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Making Hungarian Pastries

We are currently in Pécs, Hungary, in the house of my mother in law.

Yesterday, my Hungarian wife. Kati, made Hungarian pastries called "turos pogacsa" (word to word translation: cottage-cheese scone), and she asked me to participate.

She first made the dough with her "secret" recipe. She told me it includes cottage cheese, flour, margarine and salt. She did not confirm or deny that there is also a secret ingredient.

She rolled the dough on this humongous rolling board (70cm x 45cm), with the long rolling pin (65cm) that is surprisingly very slim. I have never seen such kitchen instruments. She just told me: "That is the real thing".

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Then she used a round cookie-cutter and put the cylinders of dough on a baking sheet.
This is when she asked me to help.

I used a small brush to put some egg on each of the cookie. Then i put a small number of seeds on top: sesame seeds in the first batch and flax seeds on the other.

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This is the result of my work on the first batch. You will notice the bottle of pálinka (fruit brandy), home made by one of my wife's high schoolfriend. My laptop on the dining-room table is behind the pálinka bottle.

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The oven of my mother in law is not very modern, but it does the job perfectly. Basically there is only one setting: on. I estimate the temperature to be around 195ºC (380ºF).

The timing is done with the nose (does it smell like it is done?) and the eye (does it look like it is done?). The duration was around 20 to 25 minutes for each batch.

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And this is the final result.

I'd like to emphasize that most of the work was done by Kati, I was just a sidekick in this process.

And these non sweet pastries were very good. Than you Kati!

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