Vegetable pottage/ Spenótfőzelék

People ate a lot of pottage throughout the ages, since they had first made cooking pots that would withstand heat. In Tudor times, it was still the main part of an ordinary person's diet. It is basically a vegetable soup, flavoured with herbs and thickened with oats. 

The ordinary people would not have been able to afford much meat, so would rely on this soup as their staple diet with bread and cheese. Occasionally meat bones or fish would be added when available.

The pottage would have been made with whatever vegetables were in season. However, dried vegetables such as peas and beans were often served in Lent; by which time the winter food stocks were very low. This helped people survive until early spring produce (nettle tips, ground elder and spring greens) began to grow.

In the past, it was considered that the thicker the soup, the better the quality of the pottage.

But in Hungary pottage (főzelék) is a type of thick Hungarian vegetable dish, not quite a soup, but neither is it a stew, and usually not served in restaurants, as it is considered to be a home made dish, however you can find them in any little family place (büfé) or in self service restaurants.

My favourite one is the spinach one, which has also a funny sign, as children used not to eat it happily, so it was always almost a hero act to have eaten in the kinder garden. In the Popeye movies Popeye is the one who eats a lot of spinach in order to get his power.

A "spenótfőzelék" receipt:

Ingredients

• 1 garlic
• spinach
• herbs from the garden (eg parsley, rosemary and thyme)
• oil
• flour
• seasoning (salt and peppercorns)
• sour cream 
• eggs to boil

Equipment

• Large cooking pot
• Knife for peeling and chopping the vegetables
• Chopping board
• Wooden spoons for stirring and serving

 Making and cooking it

• Peel the garlic
• Roughly chop some spinach
• Warm a pot by the fire
• Add some oil and flour
• Allow to soften for a few minutes
• Add the spinach
• Allow to cook  until the vegetables are ready
• Leave for a few minutes, add the seasoning (salt and peppercorns), add the sour cream, just to whitening and then remove the pot from the hearth and serve
• You can serve it also with boiled eggs

Gesztenyepüré/Chestnut purée

Gesztenyepüré is something for all the year, although it is thought only for wintertime.

In my childhood my grandma used to give extra pocket money  to go to the closest patisserie and order this sweet. Sweet chestnuts are a seasonal fruit,

eaten mainly in the winter, but whenever and where ever you enter in a cafés sure beside "somlói galuska" you can find also gesztenyepüré.
In Hungary it is puréed,  topped with whipped cream. It's so popular that almost everyone have fond memories of eating gesztenyepüré from footed glass dessert cups in local cafés. We think as about lot of things because of it's popularity it would be our desert, although the first recorded chestnut purée recipe can be found in an Italian cookbook printed in Florence in 1475. The French later copied the recipe and chestnut purée became a popular, seasonal French dessert named Mont Blanc, because of its resemblance to the snow covered mountain top. Hungarians fell in love with gesztenyepüré in the 18th century.

One of the recipes, it is not easy to prepair, but everyone can try. I still recommend to try it in one of our fantastic patisseries in order to be able to wonder also the beauty of the traditional places.


The ingredients:

1 kg (2.2 pound) chestnut, for about 700 g (1.5 pound) of chestnut purée
3.5 dl (1 1/2 cup) water
3.5 dl (1 1/2 cup) milk
50 g (1/4 cup) sugar + 1 dl (1/2 cup) water
1 vanilla pod
1/2 tea spoon salt
50 g (1/4 cup) butter (unsalted, melted)
1.5 dl (3/4 cup) cream
rum (optional)
whipped cream

The how-to:
Using a sharp knife make an incision, in the form of an X, on the rounded side of each chestnut shell. Try not to cut into the flesh of the nut. If you are a pro, you may even have a chestnutter.
Preheat the oven to 120C (250F). Place the chestnuts on a baking pan. Sprinkle them with some water (the steam will help with the tedious process of peeling the chestnuts). Bake for about 40 minutes.
Now comes the hard part, peeling the roasted chestnuts. The outer skin should come off easily, but the inner skin is the real challenge. Once peeled, place the chestnuts in a saucepan. Add the water, the milk and the seeds from the vanilla pod and cook covered on low heat for about 40 minutes or until soft.
Prepare the sugar syrup. Bring 1 dl of water with 50 g of sugar to a boil and cook for a few minutes. Drain the softened chestnuts, add the sugar syrup, salt, melted butter, cream and (optional) some rum. Puree in a mixer and let it cool for a few hours in the fridge.
To serve, run the puree through a potato-press and into a footed glass bowl and cover with whipped cream. Consider adding some whipped cream to the bottom of the bowl as well.