Home Sweet Home…. as i mention before in the previous part that i enjoyed my 2 weeks of holiday at home in my little town around my amazing family. Every second was beautiful. Now im back to the reality (Barcelona) and it never happened before… i feel homesick. Strange. Even the weather turned bad – cloudy, rainy… just simply sad. And i feel superlonely again. The magical moments with Mum and Dad started to create ideas and thoughts… about me, about life, about future…

raw potato peelings w/ butter and seasalt

And that night with my family, friends and pets all around in the garden smelling flowers and fresh tomato, playing with food and fire, drinking homemade nature figs” wine with lots of laugh… when i found the reason to be proud of being hungarian:  (and being a part of my family)

dödölle

Let me start the story from a little bit earlier… i love gnocchi. I think we all do. And its really easy to prepair (unfortunately u can buy this ready-made sh8t in the supermarket so people willing to save this time… :( anyway). U just boil your potatoes, smash and mix with flour and eggs, salt&pepper. *

roasted potato peelings w/ brown butter

*footnote: recipe usually calls for 1kg potatoes, around 0.3kg flour and 2 eggs – u feel when u get a good texture to work with and shape to gnocchi.

So i made gnocchi in the restaurant several times – its a very pleasant option for vegetarians. One time my workmate Jordi said, i should not put that much flour in the massa. Hmmmm… well. He said he knows a place where he had the best gnocchi in his life which had flavour of pure potato. Hmmmmmm…  At that moment i decided to find the way to reach this level of satisfaction.

peel – simmer – infuse – cook – smash to puree

dödölle

I can tell u know… dödölle is a gnocchi hungarian style. Ingredients and method changed a bit – but the result is better then u would imagine… However its root coming from Hungary – its not that popular dish nowadays (i can say more olds”cool) – there are only a few regions where this traditional food is still alive. My family and friends had know clue at all what was gonna cook in that night. Ended up a nice surprise. As u see i have some photos from the “drunk garden party” when we made dödölle in open fire – after i remade it so i can show u step by step.

It is pretty easy to make * – however i have a more sophisticated recipe what im going to show u. It does work perfectly.

refrigerate overnight – shape – fry

*easy recipe: 1kg old potato, 0.3kg flour, salt (serving w/ bacon, onion, sour cream)

First of all: need to think ahead. U can get the best results if u make your “potato dough” one day ahead – so the water in the potato can absorb all the liquid and u need less flour – keeping more flavour of the vegetable.

Lets peel the potatoes (better more starch and less water) roughly – we gonna use skin to get more flavour. So peel the potatoes and leave it in water not to get brown with half of the skin. Put the other half on a tray with butter and salt – turn on the oven and roast till smells amazing reaching suntanned color.

cut into cubes or roll into balls

After put the 2 types of skin in a pan with some water (just to cover) and let it simmer slowly for 30 minutes – turn it off, cover with lid and let it infuse for another 30 minutes. Now u can discard the peelings.

Put the clean potatoes in the infused liquid (just to cover, not more!, if u need more – use water) and cook till the vegetable is soft enough to smash.

Add the sifted flour, salt and pepper and start to puree everything all together (dont use machine, it is hard work but your hand is always better!!). Turn on the heat (low) and keep stirring the massa in the pan.

Dont worry – if u keep moving – no damage will happen. Its not going to burn – and the thin layer which sticks on the bottom is going to be the best part of the “gnocchi”- u need to scratch it off. The flour is cooked thru when u see the dough not sticking anymore on the side of the pan (like the choux paste). Now u can add your cheese and stir in.

at the garden party i served round dödölle w/ fullfat sourcream, spicy brindza cheese, crispy onion&garlic and crunchy homecured sweet&sour bacon

Spoon out the massa on a tray (w/ baking paper on the bottom) and let it cool down. Best to keep in the fridge overnight.

Next day: its supereasy to work with it. Cut and shape as u like. Nothing else left – just a very hot pan and fry the skin of your dödölle. U do not need to cook in boiling water – like u would do with normal italian gnocchi.

The rest is up to u. I made some crispy onion and garlic chips…

 Normally u serve this dish with fried bacon. For my family i served it with a very special bacon what i cured and smoked with Dad at home. For the second round i ran out of this mouthwatering cut of pork – i decided to make a hungarian twist with my chorizo i brought from my hometown (csabai kolbász). It gives an extra kick as well (spicyyyyyyyyyyyyy :)))))). Gorgeous.

Last but not least… some fatty sour cream and another tipical thing from Eastern Europe… the “brindza“. *

*footnote: brindza looks like cottage cheese but has got a superintensive strong cheese flavor (depending on the curing time), this is our “homemade” parmezan basically…

Sorry guys to introduce u this many “absolut typical hungarian stuff” in one single blogpost… but as i said at the beggining….

I found the reason to be proud of being hungarian. And this is a great dish with real flavours from Home.

Enjoy.

recipe:

• 2kg starchy potato
• water
• 300g flour
• 100g pecorino / parmezan / brindza cheese
• 60g butter
• salt, pepper