Besides the Obvious

It’s such a simple, tasty, and feeling recipe that comes from the old times in Hungary when you needed to gain a lot of energy from your meal before going to the fields to work. And when you needed to cook with the simplest and cheapest ingredients that you could find at home. Yes, Rakott krumpli, alias Hungarian layered potatoes is a dish from the old times that people prepared only at home, it was nothing fancy about it. But this dish recently was reborn and out of sudden, it started to appear on daily menus, or even on fancy restaurants’ offers of course with a twist, or with more interesting ingredients.

But trust me, there is nothing better and tastier than the original recipe. I tried to recreate it with ingredients available in Spain – since we are based here, so I’m listing the right equivalents that you can find in Spanish supermarkets too.

Ingredients for 4 persons:

• 5-6 potatoes
• 7 eggs
• 750 ml of tejföl – heavy sour cream, well this is very rare to find in Spain. In dedicated Hungarian, Polish or Russian stores you might be lucky to get it, but if not you can buy creme fraiche (this President brand is available in Bonpreu) or nata fresca from Mercadona. All the other fat-free creme options are useless, don’t even try with them.
• 100g Hungarian spicy sausage or chorizo picante sausage as a substitute is perfect too!
• salt
• garlic powder
• hot red paprika powder
• extra virgin olive oil

Instructions:

Preparation time: 30 minutes
Baking time: 45-50 minutes

• Peel the potatoes and boil them for 20 minutes in salty water.
• Let them cool down first, and then slice them into medallions.
• Cook the eggs in simmering water for 15 minutes, you need them hard-boiled, and then peel under cold running water.
• Slice the potatoes, eggs, and sausage into disks.
• Add a bit of oil to the bottom of your baking dish.
• Let’s prepare the creamy sauce. Note that it’s not necessary to mix it all, you can add the spices on the go while layering too, but I think it’s just more effective this way. Pour all the sour cream into a deep dish. Add garlic powder, red hot paprika powder, a bit of salt, and some oil. Just mix it gently and taste it if it’s spicy enough, as it should be!

• Start layering in this order: 1, potatoes, 2, eggs, 3, sausage, 4, sour cream.
• Cover evenly every layer with the sour cream.
• Add a new layer of potatoes, eggs and sausages then cover with the sour cream again.
• The top layers should be potatoes again, finished off with a layer of sour cream and an additional bit of oil.
• Cook for 45minutes on 180C in a preheated oven, then for a further 15 minutes on 200C to give it a good color if needed.

It is not too difficult to recreate this Hungarian culinary classic at home, but it takes a little preparation and cooking time. It’s a popular family meal and all children’s favorite, that fills everyone’s stomach. Rakott krumpli is definitely one of the country’s most favorite comfort foods. And the smoked, spicy Hungarian sausage is the star, combined with Hungarian tejföl – heavy sour cream, so it’s worth investing in the right local Spanish equivalents.

It’s advised to prepare it a couple of hours before eating and leaving the dish to go cold then reheat just before serving.  All the flavors will mix together and the taste will be even more intense. Once serving, you can add pickles on the side and some additional sour cream on the top, too.

Jó étvágyat! 😋

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