Palacsinta

LarryC

For all you other Hungarians out there who grew up with the Paprika right along side the salt and pepper, you will remember this favorite of any Hunky household. Pronounced "pollocheenta", it happens like this:

1 well seasoned iron skillet
3 eggs
1 cup milk
1/3 cup club soda
1/3 cup orange juice
1 and 1/4 cups flour
2 TBLS sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 TBLS butter

Beat eggs w/ whisk. Add the milk, club soda, and OJ a little at a time. Beat in the flour, sugar, salt, and vanilla extract to form a smooth batter.

Heat a dab of bacon grease in the iron skillet. Add enough batter to coat the bottom of the skillet in a thin, even layer. Cook a couple of minutes and then flip. Both sides should lightly browned. Remove and keep warm through the cooking of the remaining 15 palacsintas.


To each of the palacsintas add a sweet cottage cheese filling and roll up. The cottage cheese filling happens thusly:

2 eggs
3 TBLS sugar
grated rind of one lemon
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 8 oz container of cottage cheese

Beat eggs, sugar, and lemon rind with an electric beater for about 5 minutes. Add the vanilla extract and the cottage cheese and mix. At this point I taste and usually add more sugar.

Instead of the cottage cheese mixture you can use apricot filling (you can buy this in can), or prune filling, or even your favorite jam. After filling you can (I don't) sprinkle with powdered sugar before serving.

This is good with sausage or bacon.

awilliams

That sounds heavenly. I'm going to give it a try.


Anne Williams
Attorney Editor
M. Lee Smith Publishers, LLC

National Guard

TE JO ISTENEM! another MAGYAR!
How many others are out there?

My mom had a slightly different recipe.

4 eggs
2 cups sugar
2 cups flour
2 cups milk

Let the mixture sit for 1/2 befor cooking it.

Cook over med/hi heat in an iron skillet until golden.

We used to roll jam or fresh fruit inside with some more sugar sprinkled on top.

When I had them in Hungary, they were tri-folded in a wedge shape and had blueberries and whipped cream on top and were warm. Oh, they were good!

Nice memories.

LarryC

Hey, National Guard, fellow Magyar, Bohunk, or just plain Hunky. Good point about letting the batter "rest". I always do that with spaetzle too.

Parabeagle

"For all you other Hungarians out there who grew up with the Paprika right along side the salt and pepper..."

I always wondered... my mom used to sprinkle paprika on top of mashed potatoes before serving them. Never saw her use it for anything else. Is that common?x:-/

This does sound like a great recipe!

Don D

I've been watching the board for three years to see who would be the first brave soul to post a recipe with prunes. I figured it would be a Serbian, but a Hungarian takes the prize. (smile)

LarryC

Don, we cover the food spectrum pretty well. In my Paprikas Weiss cookbook, I have recipe for baked carp too. Never tried it. Don't intend to. But in small eastern european countries, you took what was available and you made do.

Don D

So, you ferreted out prunes? Baked Carp? For God's sakes! I've fished all my life and cannot imagine eating a baked carp unless I was simply starving.

HRCalico

Recipe for baked carp (courtesy of my Uncle Lou)

Go out and pull a board off an old barn, cut down to size (a few extra inches on either end of the carp). Tack the carp on the board, salt and pepper to taste, dot with butter. Bake in a preheated 350 degree oven until fish seems flaky and "done". Remove from oven, take fish off board, throw fish away and eat board.

My Czech grandma used to turn buckets of apricots from the trees in our yard into kolaches, and she always put in a few prune ones, for my dad. Even those were pretty good with the right dough and icing. I've yet to find their equal - thankfully she's still turning them out once in a while!

Brad Forrister

My grandfather had a similar recipe, except that it involved encasing the fish in a fresh cow pie, baking, then throwing away the fish and eating what remained.

Brad Forrister
VP/Content
M. Lee Smith Publishers

System

No Serbian recipe I ever collected ever had prunes. I figured all along it must be a Southern 'thang' as they say. Now, carp? Both Serbian and Hungarian. But as with any other Hungarian recipe, it's loaded with paprika and probably has fried onions on the side. I've never tried it. I'd rather eat the cutting board.

We had Palacsinta as an evening treat when I was growing up. My recipe is more like National Guard's but we filled them with sugar, rolled them like crepes and put powdered sugar over them. Ummm. I think I'll call Mom!

Don D

I grew up listening to all the old people in my extended family sit on the porch, smiling, talking about the benefits of prunes. I remember my mother some decades ago forcing us to eat a fistful of them spread out on a plate and I think it was part of breakfast and I'm sure it was a theory passed (no pun intended) down from my grandmother. When I get old, I may return to them, if necessary. But in the interim, I haven't seen or eaten a prune in 30 years and even if I lived in a small European country, I could find something else to nibble on. But, this recipe does have potential. How can I get a copy of your cookbook, Larry?

LarryC

It's the Paprikas Weiss Hungarian Cookbook and you can go to bn.com (Barnes & Noble) and do a "title" search. You will see that new versions are no longer available, but if you go to the used books, you'll see it there. Good Luck!!

Don D

I see. Paprika is Greek, Weiss is French and, why don't you just dig out a cookbook and send it to me?

LarryC

OK, I got an old Presbyterian one I can send you. It's got every single Minnesota hotdish you can imagine. Actually, you don't really need the cookbook. All the recipes start with a can of cream of chicken soup and a can of cream of celery soup. Whatever else you put into it doesn't much matter. Top it with a bunch of cheese (any kind) to hide the green stuff and bake the hell out of it. Deliver it to the nearest church basement for their next potluck.

That's the cookbook in a nutshell. I do have another interesting cookbook called "The Wildman Cookbook". It has recipes for crow stew, rat, and fruit bat among other recipes necessary for roughing it. I don't know where I got it and I don't know why I keep it around. I'll post some recipes from it before long.

JudyT929

This DOES sound good! Although a little complex for my culinary skills, but think I'll have to give it a try next time my "faux granddaughter" (she's my daughters boyfriend's daughter)comes over.

Parabeagle, my mom always put paprika on mashed potatoes too, and in egg salad or on hard boiled eggs. I do too now but I don't know why.

Don, my mom always gave me stewed prunes when I had a "problem". I grew to like the hot prunes but now since I'm lazy I just by the dried ones to eat like candy along with other dried fruits like cranberries.