Preparation: 60 minutes
Cooking time: 120 minutes
Level of difficulty: 3/5
Ingredients (8 servings):
2 kg carp
2 kg mixed small fish
5 large heads of onion
2 large, ripe tomatoes
1 green chili pepper
150 g mangalica (Hungarian breed of domestic pig) lard
100 g sweet ground red pepper
4 tablespoons salt
1 tablespoon ground pepper
about 8 litres of water
For serving:
1 chili pepper, Erős Pista (‘Strong Steve’, popular chili sauce in Hungary made from coarsely minced hot pepper called ‘paprika’ and salt) or dried cascabel chili
Instructions:
Cut off the head and tail of the carp, and cut the trunk into 2 cm thick slices – the latter is kept aside.
Lightly fry 4 finely diced onions in 100 g lard, then add a litre of water and dissolve half of the salt. Put in the cleaned small fish, carp heads and tails, tomatoes and peppers, add enough water to cover them and cook until tender.
When it is ready, remove it from the heat, remove the bones, and then strain the whole mixture.
Fry 1 chopped onion in the remaining lard in the cauldron. Add a litre of water, sprinkle in the red pepper and cook until the colour of the pepper is released. Add the ground pepper and the other half of the salt.
Mix in the strained stock, dilute with water equal to the amount of this stock and then heat it up.
Finally, boil the carp slices in the soup and serve fresh. During this last stage you must not mix the soup, in order not to break the carp horseshoes!
To serve, you can add something spicy: chili pepper, cascabel chili or Erős Pista.
The recipes were written by Ildikó Bezselics-Békési, the culinary author of the book “Ízek, kincsek a varázslatos Szigetközből”, for the mentioned culinary and travel book.
Photo: Luca Pomaranski
