Rakott – the art of the bake

Rakott. Translates as “casserole” in food terms but rather pleasingly to my mind, also means pleats, like those pleated petticoats worn as Hungarian folk dress by men and women alike. Women wear as many as 40 at a time – denoting their status and marriage prospects, layers and layers of frothy white petticoats that force the embroidered over skirt into a bell shape, exaggerating the hips and thereby fecundity of the female wearing them. Men have a much more swashbuckling version – wide legged pleated trousers worn with an embroidered shirt and waistcoat and boots, seen to best effect on horseback. Wide sleeves on their shirts and the swish of the wide trousers all have a certain flamboyance that suits the Hungarian temperament.

Anyway. I’ve gone off on a tangent. As per. But there was a point to it, the Rakott named dishes that I love to cook are layered bakes, involving sour cream and paprika. I have absolutely no evidence to corroborate this, but I wonder if the word Rakott became synonymous with these dishes because their formation echoed the pleats of the clothes? A quick flick through my small collection of Hungarian cookbooks, tattered and torn from much handling, reveals variations on a theme with Rakott Káposzta (cabbage) having the most versions, but also cauliflower (karfiol), chicken (csirkemell), green bean (zöldbab), green pepper (zöld paprika – not the Dutch dark green bells but the elegant Turkish yellow wax ones) and courgette (cukkini). I’m very fond of the Rakott káposzta, it’s one I make quite often – layering up pork mince, rice and savoy cabbage with the usual suspects of sour cream, lard and paprika. But it is the potato Rakott that has my heart and that of my sisters too. Rakott Krumpli is our equivalent of Scouse. It’s the comfort of a homely dish that reminds us of home and our Daddy. It’s made from layers of potatoes and hardboiled eggs with the addition of smoky paprika sausage (kolbász), sour cream and dotted with lard before baking until blisteringly hot, forcing the sour cream to puddle into a rich gravy with the paprika fat from the kolbász and the potatoes and eggs to take on crisp edges. Served in my family with the classic central European pickled gherkin – we like Krakus best – on the side, it’s a wonderful mix of carbs and fat with a little piquancy from the paprika and kolbász. Incidentally, when I was a young student, I would cook this for my house mates. We were mostly vegetarian then and I would make a version substituting Tivall slicing sausage (veggie) for the kolbász, which wasn’t perfect but did the job.

Rakott Krumpli

Enough for 2 greedy people but can stretch to 3 or even 4 if they have bird like appetites…

5 medium Maris Piper or Desiree potatoes – you want potatoes that will hold their shape and not go too mushy.

2 large eggs

This is where I get a little random – about 6 inches of kolbász or you can use chorizo, or even smoked bacon

A tbsp of lard or butter

200ml sour cream

paprika

Start by placing the unpeeled, whole potatoes in a saucepan and cover with cold water. Bring to the boil, then add the eggs and let it all simmer away for 10 minutes. Remove the eggs into cold water and peel. Test the potatoes with a point of a knife – they should be tender but not mushy, as they will cook more in the oven. Drain the potatoes and then run under the cold tap until the potatoes are cool enough to handle but not cold. Peel off the skins and slice the potatoes thickly . Do the same with the boiled eggs. Slice the kolbász more thinly and then into quarters.

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Grease a baking dish with the lard or butter and then put in a layer of potatoes, scatter over some egg slices, some kolbász, dollop over sour cream and dot with more lard or butter. Sprinkle with paprika. Repeat and then finish with a final layer of potato slices, plus any left over kolbász and sour cream. Bake at GM6 or about 200C/ 180C fan for 20 to 30 minutes until the top has crisped up and you can smell wonderful scents wafting through the house. Take out of the oven and let it sit for 10 minutes before serving, heaped high on a warm plate, with gherkins on the side. Great with a beer.

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