Tomato and cabbage főzelék

Főzelek is the generic Hungarian term for a vegetable stew that has been blended with a flour-based cream called mártás. You can make főzelék with a lot of different vegetables, especially green ones like spinach, runner beans, peas, and sorrel, but also carrot, kale, potatoes, and cabbage. Not surprisingly, our favourite is the one with tomato as a main ingredient, the semi-unpronounceable paradicsomos káposzta.

Hungarians are meat lovers, so főzeléks are almost always accompanied with a serving of meat; in our opinion, however, this cabbage and tomato dish is nutritious enough to work as a healthy lunch on its own.

INGREDIENTS

PREPARATION

PREPARE YOUR INGREDIENTS

• Wash the cabbage and remove the outer leaves.
• Shred the cabbage; to do this, place the head on a chopping board and cut it vertically through the core, then repeat for each half; remove the core with a knife and slice each wedge, again vertically, to obtain long shreds.
• Chop the onion in strips roughly the same size as the cabbage shreds.
• Prepare a tomato puree from scratch or use a ready-made solution.

COOK THE CABBAGE

• Place the shredded cabbage and the onion in a pot with a glass (250 ml) of water.
• Add salt; you may need as much as a tablespoon.
• Cover and bring to the boil for 5 minutes.
• Lower the heat to medium and cook for 30 minutes or until the cabbage has become tender.
• Add the tomato puree, raise the heat, and simmer for 5 minutes.

PREPARE THE MÁRTÁS

You can start preparing the velvety flour cream that gives főzelék its distinctive consistence after you have added the tomato sauce to the cabbage.

• Pour three tablespoons of olive oil and two tablespoons of flour into a small pan.
• Raise the heat for 3 minutes or until the mix has taken on a golden hue; stir to prevent the mártás from sticking to the bottom of the pan.
• Add a glass of cold water while whisking vigorously to prevent the formation of lumps; a glass is roughly the amount you’ll need, but you can also mix the mártás under running water. The picture below shows the consistency you should be aiming for. 
• Place a couple of ladlefuls of the cabbage and tomato stew into the pan with the mártás while you keep stirring; this will help blend the ingredients, keeping your paradicsomos káposzta lump-free.
• Tip the contents of the smaller pan into the pot with the remainder of the káposzta and finish blending the ingredients.
• Cook for 15 minutes.

*Note*

Hungarians sometimes replace olive oil with pork or duck fat for a more flavourful, if perhaps less healthy, főzelék.

PAIR & SERVE

Serve your plate

Paradicsomos káposzta is often served as a side dish to roast pork with gravy or sausages. We opted for the latter, and specifically a trio of red sausage (kolbasz), Hungarian black pudding (véres hurka) and liverwurst (májas hurka) which we washed down with a Cabernet Franc from the Villány wine region.

Pair it with a red wine

Hungary produces great wines, and you can pair your tomato cabbage with a medium to full-bodied red that flatters both the intensity of the meat and the slightly sweet flavor of the vegetable stew.

• Enjoy your paradicsomos káposzta with a Cabernet Franc, like we did; if you prefer something lighter you can try a Portugieser (which has nothing to do with Portugal, by the way) from the Bock or Gere estates, both of which produce great wines almost without fail.
• If your wine shop doesn’t stock Hungarian wine you could go for a Merlot. This would be our first choice due to its dark berry aromas, balanced tannin and moderate acidity.
• You can also enjoy your paradicsomos káposzta with a good old pint of lager, maybe a Dreher or Soproni if ​​you want to be 100% authentic.

ENJOY!