Local Dishes

1. Gulyásleves

   Goulash soup (a soup, not a stew)

   Usage

   Not the thick stew that "goulash" means abroad. In Hungary gulyás is a soup of beef, onion, paprika, diced potato and csipetke (pinched noodles), eaten with a spoon as a first course. If you want the plated stew, point at pörkölt instead

2. Pörkölt

   Paprika stew of cubed meat (this, not gulyás, is the thick stew)

   Usage

   Cubed meat seared in fat and cooked with paprika and little liquid, served on a plate. No sour cream — adding it makes a different dish, paprikás. Usually comes with nokedli dumplings

3. Paprikás csirke

   Chicken paprikash (with sour cream)

   Usage

   Also written csirkepaprikás; both are correct. The sour-cream finish is what separates it from pörkölt (the version without it is csirkepörkölt). Served with nokedli

4. Halászlé

   Fisherman's soup, a hot paprika river-fish soup

   Usage

   Deep red soup of carp, catfish and other river fish with paprika. Often genuinely hot — ask first if you cannot take chilli. Strongly regional: the Szeged style is always strained, the Baja style is served with pasta

5. Húsleves

   Clear meat and vegetable broth

   Usage

   The clear broth that appears in the soup section of almost every menu, served with thin noodles (cérnametélt) and vegetables

6. Jókai-bableves

   Jókai bean soup with smoked pork

   Usage

   A thick one-course soup of beans, smoked pork hock, sausage and csipetke. The hyphen is part of the correct spelling — it is named after the novelist Mór Jókai

7. Hideg meggyleves

   Chilled sour cherry soup

   Usage

   A summer first course, not a dessert. It is sweet and cold but arrives at the start of the meal. Listed on menus under gyümölcsleves, fruit soups

8. Lecsó

   Stewed peppers and tomatoes

   Usage

   Summer staple of onion, green pepper and tomato. Often available meat-free, but versions with sausage, egg or bacon exist — check if you are vegetarian

9. Töltött káposzta

   Stuffed sour cabbage rolls

   Usage

   Winter dish of sour cabbage leaves rolled around minced pork and rice. Traditional at Christmas and at disznótor pig-slaughter feasts, served with sour cream

10. Töltött paprika

    Stuffed peppers in tomato sauce

    Usage

    Pale peppers filled with minced pork and rice, simmered in a sweetish tomato sauce. A regular on the daily menu of an étkezde canteen

11. Székelykáposzta

    Pork stew cooked with sauerkraut

    Usage

    Pork pörkölt cooked together with sour cabbage and finished with sour cream. Named after the archivist József Székely who is credited with it; the dish itself is not Transylvanian in origin

12. Hortobágyi palacsinta

    Savoury crêpes filled with meat

    Usage

    A savoury palacsinta, not a sweet one. Crêpes rolled around ground pörkölt under a sauce of its broth and sour cream. Listed as an előétel (starter) but filling. Created for the 1958 Brussels World's Fair, not a dish of the Hortobágy region

13. Rántott hús

    Breaded fried pork cutlet

    Usage

    The general term for breaded fried meat, usually pork. Bécsi szelet, Wiener schnitzel, is properly made of veal and is listed separately — if a menu shows both, the meat differs

14. Libamáj

    Goose liver, foie gras

    Usage

    Hungary is one of Europe's main foie gras producers; menus write hízott libamáj (fattened goose liver) or libamájpástétom (pâté). Many travellers avoid it on animal-welfare grounds — check before ordering it for someone else

15. Gyulai kolbász

    Gyula smoked paprika sausage

    Usage

    Pork and hard fat seasoned with paprika, garlic and caraway, smoked over beech. Holds both an EU Protected Geographical Indication and hungarikum status, so the name is restricted to sausage made in Gyula or Békéscsaba. Travels well as a gift

16. Túrós csusza

    Pasta with curd cheese and bacon

    Usage

    A savoury dish, not a sweet one. Flat pasta with túró (fresh curd cheese), sour cream and fried bacon. The sweet version dusted with icing sugar is a different dish

17. Körözött

    Paprika curd-cheese spread

    Usage

    Orange spread of túró with paprika, caraway and onion, eaten on bread or toast as a starter and with wine or beer. Known as Liptauer in German-speaking countries

18. Főzelék

    Thickened vegetable dish served as a main course

    Usage

    A main course, not a side dish. Peas, potato, spinach or squash thickened with a roux, eaten together with a topping (feltét) of meat or egg. The category barely exists outside Hungary, so no translation captures it

19. Nokedli

    Small egg dumplings, spätzle

    Usage

    Side of flour, egg and water pressed through a perforated sheet into boiling water. Almost always served with paprikás and pörkölt. The larger version scraped off a board is called galuska

20. Lángos

    Deep-fried flatbread with sour cream and cheese

    Usage

    Market and lakeside stall staple. Toppings go on after frying, so you choose at the counter: fokhagymás (garlic) or sajtos-tejfölös (cheese and sour cream). Only good straight out of the oil

21. Pogácsa

    Small savoury scone

    Usage

    Small savoury bake eaten instead of bread with soup or taken along on a journey. The classic kinds are tepertős (with pork cracklings) and sajtos (cheese); sweet versions also exist

22. Rétes

    Strudel

    Usage

    Paper-thin pastry rolled around a filling. Standard fillings are túrós (curd cheese), meggyes (sour cherry), almás (apple) and mákos (poppy seed). Same pastry as German Strudel

23. Kürtőskalács

    Chimney cake

    Usage

    Dough wound on a spit, turned over coals until the sugar caramelises into a shiny crust. A registered hungarikum. It comes from Székelyföld in Transylvania and is now sold from stalls on squares everywhere; you choose a walnut, cocoa or cinnamon coating

24. Dobostorta

    Dobos torte, layered cake with a caramel top

    Usage

    Five thin sponge layers with buttercream under a sheet of hard caramel, presented by the confectioner C. József Dobos at the 1885 Budapest exhibition. Written as one word in Hungarian

25. Somlói galuska

    Somló sponge dessert with chocolate sauce and cream

    Usage

    Three kinds of sponge torn up under rum syrup, chocolate sauce and whipped cream, created at the Gundel restaurant in Budapest in the late 1950s. Despite the name galuska it has nothing to do with the dumplings

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