The Krauts are Hungary’s Germanic people, their ethnic traditions, including the food is distinct and yet part of Hungary’s heritage. There are Hungarian ultra nationalists that would disagree with this statement, but I would send them to my Sváb aunt down to Siklós to ask her if she thinks she was Hungarian or not. I have a feeling they would sure get a good talking to, Ugyan már miket beszélsz össze fiam? – she would say. True she is my aunt by marriage, but a few years ago when my brothers assembled our family tree, I noticed quite a few Germanic names among my blood relations going back a few hundred years. I have Slav, Székely and probably Jewish blood flowing in my veins and I embrace them all. These days I am thankful to God for bringing me to Canada, where I fit in with so much comfort. And as much as my ultra nationalist relatives prefer to overlook, our family is not only Magyar, we are in fact descendents of several ethnic cultures as I suspect most people in current day Hungary are.
OK, before I begin to cry, I should move on to the strudli. As the name says it, strudli is a Sváb or Kraut dish, and throughout Hungary where pockets of Sváb groups live, they hold annual strudli festivals. Naturally, there are many recipes and each one is authentic to the person who makes it. The fillings can be savoury, mostly potato or cabbage and sometimes sweet with a túró or jam filling. Since I just made jam a couple of days ago, I made a jam strudli. For potato filling I have a recipe here and for túró I have a similar sweet ricotta filling here.
KRAUT STRUDLI
Strudli Dough:1-1/2 cups flour
2 eggs
2 Tbsp butter
1/2 cup 14% sour cream
sprinkling of salt
filling of choice [I used jam]
1 l vegetable oil for deep frying [approximate amount]
• If you fill the strudli with potatoes, make the potato filling first.
• The túró filling can be prepared while the strudli dough rests.
• Combine the strudli dough ingredients and kneed until very, very elastic. A beater with a dough hook attachment makes this a breeze.
• Let the dough rest for 15 minutes.
• On a well floured board roll out the dough to 2 mm thickness. The dough will be sticky, so keep flouring the rolling pin and make sure the dough is not sticking to the board.
• Cut the rolled out dough into 3X3 inch squares with a pizza cutter.
• Place 1 tsp of filling in the middle.
• Fold the dough over and press around the edges to seal the dough. Take care with the jam filled packets so they won’t open up during frying.
• Place vegetable oil in a pot. The oil should come up 1-1/2 inch in the pot. The amount of oil will vary depending on the size of the pot you use.
• Heat up the oil for deep frying and one by one slide 4-5 strudli into the oil.
• Gently flip strudli over with a fork and be mindful not to puncture the dough.
• When the first batch of strudli looks as if almost ready to come out of the oil, one by one slide in a few more strudli and then quickly scoop out the finished strudli with a large slotted spoon. Add a couple of more strudli to the oil and continue frying in this fashion until all the strudli is fried. The reason for this is if you take out all the strudli, the oil will heat up too high and by the time, you slide in the next batch it will just burn.
• Place the golden fried strudli on paper towels and serve.
