úrós Csusza is an egg noodle cottage cheese casserole. It is hugely popular in Hungary and is often served as a 2nd course after goulash or served alongside a fish stew like paprikash. Most authentically it is made with freshly made noodles torn off in small bits (finger nail size) but really can be made with most kinds of pasta. For this recipe we use Betchle brand German egg noodles (made from durum semolina flour) which are so buttery and tasty than can almost be eaten plain. Hungarian cottage cheese (Túrós) is very popular in Hungary and is used for both savory and sweet dishes. Regular cottage cheese can be substituted (indeed the vast majority of online recipes for this dish call for this) but if you can find the original, all the better! The other ingredient that is a bit unusual is smoked Hungarian bacon. I was able to find Hungarian smoked bacon at the Continent European Market on Regents Rd. near UCSD. The recipe also calls for sour cream, most authentically thick Hungarian sour cream (tejföl) but as we haven't yet found a source for this, we (like many other English language recipes) use regular sour cream. If you wish to make your own a link can be found here.Also we suggest baking this dish to melt the cheese a bit, but not all recipes call for this step.
Ingredients:
- 16 ounces flour-based noodles of your choice
- 16 ounces cottage cheese
- 8 ounces sour cream
- 1/2 pound Hungarian smoked bacon
- 1 tablespoon finely chopped dill
Preparation:
- Boil and drain the noodles according to package directions
- Cut the bacon into 1/4 inch cube and fry until crisp
- Mix the cottage cheese, sour cream and dill into the warm noodles.
- Pour everying into a baking dish.
- Mix in bacon fat.
- Sprinkle the bacon over the dish.
- In a pre-heated oven bake at 350 degrees for 10 minutes.
Élvez!
Recipe and photo by T. Johnston-O'Neill
