Introduction
A Hungarian culinary classic which is not difficult to assemble, but takes a little preparation and cooking time. As a popular family meal and children’s favourite, it makes a good dinner alone or stands as a second course after a lighter soup. Try with gherkins or pickled beetroot on the side.
The whole of Hungary would be nodding with an approval smile, forget goulash!
Ingredients:
4 servings
- 600g (1.3lb) potatoes (boil-cooked and cut into disks)
- 250ml (1 cup) sour cream
- 5 eggs (hard-boiled and sliced)
- 100g (3.5oz) hungarian spicy sausage or chorizo style sausage as substitute
- 50g (~2oz)grated cheese
- salt, black pepper to taste
- 2 tablespoons of oil or fat
Method
- Boil the potatoes first, whole, with skins on.
Place the potatoes in cold water before bringing it to a boil, make sure the cooking liquid completely covers the potatoes. Add more liquid if it gets too low. Keep the boil to a gentle simmer. - When they slide off a fork, and tender all the way through they are done. Let them cool down first, peel and slice them into medallions.
- Cook the eggs in simmering water for 15 minutes, you need them hard boiled, peel under cold running water.
- Slice the potatoes, eggs and sausage into disks, and egg slicer would be of help here.
- Grease your baking dish lightly with butter or oil of your choice or fat then start with a layer of potatoes at the bottom.
- Top the potatoes with a layer of sliced eggs followed by sausage disks
- Cover evenly with sour cream, season with salt and pepper, keep in mind the sausages in the layer are already salty.
- Add a new layer of potatoes, eggs and sausages then cover with the sour cream and season
- The top layers are potatoes finished off with a layer of sour cream
- Sprinkle greated cheese on (emental, trappista, cheddar or similar) – this is a non-essential but a nice extra.
- Cook for 45minutes on 180C in a preheated oven, then for a further 15 minutes on 200C to give it good colour if needed.
Tip: Make it a couple of hours ahead, leave the dish go cold then reheat just before serving. All the flavours will fuse together and cutting slices will be neater.
Dear Eva
Thanks for posting the recipe for rakott krumpli, it was delicious. I like your website it is very easy to use with great recipes and instructions. Could you post some recipes in Hungarian and English as I am learing Hungarian and it would be good for study. Thanks.
Thanks for the nice message Bernice, pleased that the rakott krumpli was a success! And wow you are learning Hungarian as well, I try to give the name of the dishes in Hungarian too, not sure when I will have the instructions translated too, most people interested in the english version only, but google translate might be fun to use, even if not 100%.. here is this site translated to Hungarian:
https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=hu&js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.hungariantitbits.com&edit-text=
Hi I enjoy you’re recepi looks like my grandmother s . I was just wondering do u fry the sausage a bit before adding it tyvm xx
Hi Tricia, a nice compliment thanks! I didn’t fry the sausage before, they are just sliced not too thick, they infuse the whole dish nicely whilst cooking. Saying that a little pre-fry if preferred would still work.
thankyou very much for the reply, and i will making this dish very soon !! thanks for sharing :)
hi i was just wondering ifyou may have a recepi for a veal dish with a red sauce and red cabbage maybe please let me know tyvm xx
Hi Tricia, hmm not sure if I know the veal and red sauce one.. but there is a recipe for “braised red cabbage” on here, which is quite well known and goes well with meat dishes, might be similar of what you looking for.
ok great sounds good , and i found A Veal recepi , i havent made it yet . I will look into the cabbage recepi . is there a soecial link to see it or is it in youre pages ?
hi , i am going to make this today just wishing you will reply but if not i will manage, i was jjust wondering , should i wrap the food in a foil b4 putting it in the oven for 45 min ? then uncover for the other 15 min ? let me know tyvm xx
You could have told that I should boil the potatoes before baking… I started baking with raw potatoes following your description, now I realized from other recipes that I should have boiled potatoes first. As I see your photos I guess you boiled them first too, just didn’t mentioned. Now I just added water on it and covered with foil…I hope it will be okay.
oh, sorry, I see now your first point, Peel and COOK potatoes…Sorry, so it is my fault.
Oh no worries, I updated the ingredient list as well, hope it will be clearer in future. You will need quite a long cooking if started from raw, but it’s doable, hope it turns out well.
Thanks. My excuse is that I am a man and prepare this at the first time. I will let you know how it finished.
Ok, I baked it half an hour with little added water, covered. It really needs little water as the potatoes discharge some water too. Then on reduced heat without cover I baked another 50 minutes. All the time sprinkled smoked cheese was on the top, now it is nice brown and crispy, the rest is soft. I will make it like this next time again.
Well saved! :-) Sounds good, especially with the smoked cheese.
Perhaps the potato instructions are still a bit confusing, Eva?
Boil the potatoes first, whole, with skins on.
When they slide off a fork, they are done.
THEN peel and slice them into medallions.
My darling wife (who used to cook this for us regularly) sadly passed away. My daughter has promised to give it a try, but she hates boiled eggs. Could these be omitted, or replaced by sliced tomates, do you think?
Thanks- Alan
Great recipe instructions Alan, you can tell it’s coming from a good cook, your wife, thank you for sharing this. I will add your instructions to the recipe if you don’t mind. Indeed we used to boil the potatoes with skin on at home, then plunged into cold water if in a hurry and peel when reasonably cooled down. There must be a reason why it’s better to cook with skin on than peeled.
Your idea of tomato slices sounds really good to include, especially if you need to omit the boiled eggs. Another idea could be is to fry chopped onions on a little fat or sunflower/vegetable oil, when taken off the heat mix with a teaspoon or so of paprika powder, scatter these soft fried paprika onions on the potato layers with the “kolbasz” or chorizo style paprika sausage slices.
Smokey bacon lardons also great in this dish!
Thank you SO much for that advice, Eva!!
We will give this variation a try and report back to you.
Take care- Alan
I have a Hungarian background __ my grandparents immigrated to the USA in 1891. My dad made a potato dumpling soup which he called Poor Man Soup. Have you heard of it or do you have a similar recipe? They lived in Szendro. Thank you.
Hi Ruth, I had a great-great grandfather who emigrated in the 1800s to the USA on his own to try his luck, the family story goes that when he sent a letter for money to come back my great-great grandmother sent a polite letter back telling him to stay there, likely she wasn’t too happy with him leaving the family. Would be great to find out one day what happened to him. I have that potato dumpling soup recipe with pictures, I’ll find it and publish it soon. It’s an onion/paprika spiced broth with potato dumplings (mashed potato, flour, water and a bit of salt kneaded together, sometimes with finely chopped fried bacon-lardons). There are variations, it can be very plain or often cooked with sliced root vegetables and meat can be added too. Sour cream mixed in the soup at the end and served with fresh chopped parsley scattered on top. If you search for “gombócleves” you can see many pictures with recipes in Hungarian, google translate can help to translate.
Hi Eva…I also am Hungarian. My dad snuck out during the world war to come to USA. How I loved his cooking. Haven’t had too much since he passed away and never really taught me how to cook the food. He would tell me he doesn’t measure he just puts it all together. He would make a cold and hot red cabbage salad. It was yummy. By chance do you have a recspie for that.?
Angee
Hi Angee, hope you can find the recipe of your Dad’s speciality, or something close. I have a braised red cabbage on here, which is a very popular dish in Hungary, it’s usually served warm as a side dish to go with meats, not sure if it is something similar you remember, the recipe is here: https://www.hungariantidbits.com/braised-red-cabbage-parolt-lilakaposzta/
If I do this with bacon instead of sausage, do I cook the bacon first?
Hi Diane, sorry replying a few days late. If using bacon instead of the spicy sausage slices, I would saute the bacon slightly so it is just cooked before adding it to the dish and baking the whole thing.
I cook my potatoes in the microwave. Let them cool off before I slice them. Have never heard of using paprika with this dish. Using red potatoes don’t need to peel them, the skin is edible.
Does this need to be covered when baking?
Hello Anne,
Yes, good idea to cover with aluminium foil, or a lid if the baking dish has one. The cover can be taken off the last 10-15 minutes or so of the baking time to give a bit of extra colour.
Good evening. I made this dish for supper tonight and it turned out amazing.
To put my own spin on it, I added paprika, black pepper and garlic powder to the sour cream mix and divided it into 2. Then I created my layers. At the end, I covered the whole thing with crescent roll pastry when there was only 15 minutes left in the baking time. It is now a family favorite and I have had to promise to make it again on a regular basis.
I love your website.
Thank you for all the translations of the food names.
this reciepe is one my miklos made he was hungarian sadly he passed dec24 last yr i miss him so much we were together for 26yrs he made this reciepe a lot im glad to see it again i will try to make it like he did i have lots of his reciepes in my mind when he took me to hungary 2 times i got to meet his family so nice also the noodle an cabbage dish and for my daughter he made carrowys seed soup she loved it ok ty for your page
So sorry to hear about his passing, and I’m sure it was even harder because of the holidays. Sending sympathy – I hope the food will make you feel closer to him. (The noodle and cabbage dish – káposztás tészta – is my kids’ favorite, too!)
My grandfather passed about a year ago and cooking Hungarian food definitely helps me feel close to him and my grandmother who passed about 4 years ago, she would often make this recipe, her name is Eva. I love that the publisher of this recipe has the same name.
All the recipes for his are similar and all omit something we always do.
We mix sunflower oil 25% (you can use olive or other as well), sour cream 50% and water 25%.
you put this on top of each layer, and add breadcrumbs before starting the next layer.
Thank you for the recipe. It looks just like what my mother used to make. Can you let me know what size baking dish you are using?
LOL, I’m just reading this, great question!
With so many layers and only 1 cup of sour cream for the 3 layers, what size casserole dish would work best? This recipe sounds very interesting; I love all the ingredients listed.
Is there a way for it to not come out watery ?
You forgot the paprika. I’ve been making this dish for over fifty years and always use a couple heaping tablespoons of Hungarian paprika.