuska Desserts and pastries
Three kinds of sponge soaked in rum syrup with walnuts, custard, chocolate sauce and whipped cream. A constructed dessert rather than a cake.
It comes in a bowl with a spoon; there are no neat slices. The rum is clearly present and is part of the recipe.
-
Try Dobos torta Desserts and pastries
Five sponge layers with chocolate buttercream under a sheet of hard caramel on top. Invented in the nineteenth century specifically to keep without refrigeration.
The caramel sheet is cut into wedges in advance and stood in the cream. Look in the old cukrászda, and take Esterházy and Zserbó while you are there.
-
Try kürtőskalács Desserts and pastries
A hollow tube of yeast dough wound on a spit and baked over coals in caramel with nuts or cinnamon. Transylvanian baking that became urban street food.
Buy where the dough is wound in front of you rather than taken from a display. It unwinds in a spiral, and that is how it is eaten.
-
Drink a fröccs Non-alcoholic drinks
White wine with sparkling water in varying proportions, each with its own name. The summer drink taken on terraces here instead of beer.
A kisfröccs is heavier on wine, a nagyfröccs on water, a hosszúlépés is almost all water. There are more than a dozen names, usually listed on the menu.
-
Try Tokaji aszú Local alcohol
A sweet wine made from botrytised grapes: thick, with apricot and honey. Sweetness is measured in puttonyos, and the higher the number the sweeter and denser it is.
It is served chilled in small glasses, with dessert or blue cheese. The dry wines of Tokaj are labelled furmint and deserve a separate look.
-
Try pálinka Local alcohol
A fruit spirit made from plums, apricots, pears or cherries, with no added sugar and usually no wood ageing. Drunk from small glasses before a meal rather than knocked back after.
Good pálinka smells of fruit rather than alcohol, and that is the test. The apricot version from Kecskemét is the benchmark.
