Thursday, June 16, 2011 Roasted Pepper Spaetzle Rocks!

I had this crazy idea yesterday. What if I used the rest of the roasted peppers left over from my Angel Hair with Roasted Peppers and Parmesan Cream Sauce to make spaetzle? You can put veggies in pasta, spinach pasta, tomato - why not flavor my noodles with a little of the flavor of home.

First, I gotta tell you, in my house we didn't call them spaetzle, we called them Hungarian Noodles. Now that I think about it this was probably a term they created in order to feed a fussy child. I can't imagine I'd have put anything with a name I couldn't spell or pronounce into my mouth. So the Hungarian noodles remained in my vocabulary, both verbal and culinary, until someone finally introduced me to the word. The recipe remained the same.

Enough of that reminiscing crap, flash forward to tonight's dinner and here we go...

Smothered Pork Chops with Roasted Pepper Spaetzle

Two huge pork chops

Marinate them in hickory liquid smoke, red wine vinegar, olive oil, salt, pepper, paprika.

While that's going on slice up half an onion as thin as you can and cook in a saucepan with olive oil until they become translucent. Add one can of diced tomatoes and one clove of chopped garlic. Let that cook at a low heat.

Once the meat has marinated for 30 minutes or so sear each piece in a pan to get some color on it and then toss in a 350 degree oven to finish the job.

While that's going on boil a big ass pot of water. In a bowl mix 1 cup flour, 1 egg, approximately 1 1/2 roasted peppers pureed with a spot of water and about 1/2 a cup more of water (and salt, of course). Usually it's a 1:1:1 recipe...usually for me that is.

The recipe I had was 2 cups flour, 2 eggs, 1 cup water...but one day I got too busy talking to Marc while making my noodles and I added almost 2 cups of water! Well, wouldn't ya know those were the best noodles I'd ever made! So it's a mistake I keep on making. Thinner batter seems to work for me.

Now, I suppose you'll need a spaetzle maker, a piping bag might work, but I like piping bags. Pouring the batter into the spaetzle maker dispenses it through little holes, plopping the batter into the boiling water. Once it's all in there I like to stir it up to separate the noodles, they like to clump at the bottom and make one big noodle.

Once they float to the top they're done! Add some salt and paprika to the tomatoes to taste, take the chops out of the oven and ta-frickin-da! I assume you can figure out the plating from the picture. The pork chops were enormous, I only ate about half of it. But the flavors of the tomato and roasted peppers and onions all played so nicely together the pork was just bonus.

-HH

Friday, May 21, 2010 Rockin' Recipes from Hungarian Night!

When one is searching for Hungarian recipes one is reminded of a dark, dark time in human history. When folks had to resort to eating liver, hare and calf's lung. As I searched my Hungarian cookbook my mind quickly began switching out ingredients for more appetizing ones. The Headbanging Hostess rarely follows a recipe as written. Now, more than ever, this was necessity more than whimsy. I'm not about to eat a pigs foot.

I ate pigs ears as a child. But I'll save that for another post.

The cookbook I have is 38 years old. One year older than me. My Dad went through it and turned down the corner of some pages, those must be the tasty ones! The ones that reminded him of home.

My Dad died when I was 16. I had little interest in the food from his home country back in those days. I was 16, I had little interest in anything my Dad had to say. So now, when I'm leafing through the cookbook and stumble upon one of his handwritten notes concerning a recipe, there's a wave of frustration with my teenage self that comes over me. The only cure? Paprika.

So here's a recipe I tweaked the hell out of. The original called for pigs feet, smoked pork ribs and smoked pork sausage. I went with ham hocks and kielbasa.


Ham Hock and Bean Soup

6 Smoked Ham Hocks
Water
5-6 stalks of Celery
2 cans of White Beans
1 Onion
Bacon Grease
Tablespoon of Fresh Parsley
Tablespoon of Flour
Hot and Sweet Paprika (to taste, about a Tablespoon of each)
2 Garlic Cloves
1 Kielbasa
Salt
Serve with Sour Cream

-Cover the ham hocks in water in a large pot and cook for 3 hours, until meat is falling off the bone. Take hocks out of the water and remove the meat.
-Rinse beans and add to stock.
-Chop celery and add to stock.
-Cook onion in bacon grease until translucent. Add parsley, paprika, garlic and flour to make a roux. Add one cup of water, whisk and add to stock.
-Chop kielbasa into bite size pieces and add to stock along with the meat from the hocks.

This was on the stove all day, 10 hours easy. Low and slow is the key to most Hungarian cooking.

Serve it with homemade noodles. I have a spaetzle maker, which makes it easy. I bet you could pour the batter into a ziplock, cut off a corner and have similar results.

Homemade Noodles

2 cups Flour
2 Eggs
1 teaspoon salt
1 Tablespoon Sweet Paprika
1 3/4 cups water (plus)

Combine ingredients until a batter is made. A few lumps are okay, but it should be more liquid than the average pancake batter. Using a spaetzle maker or bag pour into boiling water, stir. Noodles are ready when they rise to the top.

Put some noodles at the bottom of a bowl and spoon the soup over them. Dude. I'm not lying. This is freakin' delicious!

Dessert was the biggest hit of the night. Potato Pancakes with Sour Cream Ice Cream and Hot Apple Topping. OMG. Outstanding. And all from my pretty little head! But I'm not giving you that recipe. You'll have to wait for the cookbook! Anticipation :)

Bang on, my peeps!

-HH