Hungarian salami. Sausagestory. Central market in Budapest, range and prices Recipe for Hungarian balaton sausage
Original taken from ne_zabudka in Hungarian salami. Sausagestory.
In the venerable and numerous family of raw-cured salami there is one prodigal daughter - a Hungarian one.
For it refers to raw smoked sausages, which, after stuffing, are first smoked and then dried.
The birthplace of Hungarian salami is the city of Szeged, located in the southeast of the country. Pig farming has always flourished in these parts and it is pork that is used to make salami. But this is the meat of a special breed of pig - Mangalitsa. These funny furry pigs were obtained by crossing wild and domestic pigs. The genes of their wild ancestors made them hardened and hardy, suitable for year-round keeping in natural conditions on pasture.
Mangalitsa was very popular from the beginning of the 19th century to the mid-20th century, then their numbers began to decline. This is due to the fashion for diet food, which has provoked an increase in demand for lean meat. It is produced by meat breed pigs, while Mangalitsa is exclusively a tallow breed. This breed is characterized by a high fat content: the layer of fat can reach 15 centimeters, the meat also contains greasy streaks. This juicy, aromatic meat is ideal for salami production - this is what Mark Pick decided and founded a sausage factory in Szeged.
He was a trader and traveled a lot around the world. In Italy, Mark tried salami, was delighted, and since then the production of this sausage has become his life’s work. With a group of Italian specialists, he came to Hungary, where he began to create an enterprise that became one of the largest meat processing plants in Hungary. Since 1869, Pick Szeged Zrt has been producing the most famous brand not only in its homeland, but also abroad - Pick salami.
And now here’s a very interesting nuance - Mark Peak was a Jew, after his death the business was continued by his widow and son. Observing religious prohibitions on eating pork, the Pick family did not eat their own sausage, but only produced and sold it. Whose taste did these righteous Jews follow, whose word did they rely on, who did they trust to evaluate the quality of their products? Unknown. But the enterprise flourished, and a significant part of the proceeds from the sale of salami was donated to the construction of a synagogue in Szeged - the second largest in Hungary.
In Szeged there is a museum of salami and paprika, where the exhibition on the first floor is dedicated to the sausage production process.
To prepare raw smoked sausages, the meat is first salted, kept for 5 days at a temperature not exceeding 4 C. Then it is chopped - according to traditional technology, the meat and lard for making sausage are chopped only by hand; for salami, the pieces should be the size of a grain of rice. The composition and amount of spices added are unique and, of course, kept secret.
In Hungary, one of the most popular spices is paprika. In addition to it, garlic, black pepper, and ginger are added to salami, resulting in different flavors and, accordingly, varieties of sausage.
The minced meat with spices is kept in a cold place for at least a day, after which it is tightly stuffed into shells. If air gets in, it must be released by puncturing the shell.
At the next stage, the minced meat settles, for which the sausage is suspended and kept for at least three days at a temperature not exceeding 4C.
Next, the salami is smoked using cold smoke from beech sawdust, and then hung out to mature for 100 days. Previously, this process took place in special rooms; air humidity was regulated by opening/closing windows. To ensure constant control, the craftsmen lived on the territory of the plant. The proximity of the Tisza River made it possible to maintain the level of humidity necessary for the formation of noble mold. Perhaps because of the white coating covering the sausage, the classic Pick salami received the name téliszalámi (translated from Hungarian as “winter.”)
Szeged salami Pick is a hungaricum (from Hungary - Hungary and unicum - unique) - a symbol of Hungary, a source of special pride for its people. Another salami from Budapest, Herz, bears this honorary title.
Armin Hertz was engaged in maritime transportation, apparently, like Mark Pick, he was inspired by the taste of Italian salami, studied the recipe, and founded a factory in Budapest in 1888.
It’s funny, but by the end of the 19th century, one of the main products of this enterprise was “téliszalámi” (winter salami), which won the main prize at the World Exhibition in Paris. They claim that the recipes for “winter” sausages Pick and Herz are different, but the appearance is the same - the surface of both is covered with a layer of white noble mold. Production technologies are also the same. However, these two famous brands have belonged to the same owner since 2010, which automatically eliminated competition between them.
On our travels we love to visit markets. This event can bring no less pleasure than looking at art galleries and walking around the sights. The Central Market in Budapest is not simple - it is an architectural masterpiece of the late 19th century with a multi-colored roof, traditional for Budapest, with turrets and tracery windows. Therefore, aesthetic pleasure can be obtained not only from contemplating the various counters, but also from the elegant appearance of the building in which trade is carried out.
The Hungarian name of the market is absolutely impossible to pronounce without errors - Központi Vásárcsarnok (Közpoyati Vasarcsarnok), so I will simply call it the market. Like any other central market, shopping there is not very profitable, but there is something to see.
Prices at the central market are lower than in souvenir shops in the center of Budapest, but higher than in supermarkets. There is a supermarket in the ground floor of the market, so before making serious purchases, it makes sense to go around the ground floor, go down to the ground floor, look at the prices in the supermarket and compare the range and cost of goods.
Central Market
The Central Market is located on the Pest side, very close to the Freedom Bridge, and is clearly visible from Gellért Mountain. The famous Vaci Street abuts it. There are a large number of hotels around the market, so many tourists do not need to travel at all. Transport:
- Metro to Fővám tér station (Line M4, green, newest)
- Buses 15 and 5
- Trams 2, 47, 47B, 48, 49
- Trolleybus 83
Address: Vámház körút 1-3
Operating mode
The opening hours, alas, are European-style: Saturdays are shortened, and the market is closed on Sundays.
- Monday 6.00 – 17.00
- Tuesday - Friday 6.00 - 18.00
- Saturday 6.00 – 15.00
- The market is closed on Sunday
What is sold at the central market in Budapest
Of course, the central market of Budapest is a very tourist place, there are many, many tourists there, sellers can serve customers in three or four European languages, including Russian, this is where the real polyglots hide!
Central aisle We walked around the market in December, so the goods will be winter and New Year's.
New Year's illumination at the market The assortment on the market is aimed at tourists. There are a lot of souvenirs and traditional Hungarian products, the so-called Hungaricum, which are also essentially souvenirs.
Many things are designed for tourists from Western Europe. Well, I’m not at all interested in Soviet symbols and military uniforms, Russian nesting dolls, national costumes, which by the way are also similar to Russian ones, and embroidered tablecloths, since at home we have plenty of all this.
Typical Hungarian embroideries, tablecloths, blouses, scarves To estimate prices in rubles, you need to divide prices in forints by 4.27, this is an approximate estimate for December 2018, since the exchange rate is constantly changing.
I will focus on describing purely Hungarian exoticism from a Russian point of view.
Salami Pick Szeged
Hungarian exotica is primarily sausage. If in Spain the main pork product is jamon, then in Hungary it is winter salami from the Szeged sausage factory Pick (Pick Szeged Zrt). The Szeged sausage factory was founded by a Hungarian citizen of Jewish origin in the 19th century, and the factory has not closed since then. According to Jewish tradition, the founder of the plant did not even try his products, but this did not stop his sausages from winning the hearts and stomachs of customers.
Sausages Now the Peak plant produces millions of tons of sausage annually. The Szeged plant supplies its products to many countries around the world. Salami comes in different varieties and you need to pay attention to the desired level of pepperiness of this traditional product. Some varieties can make the taster run around the market in circles with his mouth open. Typically, sausage from the Peak factory is sold in 400 gram loaves and is not cheap at all, about 552 rubles. or 6.42€ at the time of writing.
White plaque is noble mold Traditional sausage is made from pork. The Hungarians' love for pork dates back to the times of the Ottoman rule. The Hungarians rightly believed that not a single Muslim would enter a house where pork was cooked and used this to scare away invaders from their doors.
Pork is still sold in the central market of Budapest today in a wide variety of forms. I've never seen pig tails sold!
Pig ears, hooves and tails Paprika
The second most popular Hungarian national product is paprika. Hungarians add paprika everywhere - to goulash (goulash in Hungarian is a soup) and to pörkölt (this is a dish that we call goulash). Hungarians add paprika to their dishes simply by tablespoons, they do not necessarily use hot paprika, so Hungarian dishes are quite edible for our taste. And of course, bunches and bundles of paprika are abundantly hung in the market.
Paprika A special Hungarian plant, Univer, produces seasonings and paprika pastes.
Seasonings for goulash in Budapest The recipe is usually printed right on the back of these bags.
Hungarian wines
Home to the third Hungaricum, Tokaj was added to the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2002. Tokaj wines are presented in a wide range on the market. Wine in Tokaj is made from light varieties of dried grapes, which makes it sweet with a much richer taste than wines from France or Spain. I would compare it with the Austrian ice vine (wine made from frozen grapes). Wines can be purchased both in traditional bottles and in souvenir shaped bottles.
Wine in souvenir bottles No less legendary wine is Eger bull's blood. This is a traditional red wine from the Eger region. It is usually associated with the legend of the defense of the Eger fortress from the Turks in 1552. The commandant of the fortress gave the defenders several barrels of wine to strengthen their spirit, and the Turks thought that the Hungarians were drinking bull's blood and were seriously afraid of these wild people. The fortress was defended.
Prices for different varieties of Tokaj (0.7 liters) Palinka
In Hungary they do not disdain stronger drinks. It is customary to make moonshine from fruits that grow in abundance in Hungary. This moonshine is called palinka. Palinka is subject to mandatory certification; this drink must contain at least 37.5% alcohol, but it is usually stronger, and it is prohibited to add non-fruit alcohols to it. You can really taste the fruit in the palinka.
Palinka - fruit moonshine 5900 HUF FOR 0.5 liters (manufacturer - Bolyhos) There is also a cheaper palinka - produced by BÉKÉSI DISZNÓTORO, Karpatia. The difference between cheap and expensive is that Bolyhos additionally infuses its fruit alcohols with fruit, which is why their palinka turns out colored. Palinka infused with fruit is correctly called bedding.
Cheap tokay and cheap palinka The cheapest Tokay costs about 2.57€ for 0.7 liters.
Unicum or Zwack Unicum
And another 100% Hungaricum is the bitter balm Unicum or Zwack Unicum. Zwack is the name of the founder of the company that has been producing this drink since 1790. In total, three types of this balm are made: Unicum, Unicum Next and Unicum Szilva. Below is the price for this balm at SPAR, located on the ground floor of the central market. 2849 HUF (9.19€) for a half liter bottle, 5799 HUF ( 18.67 €) per liter.
Prices for Unicum It’s just that Unicum is considered medicinal, like the famous Bittner balm, and Unicum Next and Unicum Szilva are already closer to liqueur than to a medicinal drink. The taste of the medicinal Unicum is bittersweet and viscous, it contains sugar and bitter herbs, and almost no one knows the exact recipe except the owner of the enterprise; this is a trade secret.
Fruits, vegetables, pickles
Hungarians are not averse to snacking on pickled cucumbers, tomatoes, and squash. They are very beautiful and original decorate jars of pickles.
Merry pickles Fruit and vegetable stalls in winter in Budapest are very similar to what you can see in Russia. Grapes, oranges, tangerines, bananas, and perhaps chestnuts are a little out of the usual assortment.
Chestnuts In Hungary, it is customary to eat stewed red cabbage, usually served with duck legs. In general, there are more different varieties of cabbage in the central market of Budapest than in St. Petersburg, but I think this is because in Russia it is not very common to eat kohlrabi, and not because we have a shortage of kohlrabi.
Vegetable counter I simply photographed the cheeses out of interest in prices.
Cheeses Russian black caviar is sold at the central market. On the banners, as it is written - Russian black caviar, they attract tourists from Western Europe.
Black caviar - Russian Second floor - standing bar
The largest standing bar in Budapest is located on the second floor. There are many stalls with a variety of food. There was such a crowd that it was impossible to photograph the whole thing; I didn’t want to stand at all, and it was difficult to find a place on the high bar stools.
As per the plan, we decided to try langos or langos. This is something like our shawarma - vegetables, meat, salami are fried in a flatbread, it turns out delicious, but too spicy for children, so I had to choose onions and very peppery salami from the children's portion. Langos come with different fillings; we’ve even seen dessert langos with cottage cheese and jam, so the Hungarians have surpassed our shawarma producers in the variety of national flatbreads with filling.
Langos There is also a familiar sit-down restaurant on the second floor, it’s a pity we noticed it too late. In the standing bar you can try not only langos, all Hungarian cuisine is widely represented there, but the conditions for eating are not very good - there is a crowd and standing places.
In addition to the large standing bar, on the second floor there are many counters with T-shirts, sweatshirts, leather bags, embroidered tablecloths and other tourist items.
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- To prepare Hungarian sausage, a cut called picnic is used. Picnic comes from the bottom half of a whole pork shoulder. A boneless picnic is freed of all bones and associated cartilage. Here it can be sold under the name “boneless shoulder blade”
- Cut the meat and lard into cubes approximately 2.5-3 cm in size
- Preheat the oven to 165°C. Spread the black pepper on a baking sheet and roast until fragrant (takes 3 to 5 minutes). Cool completely. Or heat the pepper in a frying pan without oil.
- Grind the pepper, as well as cardamom and oregano pods in a mill or mortar. If you have coarse sea salt, grind that too. Press the garlic through a garlic press. If you don’t have ground nutmeg, grind it in a coffee grinder. And Nutmeg is not nutmeg. This is a completely different spice and is the dried soft skin that covers most of the nutmeg seed.
- In a separate container, mix together all the spices, as well as salt and cure salt. Then mix the spices with the meat, cover the container with the meat with a lid or cling film and put it in the refrigerator overnight. A special note about cure salt or nitrite salt. In this case, nitrite salt acts more as a dye rather than as a preservative. This sausage has a relatively short shelf life and does not require preservatives. If the color of the sausage doesn't matter to you, then you can safely omit the nitrite salt from this recipe and add an additional 2 tablespoons of salt instead.
- Chill the meat grinder (including the auger, grid and blades) in the refrigerator. The meat should also be chilled and should be taken out just before you are going to grind it.
- Remove ¼ of the meat and set aside.
- Place the rack with the smallest holes on the meat grinder and pass the remaining meat and all the fat through the meat grinder twice.
- Then place the rack with the largest holes and let the reserved quarter of the meat pass through.
- Then combine both types of minced meat and knead it with your hands for 2-3 minutes until the minced meat becomes more or less homogeneous.
- Then the minced meat should be placed on a tray (or any flat container that fits into your freezer). The height of the minced meat should not exceed 2.5 cm. And this tray should be placed in the freezer for about 1 hour. The meat should not be completely frozen; it should be crispy around the edges.
- Now we need a mixer with a flat attachment. Place half the meat in a mixer bowl and pour in 120 ml of ice water. Start kneading the minced meat at low speed first for about a minute. As soon as the water is absorbed, set the speed to maximum and continue kneading the minced meat for about 1 minute. Repeat the same procedure with the remaining half of the meat.
- Before stuffing the guts with minced meat, we need to try what we got. Take a small piece of minced meat and fry it in a frying pan. If at this stage there are no complaints about the taste, then we will start stuffing the sausage.
- Measure out 5 meters of pork casing and rinse it thoroughly under running water to remove any remaining salt. (I hope you already have a cleaned casing ready. Otherwise, it will have to be cleaned first).
- Then install the sausage attachment on the meat grinder and pull the entire 5 meters of intestine onto it. I don’t tie the edge - excess air will escape through it and subsequently excess liquid will drain away.
- Roll the finished sausage into a ring, forming 5-6 loops, and hang the sausage either in a cool place or in the refrigerator.
- The next day, prepare your smoker. When the temperature inside the smokehouse rises to 82 degrees, put the sausage there and cook it for 1-1.5 hours. If you have a food thermometer, the sausage will be ready when the internal temperature reaches 60 degrees.
Many peoples of the world describe fabulous abundance as milk rivers with jelly banks. Magyar folklore adds: the fences there are made of sausages.
You won’t believe it, but in the Hungarian language - the same one that is completely incomprehensible to the Slavs - there is still at least one word that is clear at first glance. When you see the Kolbász label in a store or market, there is definitely a sausage nearby. If anyone knows where this linguistic incident came from, let me know.
There are two more terms on this topic. The word Hurka refers to sausages that contain not only meat, but also offal, blood, bread, various cereals, most often rice or millet. And Salami, which is more familiar to us, is a premium item; such loaves usually have a tag in the colors of the national flag, and a proud mark - Magyar Termék, a Hungarian product.
To immerse yourself in the sausage theme, it is best to visit the Lehel market in Budapest. There are not separate counters dedicated to this product, but entire rows. First impression: almost all Hungarian sausages are smoked. This is similar to the subconscious experience of many generations - the ancestors of today's Hungarians, born shepherds and experienced livestock breeders, preferred meat products that were stored longer.
Traditionally, most sausages are made from pork. A special breed of pig, the Mangalica, is highly valued. Its meat and lard really differ in taste from ordinary ones, and sausages are always more expensive. There is also a combination of minced pork and beef. These are, for example, small Debrecziner sausages, which are often fried for street fast food. They are named after the city of Debrecen, the third largest in Hungary. It is located in the east of the country, exactly in those places where shepherds and cattle breeders have long worked.
Garlic is present in almost any minced sausage. But if the price tag says “with garlic,” there’s a lot of it there. Sometimes, for greater juiciness of the future sausage and the subtlety of its aroma, not garlic itself is added to the minced meat, but its decoction or infusion. Common ingredients include cumin and lemon zest. There are sausages with cheese (Bojtár Kolbász).
However, there is one ingredient that is unchanged for the Magyar sausage genre. This is paprika. We bet you won’t be able to find local sausage without the aromatic and differently fiery ground red pepper. Smoked sausage spirit with paprika - this is it recognizable aroma Hungarian gastronomy. At the same time, gallant manufacturers do not forget to indicate the approximate degree of spice of their sausages. If the label says csipős, spicy, you can be sure that there is strong paprika there from the heart.
If you still have questions about the sausage part, go to the Central Market of Budapest. This is a famous gastronomic attraction of the Hungarian capital, but the constant crowds of tourists there automatically raise all prices.
In Hungarian salami. Sausagestory.
In the venerable and numerous family of raw-cured salami there is one prodigal daughter - a Hungarian one.
For it refers to raw smoked sausages, which, after stuffing, are first smoked and then dried.
The birthplace of Hungarian salami is the city of Szeged, located in the southeast of the country. Pig farming has always flourished in these parts and it is pork that is used to make salami. But this is the meat of a special breed of pig - Mangalitsa. These funny furry pigs were obtained by crossing wild and domestic pigs. The genes of their wild ancestors made them hardened and hardy, suitable for year-round keeping in natural conditions on pasture.
Mangalitsa was very popular from the beginning of the 19th century to the mid-20th century, then their numbers began to decline. This is due to the fashion for diet food, which has provoked an increase in demand for lean meat. It is produced by meat breed pigs, while Mangalitsa is exclusively a tallow breed. This breed is characterized by a high fat content: the layer of fat can reach 15 centimeters, the meat also contains greasy streaks. This juicy, aromatic meat is ideal for salami production - this is what Mark Pick decided and founded a sausage factory in Szeged.
He was a trader and traveled a lot around the world. In Italy, Mark tried salami, was delighted, and since then the production of this sausage has become his life’s work. With a group of Italian specialists, he came to Hungary, where he began to create an enterprise that became one of the largest meat processing plants in Hungary. Since 1869, Pick Szeged Zrt has been producing the most famous brand not only in its homeland, but also abroad - Pick salami.
And now here’s a very interesting nuance - Mark Peak was a Jew, after his death the business was continued by his widow and son. Observing religious prohibitions on eating pork, the Pick family did not eat their own sausage, but only produced and sold it. Whose taste did these righteous Jews follow, whose word did they rely on, who did they trust to evaluate the quality of their products? Unknown. But the enterprise flourished, and a significant part of the proceeds from the sale of salami was donated to the construction of a synagogue in Szeged - the second largest in Hungary.
In Szeged there is a museum of salami and paprika, where the exhibition on the first floor is dedicated to the sausage production process.
To prepare raw smoked sausages, the meat is first salted, kept for 5 days at a temperature not exceeding 4 C. Then it is chopped - according to traditional technology, the meat and lard for making sausage are chopped only by hand; for salami, the pieces should be the size of a grain of rice. The composition and amount of spices added are unique and, of course, kept secret.
In Hungary, one of the most popular spices is paprika. In addition to it, garlic, black pepper, and ginger are added to salami, resulting in different flavors and, accordingly, varieties of sausage.
The minced meat with spices is kept in a cold place for at least a day, after which it is tightly stuffed into shells. If air gets in, it must be released by puncturing the shell.
At the next stage, the minced meat settles, for which the sausage is suspended and kept for at least three days at a temperature not exceeding 4C.
Next, the salami is smoked using cold smoke from beech sawdust, and then hung out to mature for 100 days. Previously, this process took place in special rooms; air humidity was regulated by opening/closing windows. To ensure constant control, the craftsmen lived on the territory of the plant. The proximity of the Tisza River made it possible to maintain the level of humidity necessary for the formation of noble mold. Perhaps because of the white coating covering the sausage, the classic Pick salami received the name téliszalámi (translated from Hungarian as “winter.”)
Szeged salami Pick is a hungaricum (from Hungary - Hungary and unicum - unique) - a symbol of Hungary, a source of special pride for its people. Another salami from Budapest, Herz, bears this honorary title.
Armin Hertz was engaged in maritime transportation, apparently, like Mark Pick, he was inspired by the taste of Italian salami, studied the recipe, and founded a factory in Budapest in 1888.
It’s funny, but by the end of the 19th century, one of the main products of this enterprise was “téliszalámi” (winter salami), which won the main prize at the World Exhibition in Paris. They claim that the recipes for “winter” sausages Pick and Herz are different, but the appearance is the same - the surface of both is covered with a layer of white noble mold. Production technologies are also the same. However, these two famous brands have belonged to the same owner since 2010, which automatically eliminated competition between them.