Hard to explain why, but lovers of Brassói Aprópecsenye are legion. Basically it’s just meat and potatoes... but then maybe that's why. My better half is definitely one of those, so it wasn’t much of a surprise when he exclaimed his utmost admiration for the food. Of course there is no clear evidence that Brassói has any affiliation to the city of Brassó*, which is further complicated by the fact that the number of inventors is quite extreme. Therefore I feel no guilt expropriating the dish.
‘Brassói Aprópecsenye’ literally means ‘Tiny Roasts from Brassó’. The meat component being ‘roasts’ is tongue in cheek, because brassói is just bits of lean pork fried up and served on a bed of fried potatoes. There are brassói recipes circulating that contain, among other things, bacon, but that just defeats the aim of the dish, because having both pork meat and bacon implies you are in the plenty, when in fact brassói evolved to serve something nice with limited resources. Check out the authentic brassói under a different title here.
MEAT AND POTATOES BRASSO STYLE
150 g lean pork strips
1/8 cup flour
5 medium large red potatoes
oil for deep frying
salt and pepper to taste
• Pound the meat thin and cut into strips.
• Roll the strips into flour and set them aside.
• Peel the potatoes and chop them into small cubes.
• Cook the potatoes in water until not quite tender.
• Drain.
• In a deep fry pot heat up the oil.
• Wearing long oven mitts plunge the still hot drained potatoes into the hot oil.
• Stir them occasionally with a large wire ladle to brown evenly.
• Midway through add the pork strips and fry everything to light golden brown.
• Using the wire ladle transfer everything to a paper towel lined bowl.
• Season with salt and pepper and toss.
• And that’s my version of brassói.
• Serves 2
*
Don’t look for the city of Brassó on the map, because it's called Brașov now. There are 42 letters in the Hungarian alphabet, but there is no ș among them. Allow me to explain. The Trianon peace treaty which officially ended the First World War for Hungary, signed in Versailles in the Trianon Castle on the 4th of June, 1920, was one of the most catastrophic events in the history of the Hungarian Nation. With this „treaty”, the Allies or more commonly the 'Entente' implemented the decision by which Historic Hungary was dismembered and huge chunks of it given to its neighbours. This is how the Hungarian city of Brassó ended up in Romania. Hungary also lost land to Austria, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia reducing its size from 283,000 sq km to less than 93,000 sq km. Population was reduced from 18.2 million to 7.6 million.
Hard to explain why, but lovers of Brassói Aprópecsenye are legion. Basically it’s just meat and potatoes... but then maybe that's why. My better half is definitely one of those, so it wasn’t much of a surprise when he exclaimed his utmost admiration for the food. Of course there is no clear evidence that Brassói has any affiliation to the city of Brassó*, which is further complicated by the fact that the number of inventors is quite extreme. Therefore I feel no guilt expropriating the dish. 
