Túrós Csusza (Pasta with Cottage Cheese): A Taste of Hungary

Turos Csusza is the Hungarian version of mac and cheese; pure, indulgent comfort food. Scraps of pasta tossed with creamy cottage cheese and tangy sour cream are then topped with crispy fried bacon - what's not to love? It's pasta, bacon, and cheese! (Skip to recipe.)

Come with me as we head to Hungary (Magyarország) this month for our Eat the World recipe challenge. This beautiful country in the heart of Central Europe has a varied history and rich culture. Stunning castles, onion-domed churches, colourful villages, and sweeping vistas, ancient forests, natural thermal baths, and a pulsing nightlife scene in the capital city of Budapest form just some of the spectacular highlights of Hungary.

And then there's the food. Hungarian cuisine is rich and flavourful, highlighting the flavours of onions, paprika, and sour cream. 8 years ago we visited Hungary, and that trip is still so vivid in my memory. The spectacular parliament building (modeled on the British one), the rickety old subway trains, the beautiful Danube River, the sprawling and elegant old thermal baths, the fabulous Great Market Hall, the Hungarian State Opera House, and all the beautiful old buildings that hearken back to this country's grand heyday during the reign of the Austro-Hungarian empire, with the marks of its sad decline under communist rule and then its valiant rebirth in the years since. This is a country with a complicated story to tell. We walked and walked the paths and streets and parks of this city. We spent an afternoon at the opera, and in the baths. And I took a wonderful market tour and cooking class in the home of the lovely Agnes, where Andreas and I cooked cold cherry soup, chicken paprika, nokedli dumplings, cucumber salad, and cottage cheese filled crepes, all washed down with the local fiery fruit liquor made by Agnes's father. It was a meal to remember.

When looking for a Hungarian recipe to showcase here, I kept being drawn to the humble Túrós Csusza, a beloved pasta dish with cottage cheese, bacon, and sour cream.

 

Like a Hungarian version of mac & cheese, this is the dish served all over the country - the kind of comfort food to quickly feed a family on a busy weeknight, the dish prepared by every type of Hungarian, from the old grandpas living alone to the college students in their small dorm kitchens. It's easy to boil a pot of egg noodles, fry up a bit of bacon, and stir in some cottage cheese and sour cream. That is basically all there is to it. If you're feeling really traditional, you can make fresh pasta from scratch and tear it into scraps to make a pot of túrós csusza as the Magyars (Hungarians) would have made it before the advent of modern dried pasta factories. But using egg noodles is common now, or broken dried pasta works just as well. And tastes just as absolutely comforting and creamy. It's the combination of temperatures in turos csusza that is another trademark of this favourite dish: warm pasta and bacon and melting pockets of cottage cheese and sour cream, with the extra helping of cool cottage cheese and bacon bits piled on top. A simple combination that somehow pulls you in to crave it again and again.

 

How do you whip up Turos Csusza, the Hungarian Mac & Cheese?

1. You can make your pasta from scratch, as is traditionally done, and then dry it and break it into ragged, irregular pieces.
2. You can use a bag of egg noodles, as is often done by Hungarians in a hurry nowadays.
3. Or you can make this easy version by simply breaking up lasagna noodles.

I've found that lasagna noodles make a good stand-in for hand-torn homemade pasta. (And the gluten free version works especially well - just make sure to use the lasagna noodles with the frilled edges; the flat sheets tend to stick together more when cooking.)

Fry up some bacon, cook up the broken noodles, and toss them with the bacon fat, a good dollop of cottage cheese, and a blob of sour cream. Top with some more cottage cheese and the crispy bacon bits, maybe a sprinkle of paprika, and that's it. You've got a delicious pile of turos csusza to dive into.

Oh, yum. Grab a creamy forkful.

I betcha can't stop at just one bite.

There's something so comforting about those silky noodles coated in that creamy, tangy, cheesy sauce. Oh, and the bacon! How could it not be fantastic when there's bacon in it?

Come on, dive in. Since someone's already started us off, we might as well finish off the rest. Yu-um.

* * * * *

Kitchen Frau Notes: The amounts given for the ingredients in this recipe for Túrós csusza are really just a guideline. Cook up some pasta, fry a few slices of bacon, add the pasta to the bacon, and pile on a few generous heaped spoonfuls of cottage cheese and sour cream, then stir it all together and enjoy. That's really all there's to it. That's how the Hungarians would do it. Don't stress about amounts - just make it to taste.

While you're at it, chop up batches of 4 slices of bacon and put them into little sandwich baggies. Spread the bacon bits out flat in the baggie, remove the air and seal them, then pop them all into a larger freezer bag and freeze them. Then you can pull out one little baggie of chopped bacon ready to make Túrós csusza whenever the urge arises - a true 'fast food' you can make at home.

Túrós Csusza (Hungarian Pasta with Cottage Cheese)

• 4 slices (150 g) bacon
• 12 lasagna noodles (1 box/280 g), gluten free if necessary (I like the Tinkyada brown rice pasta) or 10 oz. (280 g) wide egg noodles or other pasta
• 1 cup (250 g) or more cottage cheese (or 1½ cups dry curd cottage cheese), divided
• ½ to ¾ cup (120 - 180 g) sour cream (you'll need about 1 cup/240 g of sour cream if using dry curd cottage cheese)
• salt and pepper to taste
• a pinch of paprika - optional
• sliced green onion or chives - optional

Set a large pot of salted water on to boil (use 1 -2 teaspoons of salt).

Stack the bacon slices on top of each other, cut them in half lengthwise, then cut crosswise to make ½-inch (1cm) dice. Cook the bacon in a large skillet (big enough to hold all the ingredients in later) over medium heat until it is golden-brown and crispy. Use a slotted spoon to remove the bacon bits to a plate and set it aside. Leave the bacon fat in the skillet and turn off the heat.

Break the lasagna noodles into bite-sized chunks (1 to 2 inches in diameter). When the water boils, drop in the pasta shards, stirring continuously while adding them so they don't stick together. Stir them for a minute or two, until the water comes back up to a boil. Cook the noodles for the time suggested on the package, stirring occasionally (if using gluten free noodles, stir often, as they tend to stick together more).

Drain the pasta and add it to the skillet with the bacon fat. Turn the heat under the skillet back on to medium. Season the pasta with salt and pepper to taste.

Add ½ of the cottage cheese, ½ cup of the sour cream, and half the bacon bits to the pasta (use 1 cup of sour cream if using dry curd cottage cheese.) Toss to mix it. Cook the pasta until it is heated through and some of the cottage cheese curds are beginning to melt. Add the remaining ¼ cup of sour cream if the pasta looks a bit dry.

Pile the pasta onto a serving platter, top with the remaining ½ cup of cottage cheese and the remaining bacon bits. Sprinkle with a bit of paprika and the green onions or chives, if desired.

 Turos csusza serves 4 as a side dish, and 2 - 3 as a main course.

Jó étvágyat!

 

Check out all the wonderful Hungarian dishes prepared by fellow Eat the World members and share with #eattheworld. Click here to find out how to join and have fun exploring a country a month in the kitchen with us!

Sneha’s Recipe: Hungarian Beef Goulash
Magical Ingredients: Langos - Hungarian Potato Fry Bread
Sugarlovespices: Hungarian Gerbeaud Cake
Culinary Adventures with Camilla: Lamb Soup With Sour Cream (Palócleves)
Making Miracles: Beef Goulash
A Day in the Life on the Farm: Hungarian Short Ribs
Pandemonium Noshery: Rakott Krumpli - Hungarian Potato Casserole
Kitchen Frau: Túrós Csusza (Pasta with Cottage Cheese)
CulturEatz: Borleves | A Hungarian Christmas Wine Soup
Amy’s Cooking Adventures: Hungarian Braised Short Ribs

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Check out my past ‘Eat the World’ Recipe Challenge posts:

(in alphabetical order)

• Argentina: Red Chimichurri Sauce
• Bangladesh: Chingri Masala (Shrimp Curry)
• Bulgaria: Patatnik (Savoury Potato and Cheese Pie)
• Cambodia: Noum Kong (Cambodian Rice Flour Doughnuts)
• Colombia: Pan de Yuca (Warm Cheese Buns)
• Egypt: Fava Beans and Feta
• England: Gluten Free Fish and Chips and Mushy Peas
• Ethiopia: Four Ethiopian Recipes for a Fantastic Feast
• Fiji: Spiced Sweet Potato and Banana Salad
• Finland: Lohikeitto (Creamy Salmon, Potato, and Dill Soup)
• France: Axoa d’Espelette (A Simple Stew from the Basque Country)
• Georgia: Charkhlis Chogi (Beets with Sour Cherry Sauce)
• India: Kerala Upma (Fluffy, Kerala Style Breakfast Upma Recipe)
• Iraq: Tepsi Baytinijan (Eggplant & Meatball Casserole)
• Ireland: Dublin Coddle (A tasty Sausage and Potato Stew)
• Israel: Cucumber, Feta, and Watermelon Salad
• Jamaica: Rice and Peas (Coconut Rice and Red Beans)
• Kenya: Maharagwe with Ugali (Red Beans with Cornmeal Slice)
• Laos: Ping Gai (Lao Grilled Chicken Wings)
• Mexico: Cochinita Pibil Tacos (Pit Barbecued Pig to Make in Your Oven)
• Netherlands: Boerenkool Stamppot (Kale-Potato Mash with Sausages & Pears)
• New Zealand: Classic Pavlova
• Poland: Polish Honey Cake
• Portugal: Tuna and Sardine Pâtés
• Puerto Rico: Piña Colada Cocktail
• Senegal: Mafé (Beef and Peanut Stew)
• Sweden: Swedish Meatballs with Cream Gravy
• Switzerland (Christmas): Basler Leckerli Cookies
• Thailand: Shrimp Laksa (Khung)
• Trinidad & Tobago: Peanut Butter Prunes
• Ukraine: Buckwheat Kasha with Beef
• United States (Soul Food): Smothered Pork Chops