For a Hungarian Sunday, Christmas, Birthday, and any cause for a FAMILY Celebration Treat! Hungarians show love for each other with food. Food is the poetry of the living earth in ever present motion.
There are many ways to make Beigli, which is a poppy seed pastry. I’ve combined a few methods here to adapt BACK this traditional recipe into an earlier, gluten-free tradition. Hungary has many ancient grains, and two of her prized ones are millet and oats. Most of our family is gluten-free, and we find these grains are superb in our cooking. Much of our families digestive healing has come by returning to a more Ancient Hungarian diet. This was not a conscious choice at first, we just seemed to fare best (ie magnificently, energy strengthening, stamina enabling tone) on wild greens, mushrooms, lamb, pork and fish, oats and millet and other wild foraged vegetable and nut things. Basically, our ancestral foods!
Start out with a luke warm cup of raw milk. You can use goat, sheep or cow, as long as it is pastured and given freedom. Add a tablespoon of yeast, or two tablespoons of a home-made sour dough starter yeast, and one tablespoon of honey. Let it rise and bubble for 5-10 minutes.
Mix your dough together with your hand (sorry, a spoon doesn’t work for this!). 5 cups of fresh ground millet or oat flour (we used oat in the photographs), 1 teaspoon of unrefined salt, 1 tablespoon of guar gum or use a traditional binder like 2 tablespoons of soaked flax mucilage, 2 Tablespoons of honey, 2 pastured eggs. Mix well with your hands. Now add your yeast/milk mixture, and work in. Now add 8 tablespoons of melted butter, and mix. When mixed, it should look like the above photograph.
The dough has been working hard, so it is time for it to take a nap and rest. An hour is good! A wonderful trick for making gluten-free goodies, take a kitchen flour sack towel and soak in hot water, then wring it out, and cover your bowl.
For this one, I am making a combined walnut and poppy seed filling. I grind 1 cup of poppy seeds in a mortar and pestle, while grinding 1 cup of walnuts in a food processor (you can use a nut grinder instead of a food processor if you wish).
I then put my ground poppy seeds (this is a good time to harvest dried bread poppy seed heads for cooking) in a bowl, and combine with my chunky ground walnut, half cup of raw honey, and one pint total home-made apricot jam (also made with honey) with a pinch of salt. Add soaked raisins at this point, a half cup of dried raisins, soaked in water for an hour before cooking does the trick!
Start a sauce pot on the stove with 1 cup of raw milk. Pour your poppy mixture into the pot. Cook, without letting it stick, until it is reduced and a thick filling.
Time to wake up your dough! Flour the counter, and gingerly place dough heap on the counter, do not overwork, and do not punch down, as this is a gluten-free dough and doesn’t handle like wheat. Divide in half if you desire, to make two rolls, or as I will show you, I made one roll and made one just for a buttery baguette.
Gently roll out your dough. Dip a pastry brush in beaten egg yolk and paint the dough. Now spread your poppy filling as evenly as possible (this recipe contains enough filling for 2 rolls). Gently roll up! Since it is gluten-free dough, you will need to do this slowly.
Using two wide spatulas, I pick up my rolls and place them on a baking sheet lined with unbleached wax paper in the oven. The bread roll I scored with X’s. Seal up the ends the best you can on the poppy seed roll, so she doesn’t leak. The drawback with gluten-free rustic baking (without a bunch of gluten-free additives, I try to eat food that I can process with my own two hands and find growing near me only) is there may be a tiny bit of leakage, but the positive is that the bread is drier and can catch the filling better than wheat. Paint the outside of the bread with more egg yolk, this will also help to seal in moisture and filling, and give a golden hue. Bake for at least an hour to an hour and twenty minutes at 350 degrees, or until dough is fully cooked!
Out of the oven and smelling DIVINE! But wait!!! She’s gotta cool down, especially more important as she is gluten-free. Try to resist, it’s worth the wait!!!
No no no! You’ve gotta wait for it Ben!!!
Success! Serve with hot butter and apricot jam!
Beigli Love Blessings!!!
(c) 2013, Summer L. Farkas Takacs Michaelson, CH
Herbed Csipetke. Csipetke is a Hungarian pinched dough noodle. There are many different types of Csipetke that I make, and one day, will devote a posting to some varied recipes. It is simple, just some flour, egg, milk, salt and water, butter and herbs. Mix the ingredients until you have a stiff dough. Place in an oiled bowl to rest for 15 minutes. Roll out into finger sized logs, pinch small pieces and place on a baking sheet. Meanwhile, bring a pot of salted water to a boil, drop noodles in the boiling water, cook for 8 minutes or until floating on top of the water. Remove with a slotted spoon, and mix with butter. In the above photo, I added chopped cilantro and chives on top!
This recipe calls for a whole chicken cut up. Do not buy a cut-up chicken, you’ll pay just as much or more for it, and not have the beautiful back to make stock out of. Cutting a whole chicken for frying takes a bit of practice, but not much. When you pull the skin back on the chicken, you’ll see a map on it of fat lines. In the above photo, my thumb is pointing to a fat line, I’ll cut there. Preheat a large cast iron skillet with a cup of fat (butter or oil of your choice works). Cut up your chicken.
Save the chicken back, skin and scraps for making a future broth (I just bagged them up and put them in the freezer) or to prepare fresh broth ahead of time for this recipe. To make a simple broth, place the back, skin and extra bone pieces into a soup pan with onions, onion skins, carrots, parsley, etc. and gently simmer for 2 hours. This is why cut-up store-bought chicken is such a waste, you miss essential food ingredients the less whole your food!
Take your cut-up chicken pieces and salt and pepper then. Dredge them through flour, we prefer oat flour for this. Place in the pan and fry until the outsides are golden brown, about 6-7 minutes on each side. Remove when they are browned, and place on a warming stone while you move on to the Farkas Takacs Hungarian Gypsy Sauce* and the veggies.
In the last few minutes, add your fried chicken back into the dutch over to finish cooking.
Hello Summertime Folks! Azure is coming up super quick! Our order cut-off is this coming Wednesday, August 7th at 4 PM with delivery on Tuesday, August 13th. Pickup is from 2-6 PM.
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