Hi Lubos

I lived in Banská Bystrica for 12 years from 1994 to 2006 and since then I’ve been living in China. I’ve decided I want to introduce my Chinese girlfriend to the wonders of Slovak food and that’s how, today, I came across your fantastic site. I’m going to start easy tomorrow and cook some haruľa, then go buy some edam for vyprážaný syr the day after.

However, my question for your is, did you ever eat a Zapekanka from the buffet under the archway on Národná Ulica? It’s been driving me crazy trying to remember how they made it, but to make matters worse, I had a very good friend who used to work there, who sadly I’ve lost touch with.

Hopefully you can help jog my memory and I thank you regardless for your amazing efforts in putting all these recipes together..

Best wishes

Neil

I knew exactly which buffet Neil was talking about! Buffets like these are common throughout Slovakia. One of my favorites in Banská Bystrica (my hometown) is the one outside Starý Prior (meaning “Old Prior”, Prior is a communist-era department store, this one is still in existence). That buffet sells delicious fried dough langoše.

But since it’s been few years since I’ve had zapekanka (roughly meaning something that is baked), I recruited a small army of friends and relatives in Slovakia to find the recipe. I’ve got a bunch of responses (thank you all!) but eventually settled on a recipe from mimibazar that my friend Janka sent in. Another recipe, sent in by my sister, was similar but only had mushrooms – good choice if you are vegetarian.

Ingredients: one small onion, sliced mushrooms (Neil said in his response that oyster mushrooms work the best, I used portobellas), 3 strips bacon, 3 slices of ham, clove of garlic, pinch of caraway seeds, pinch of cayenne pepper, salt, black pepper, bread rolls or rožky, cream cheese, block cheese like edam, colby, or brie, tomato (optional)
Prep Time: about 30 minutes

Peel and finely chop the onion (cibuľa). Fry it on oil along with bacon (slanina) till both start turning yellow. Then add sliced mushrooms (pokrájané hríby), ham (šunka) chunks, salt and pepper, and also a pinch of caraway and red pepper. Also add one clove of garlic (strúčik cesnaku), minced. Cover and let simmer until the mushrooms get soft.

Slice the bread rolls, baguettes, or, even better, home-made rožky, in half and spread cream cheese (syrokrém) on them. Except I didn’t have any so I topped 4 with butter (maslo) and 2 with mayonnaise (majonéza). I also spread horseradish on one of them, just to experiment. Let the mushroom mixture cool off for few minutes and then spoon it onto the bread rolls.

Cover each roll with slices of cheese (syr). I used Colby on 3, Edam on 2, and Brie on 1. I also topped two rolls with sliced tomatoes (paradajky). I figured you can never go wrong with toasted tomatoes. Then toast in the oven until the cheese melts. The recipe said to bake the rolls for 8 minutes, but I figured that broiler would work better, so that’s what I did.

And that’s it, super simple! Top them with ketchup (or tartar sauce) before eating. Enjoy!

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Ingredients: half of head of cabbage, oil, two tablespoons granulated sugar, salt, black pepper, pasta flakes, bacon, caraway, powdered sugar for topping
Prep Time: one hour for the cabbage to cook, 15 minutes to get the noodles ready

Start by shredding the cabbage using a grater. The squeeze out as much liquid as you can, this will keep oil splatter down.

Heat up about quarter cup of oil in a pot and add two tablespoons of sugar. Wait for the sugar to start turning to brown caramel, this will take about 2 minutes.

Then carefully add the cabbage. Doing it like this by hand is probably not the smartest, since the oil will splatter. Be careful not to burn yourself! The cabbage will quickly absorb the oil, and the liquid caramel will also turn into rock chunks. No worry, it will dissolve when you add water. Add just enough water to cover the cabbage, pinch of caraway seeds if you like them (and also black pepper), lower the heat, cover, and let simmer for about an hour, stirring frequently.

When the cabbage starts getting tender, start preparing the noodles. Cook the flakes in a pot of salted water for 10 to 15 minutes. Strain the noodles and mix into the cabbage, which by now should be dry and have all the water evaporated out.

Top the noodles either with bacon bits, or if you like them sweet, with powdered sugar. Enjoy!

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Of course, picking wild mushrooms is a risky business. Not all wild mushrooms are edible. Some just simply taste foul, while others, such as the green amanita, are extremely deadly. Just a small bite of this fungus, and you could be done for.

Mushrooms are also popular part of our culture. It’s not uncommon to find paintings of mushrooms decorating one’s walls, or to even find them on a Christmas tree as ornaments. The red amanita, muchotrávka červená, is often depicted, because it’s so colorful. The word muchotrávka means roughly fly poison, and amanitas are the most common and well known poisonous mushrooms in Slovakia (not all amanitas are poisonous, however).

The edible mushrooms are on the other hand turned into delicious dishes. Bedľa, gilled parasol mushroom that is too often confused with a poisonous amanita, is often breaded and fried like a schnitzel. Mushrooms are also served in scrambled eggs for breakfast, and dried mushrooms go into our winter soups. Mushrooms can also be used for snacks, and here is a recipe for a little snack my grandma Pavka makes. She usually makes it with the summer cep, called dubák or hríb dubový in Slovak, meaning oak mushroom. This mushroom is so called because it often grows near oaks. However, since my grocery store carries really only one kind of fresh mushroom, the white “button mushroom” (šampiňón) and the mature version of the same called Portobello, I made the recipe with baby bellas – the middle age version of this fungus.

Ingredients: mushrooms with concave cap like portobello, bacon
Prep Time: 30 minutes

Start by rinsing off the mushrooms. Then carefully twist off the stems. Save these for later, you can use them for instance with scrambled eggs when making breakfast. Cut a strip of bacon in half, and fold it together accordion style. Place the bacon into the cap. Season with caraway, paprika, salt and pepper.

Bake for about 30 minutes until the bacon gets crisp. If you want to make this into more of a meal, serve the mushrooms with baked potatoes.

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Ingredients: 4 potatoes, 2/3 cups of flour, 1 cup milk, small onion, bacon bits
Prep Time: 30 minutes

Peel and cube several potatoes (zemiaky). While they are cooking, chop one small onion (cibuľa) and few strips of bacon (slanina).

Once the potatoes get soft, strain most of the liquid out into a cup. Add flour and mash everything together. Then add the liquid back. Also add salt to taste.

If the porridge is too thick, add another cup of water or milk. You could also use less flour but then you end up with less porridge…

Bring the porridge (kaša) back to boil while stirring so the potatoes don’t burn your pan. At the same time, fry the onion on small heat. I started by first frying the bacon on small heat to render the fat. After about 5 minutes, I added the onion and also a bit of butter. Cook the porridge until skin forms on top and the porridge starts “puffing” all over the place. Fry the onions until they are crunchy.

Top with the onions and bacon and serve with a glass of milk or kefir. There you have it, Slovakia’s second national dish!

Fučka is one of those foods that surely originated during the times when the pantries were less plentiful than today. It’s a super rich and filling dish (sýte jedlo). You won’t be hungry again for half a day after one bowl like this. If you want to put your family on a little financial diet, try serving this porridge few times a week. You could save some real money!

This porridge doesn’t have to be topped with bacon, or even onions. There are other popular toppings, including bryndza or fried cabbage. Feel free to experiment with whatever you like. And if you don’t know what the number one national dish of Slovakia is, it’s bryndzové halušky. Another popular traditional dishes are bryndza pierogi, and strapačky.

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Nothing that wild here. Instead, below you will find recipe for one of my favorites: potato soup. Since potato soup is somewhat bland in taste, I flavored it with a handful of dried mushrooms and bacon. You can never go wrong with mushrooms and bacon!

Ingredients: 4 cooking potatoes, 6 dried mushrooms, one strip of bacon, pepper, one small onion, 2 tablespoons oil, 2 tablespoons flour, 4 chives, salt, marjoram
Prep Time: Very fast, under 30 minutes.

Start by peeling and cubing the potatoes (zemiaky). Add them to boiling salted water. Use approximately twice as much water as potatoes (in volume). Also add in the dried mushrooms (sušené hríby) and sliced bacon (nakrájaná slanina).

Then grate the onion (nastrúhaj cibuľu). Brown the flour on oil and add the onion. It will soon turn into solid mass. Brown on each side for a minute to let the onions caramelize.

Take the skillet off the heat and add a cup of water to dissolve the onions. Add to the soup.

Then just season to taste with pepper, salt, and marjoram. Also add finely sliced chives or parsley. (note, the soup was not that red, it’s my camera playing tricks on me)

And that’s it. Very simple. Enjoy!

For few other soup options, check out mushroom soup (which is quite similar to this one, but creamier), and soup out of green beans.

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