Monday, September 28, 2009

Dinner @ Bolly's House (Budapest Day 2)

Tonight was special as Bolly’s mum Beata cooked us a simple but delicious meal. "The food is Hungarian but modified to make it my own" chuckles Beata as she whips up our dinner while we waited patiently in the living room.

Dinner was finally ready and Bolly came out from the kitchen with a large pot that smelled really good! “Ohh Goulash!” I exclaimed as he laid the pot down on the table. “Nope, it’s called Palóc” he replied immediately.

Pörkölt

Palóc is actually a meat and vegetable soup. It has the same watery consistency as Chinese soup but definitely packed a lot of flavor from the vegetables, potatoes, meat and special blend of paprika powder. The meat is usually pork but Bolly's mum uses Turkey instead to keep it healthy. I definitely loved the earthy and hearty flavor of this soup.

Pörkölt

Next came a bowl full of breaded balls that resembled Tong Yuen, a custard-like sauce and powdered sugar. Initially I thought this was our dessert but Bolly said this was our main course and the balls were called Túrógombóc.

Túrógombóc

The first version was traditional where the balls were just cottage cheese that is boiled and then rolled in breadcrumbs. The cheese was a little sour in flavor and had a creamier texture than Feta Cheese. Eating it with sour cream (the custard like sauce) and powdered sugar actually added more depth to the overall flavor of the balls.

Túrógombóc
Túrógombóc

Beata also made her own version by filling the balls with dark chocolate. I was pleasantly surprised at how well the chocolate and cottage cheese melded together. It was actually pretty darn good.

Chocolate Filled Túrógombóc

We ended our meal with some really sweet mini grapes that were taken from Bolly’s grandparent’s garden. The meal was so simple but I was very satisfied and full! Many thanks to Nora for cooking this meal!

Grapes

3 comments:

zeepee said...

hahaha kwong, bali mom's name is bertha i think...nora is the name of his sister :p

Unknown said...

beata, you were quite close zeeps :)
and another small correction, this soup was the Palóc soup, we had pörkölt on the first night.

btw i have a hungarian cookbook in english for kwong, eventually as a birthday present :)

Kwong said...

Haha thanks guys! I'll make the correction!

Haha send me the cook book Haha my bday jsut passed 2 days back lol