Thinking of which not-yet-featured countries lie on the Orient Express route, I decided it is time to add a Hungarian dish. As a Croatian, I am used to many dishes with names and basic preparation style influenced by Hungary, as (northern) Croatia was 1102-1918 in various forms of union with Hungary (and Austria). One would imagine that it would be easy to choose something Hungarian for this blog, but it turned out not to be so. Namely, what we call gulaš is not the same as Hungarian gulyás, and our perkelt is not the same as Hungarian pörkölt (even if they are similar). Trying to present authentic, traditional dishes in this apparently trivial case turned out to require quite a bit of research.

That is how I found tokány is one of four basic types of Hungarian stews and the one most different from Croatian versions with Hungarian names, so I decided to make that. However, I don’t know any Hungarian and being fundamentally sceptic about using a recipe found online if I want it to be a truly authentic one, I remembered that I have a good friend who is Hungarian, even if what connected us is our mutual love for Turkish cuisine. Thus I turned for help to Krisztina Lakatos, who runs two Turkish-food Facebook groups, Anatolian Sofra and Turkey On My Plate. She was so kind to ask her mother for a traditional tokány recipe, and then to translate the recipe (taken from this book) her mother recommended. Many thanks, Krisztina and mom! I mostly adhered to the recipe, with just minor twists, and it turned out absolutely great, and served with selfmade nokedli, which is the same as German Spätzle it was real comfort food. I will write about Spätzle/nokedli soon, but right now enough talk, let’s cook tokány!

⌚ Ca. 2 hours

Suitable for: Tokány is not halal, kosher, vegan nor vegetarian. It is not lactose-free, but it contains no glutene, eggs, soy, nuts nor shellfish.

PDF-recipe for collecting and printing

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Ingredients 🛒 (serves 2-3)

500 g beef (I used a cut from shoulder), 100 g smoked bacon, 1 medium onion, 1 red sweet pointy pepper, 1 hot green pointy pepper, 1 tsp hot paprika, 1 tsp sweet paprika, 1 tsp salt, 1 tsp black pepper, 1 tsp marjoram, 1/2 tsp crushed caraway seeds, 150 ml full-fat sour cream, 1 tbsp sunflower oil (possibly not needed, depends on the bacon), water

How to 🍳

Finely dice the bacon, fry until it gets reddish and its fat melts. If very little fat melted from the bacon, add a little bit of sunflower oil. Finely chop the onion and add to the pot, fry until it starts changing colour.

Meanwhile cut the meat into thin strips. When the onion changes colour, add the meat to the pot, stir and sear it. Add the spices, stir occasionally until most of the juice has evaporated. Add finely chopped pepper, fry a few minutes, then add some water, just barely enough to cover all.

Simmer on low heat, with lid on, occasionally stirring, for about 90 minutes. If it gets too dry, add some water, if it is too watery in the end, turn the heat up and remove the lid to reduce the liquid. Stir in the cream, so you get a thick sauce with meat in it. Serve with nokedli or other type of noodles.

N. B. Like most stews, this one is also really good when reheated the next day.