According to our traditions, it's recommended to eat special food for luck on New Year's Day. First of all... any kind of pork meat. If you do this, you can expect a lot of luck during the new year, because the rotund lucky pig (which symbolize wealth and prosperity) is 'rooting forward' (which symbolize progress) while it 'digs the luck out' for you. Another popular food is lentils. The little coin-shaped seeds symbolize money and wealth. for this occasion I love to cook Lencsefőzelék or Hungarian Lentil Stew.
It sounds perfect to me, especially together. So we ate lentil stew with pork on the first day of the year.
Ingredients
- 1 onion
- 1 tbsp lard
- 1 tbsp flour
- 1 heaped tsp sweet paprika powder
- 2 tsp mustard
- Salt, pepper
- 1 can green lentils
- 200 ml double cream
- Cayenne pepper - optional
Instructions
- Fry the finely chopped onion on fat and when it become transparent add the flour.
- When the flour got light golden colour, add the sweet paprika powder, mustard, salt, pepper and the green lentils together with its water. I love how the Cayenne pepper makes the stew spicy, but it's not a necessary ingredient of it.
- Cook it till it thickens, and stir in 200 ml double cream.
- You can serve it with any topping you prefer, I love it with roasted pork knuckle, stew or with a simple fried egg on top or some spicy Hungarian pork sausages, called 'Debreceni'. Our main sausage spices are sweet paprika, garlic, ground caraway seeds, salt and pepper. I cut the sides of the sausages then fried them in 2 tbsp oil.
That's everything! After this great dish, it's time for luck and wealth... :)
Lencsefőzelék - Hungarian Lentil Stew - Photo by © Reka Csulak
