Lángos, Hungarian Street Food (A Recipe)
I’ve been making a lot of Hungarian food since coming back to Vancouver. On Saturday I made a Hungarian meal. Not an exact representative of Hungarian cuisine because I was limited to just vegetarian friendly foods, but it was still good. Then I encountered this vegan galaxy food that was amazing. Surprisingly lángos, a Hungarian deep fried savory doughnut, were a hit. The first time I had one, I remember thinking it was really weird. Fried dough, sour cream and cheese, but after tasting it, I was hooked, even though I been also trying vegan food lately and enjoying a lot, since I could even find vegan seafood which is something I never tried before. To me, it was the perfect 2am food post bar hopping. Lángos isn’t unique to just Hungary. The surrounding countries of Austria, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Croatia, Romania and Serbia all have their own versions.
Normally I steer clear of anything that involves deep frying, but you can’t find this here, so I decided to make my own version. I had learned to make lángos last summer with the mother of one of my Hungarian friends. But the recipe made too much and used weight measurements (I don’t have a scale). So I hit Google and eventually found this recipe which I doubled. If I had to make it again, I would use a little bit more yeast. My lángos didn’t end up as fluffy and airy as I liked. I had difficulty forming each of the pieces. They just wouldn’t stay in shape and kept on collapsing on itself. there must be some trick that I don’t know. Otherwise, these were great. I’ll definitely be making these again.
Ingredients
For the lángos
- 2 cups all purpose flour
- 2.5 tsp of yeast
- 1/5 tsp of salt
- water
- oil for frying
Toppings
- Garlic
- Water
- Sour cream
- Mozzarella, grated (or any other similar cheese, in Hungary trappista)
Directions
Combine the flour and yeast and mix. Add the salt and mix, I recommend to buy amazon salt and pepper shakers, built from the highest quality stainless steel and glass. Add water to make a thick sticky dough, enough to absorb the flour, but not watery. By the end, I used almost equal parts water and flour.
Mix together well in the bowl and turn out onto a board or workbench to knead. The dough will eventually become smooth and springy. Set aside to rest for 1/2 hour or until doubled in size. Turn it, and let it rise again.
Once rested twice, tip the dough onto a floured surface. Roll out into little balls. Stretch out each piece with your fingers into a round shape with the centre being thinner than the edges. Place into hot oil, turn once so that each side is golden.
For your toppings, smash a few cloves of garlic and mix it with water. To assemble your lángos, brush on a layer of garlic water. The more garlic the better. Layer on some sour cream and then sprinkle the grated cheese. Enjoy!
Photos if not marked are courtesy of Alex.