This week I decided to tackle Paprikás Csirke. I knew it wouldn't be easy, but it turned out to be really delicious.
1. You start by cooking onions in oil, just like for most other Hungarian dishes.
2. Once the onions are opaque, you take the pot off the fire and add about two tablespoons of paprika. Be careful, because paprika burns really easily. Then you add your salted chicken.
3. You cook it like that until the meat becomes white.
4. Then you add water, chopped up peppers and tomatoes. Cook for about fifty minutes.
5.In the mean time you need to make the dough for the nokedli. You take two eggs, some milk and water and salt and mix it with flour. The key is for the dough to not be runny, and not be to hard.
6. Using a nokedli maker, press the dough into boiling water.
7. Take some sour cream (it's actually tejfol, so it isn't quite the same) and mix it with some flour as well as a little bit of the juice. This will act as a thickening agent. My didn't get as thick as I would have liked it, but it was still delicious.
8. Mix the sour cream into the chicken mixture. Let thicken for a couple of minutes and then serve over the Nokedli. So delicious. Jó étvágyat!
In Hungary they have this thing called Turo. It's kind of like Cottage Cheese, but not as slimy. They use it in a lot of dishes. They put it on pasta, eat it plain, but most importantly, they use it in deserts. I decided to experiment again. Since you can't get a lot of the same food in Hungary, I decided that I need to live it up while I can.
1. Buy retes dough from Tesco, unroll it, cover with melted butter and bread crumbs (which were homemade by the way)
2. Mix the turo, two eggs (whites needed to be added separately after they are beaten to stiff peaks), lemon zest, sugar, vanilla sugar (vanilla extract if you are in America) and raisins (soaked in water for a while so they get soft) if you like them.
3. Spread it on the dough like this and fold over the dough.
This weekend I found myself in Kecskemet again for church. I spent four transfers there (six months) during my two year mission in Hungary. The members there really became like family to me. I was supposed to leave Budapest at 6:53 in the morning on Sunday. Needless to say, we didn't leave until forty minutes later. I barely made it to church on time. It was a good time. The speakers were really good and I got to see a lot of people I hadn't seen for a long time.
This is one of my favorite families in all of Hungary. The Sabbaghek! My mission sister, Sister Call, found them and taught them. I got to meet with them a lot during my time in Kecskemet. She is an absolutely amazing woman. She doesn't get a lot of support from her husband and she works really hard to provide for her family, and she is still totally committed to the Gospel. She is an inspiration to me.
Then after church, I went over the Kovacsek. They let me take part in Lunch----fried chicken and french fries. It was really good---a little salty, but good. We spent the whole day just talking. We had a lot of good laughs in the process. I went home in the evening, and watched the US lose in the World Cup game. A bunch of stupid mistakes cost them the game. I was exhausted and went straight to bed after that!
My internship has been going well. It has been a lot less busy since we have finished up everything having to do with Golden Week. Besides work I have been cooking some good Magyar food. I work in the same area with Ágota and Ildiko and they are always talking about what they are going to have for dinner and I decided I would get in on the action. I had Agota teach me how to make Paprikás Krumpli. It is essentially a potato stew with paprika sauce. I made it with two kilograms of potatoes so I would have enough for the whole week. It was a big success! It was so delicious. It took me a while to make (cutting the onions, peeling potatoes, cutting potatoes, cooking, etc.). The next morning at the press summary meeting, Molnar Kati asked me what I did last night because I looked tired. I told her I made Paprikas Krumpli. Then Agota added that I made two kilograms worth, so then she understood. Then, after a week of paprikas krumpli, my co-worker Agota felt bad that that’s all that I was eating, so she brought me lunch one day. Cherry soup, rice mixed with vegetables and chicken. It was amazing. The fruit soup Hungarians make is amazing. Needless to say, jol laktam. I have the best co-workers in the world.
This week I decided to take a crack at what may be my favorite Hungarian dish: toltott paprika (stuffed peppers). I decided to teach you all how to make it as well.
1. Dice some onions and brown in oil. You want them to be translucent. As you can see I might have cooked mine a little too long. I put in some garlic too.
2. Remove the seeds from peppers. In America you can’t get these peppers, so it really won’t be the same.
3. Take some ground meat---pork or beef and mix it with rice, salt, onion/oil mixture, one egg, pepper and some paprika. It’s almost like meatloaf. I even used my hands, my mother would be so proud.
4. Stuff the meat mixture into the peppers. Make sure you leave a hole in the middle so the rice has room to expand.
5. Place them in a pot, cover with tomato juice (lightly seasoned) and bring to a boil. After it boils lower the heat and cover. Cook for about fifty minutes.
6. Eat!
It really wasn’t that difficult and it was really delicious. You can eat it with whatever. Agota recommends eating it with potatoes. Anyway, things are going well here. I’m not starving, that’s for sure.
This week at the US Embassy in Budapest was dubbed "Golden Week" due the number of major events happening. There were two CODELs (Congressional delegations for those of you who are not familiar with the acronyms that the state department uses--don't worry I don't know any of them either) visiting, former Attorney General Edwin Meese, Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, and the current Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. These individuals were in town for the unveiling of a statue of Ronald Reagan in honor of the 100th anniversary of his birth and the formal opening of the Tom Lantos Institute.
Monday and Tuesday were spent preparing for the visits---meetings about how things were going to go down, what roles we would all play, how we would coordinate everything. I also had to work on a document that gave background information to the traveling press with the secretary that contained bios and information on the people and places at the different events.
Wednesday started the chaos with the Reagan unveiling. It was really nice. Condoleeza Rice gave an amazing speech. The Hungarian Prime Minister's speech was a little over the top. It was actually ridiculous, but oh well.
Thursday was a super busy day. I had to be at the Bank Center at 7:15 to meet up with the press crew. I was in charge of recording the audio at all of the Secretary's events to send them back to Washington. I got an official delegate badge once we got to Parliament at 7:40. That made me feel special. We got to head right into the upper chamber, which is a pretty awesome place by the way. The event didn't get started until 9:15, but we had to make sure that the audio worked, which it did. It was so neat to be only 20 feet away when everyone arrived. One of the coolest sites was Hillary Clinton giving Condi a standing ovation. I never thought I would ever see that.
There were great speeches paying homage to Tom Lantos, a Hungarian Jew who escaped the Holocaust and became a US Congressman, fighting for human rights his whole life.
After that was over, we had to run to another room in the Parliament to get set up for the press conference so I could get the Audio figured out for that. After that was set up, I had to fire up a laptop to get the audio from the opening sent to Washington. It took a while because I had to upload it to a file-sharing site because it was so large. Anyway, I got that done. My quickness was very appreciated by the Secretary's Staff who came and thanked me for my quickness. The press conference was cool. Sec. Clinton did a good job of very diplomatically criticizing some of Hungary's recent un-democratic decisions. I was very impressed. As much as I disagree with Hillary politically, I think she is doing an awesome job as Secretary of State.
Then we took a taxi with all of our equipment back to the bank center for the meet and greet with Hillary. It was cool to get up close and see her in more of a private setting. After that I had to go back to the office and get the audio uploaded from the press conference. I sent that off to Washington. Then I could actually breathe and I took a lunch a break at 3:00pm. It was also around this time that I found out the reason why the person from Secretary Clinton's staff was so happy about my audio performance. Turns out I was just the back up person and the staff person that was so happy was the actual person in charge of the audio. Turns out she had screwed up completely on both events, so I saved her. That made me feel really good.
So that was pretty much it. Some overall conclusions---1)You would be amazed about the cost of this visit. 2)It went really smoothly considering all the logistics involved. 3)Hillary isn't as bad as everyone makes her out to be. 4)There is so much work beyond the scenes that most people never think about. All in all it was an awesome experience,that I may never have a chance to experience again.
Friday was the 4th Celebration day. There was the official party in the Afternoon which was pretty ritzy. A lot of food and drink and socializing.
Then in the evening was the community party for just employees. That was fun too. A lot of eating the whole day. What is more American than that?
