For internationally-minded foodies living in Hungary, the soaring cost of eating out is only one stomach-churning problem. Even if you do your culinary traveling at home, you have to deal with the hassle and often eye-popping costs involved in sourcing the ingredients needed for more exotic international dishes. But with a little bit of creativity, it’s easy to take a trip far from Hungary without first taking a budget-busting trip to the gourmet food store. Using the popular 2006 book Arabesque: A Taste of Morocco, Turkey, and Lebanon (left), this summer I cooked numerous very tasty and, just as important, very non-Hungarian dishes without much more than a few forints of easy-to-find spices, lemons and olive oil. Here are six:
1. Roasted Eggplants and Peppers with Yogurt and Pine Nuts
While fenyőmag (pine nuts) are sometimes a bit hard to find in Hungary – I was once directed to the gardening section of a countryside Tesco when I asked for them – these are the only ingredient challenge in this fantastic Turkish dish, which basically just involves roasting three or four kaliforniai paprika and padlizsán at high heat for around an hour, and then mixing them up with four or so tablespoons of olive oil, and topping the whole thing with plain yoghurt that has been strained through a piece of cheesecloth or a cloth towel, so that it gets nice and thick, and flavored with a few crushed cloves of garlic.
2. Carrot Salad with Cumin and Garlic
Since Hungary is pretty much made of carrots, only a food fool wouldn’t want to know another way of making them. For this Moroccan dish, all you need to do is cut some sárgarépa into sticks, boil them until almost done, and the sauté them in some minced garlic, cumin and salt. Sprinkle the pile with some lemon juice and maybe some cilantro/coriander, and then serve cold.
3. Roasted Potatoes with Lemon and Coriander
Just as with the carrots, this is a wonderfully different take on a very common and cheap local staple, in this case the lowly krumpli. Boil up a kilo of peeled spuds for around 10 minutes, and then cut them into one-centimeter cubes, slather them with about six tablespoons of your precious olive oil and some salt and pepper and bake them in a super-hot oven for around a half-hour. When they are nicely brown, coat them carefully with a few tablespoons of lemon juice and a handful of coriander/cilantro, and allakhazam, you’re in Lebanon.
4. Beets with Yogurt
While cékla in general is as common (and cheap) in Hungary as potatoes or carrots, this great Turkish salad really wants fresh ones, which are a little harder to find off-season, and can be really expensive if bought at organic markets. In any case, all you do here is boil up some un-pickled ones before you peel them, for as long as it takes until they are tender. Cool them off a bit, then slice them up and arrange them on a plate that has been slathered with a bit of that thickened, garlicky yoghurt, and top with a dressing made from one part lemon juice to three parts olive oil beaten together, some salt and a handful of chopped mint or parsley.
5. Grated Cucumber and Mint Salad
Peel and grate a few cucumbers, and then drain what you have in a colander. Add three tablespoons of olive oil, two tbs of lemon juice, some fresh mint, a dash of salt, and say hello to Morocco.
6. Zucchini Fritters
Ironically, the dish that is probably the most unusual here is also the one that I made from (I believe) 100% locally-produced ingredients. Chop up one onion and sauté it in some plain vegetable oil, and then add 500 grams of finely-chopped or grated cukkini and continue cooking until the whole thing is soft. In a separate bowl beat three eggs and three tablespoons flour, add small handfuls of fresh dill and mint – mine came from the garden – and some black pepper (okay, so 99% locally-produced). Then fold in around 200 grams of feta cheese, which, believe it or not, is made in large quantities right here in Hungary. (Actually, this Turkish dish is a perfect use of domestic feta, which tends to be very soft.) Add the onion/zucchini mixture and pour it into a well-oiled skillet two tablespoons at a time, brown on both sides, and drain on paper towels – Hungarian-made ones, naturally.
And I had the good fortune to attend the eating of the meal described above, it was fantastic. AND, although Erik doesn’t mention it explicitly here, vegetarian, which makes us even more pleased with ourselves. The cekla salad really should have thick yogurt on it, we were just out.
Sounds and looks delicious. Thanks Erik for reminding us all about how to cook Middle-Eastern style on the cheap. Will be down the market in 10 minutes to get some goodies to cook tonight. You’re a gent and scholar
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