Alison Stewart: This is All Of It on WNYC. I'm Alison Stewart. For our latest installment of food for thought, we thought we'd learn about Hungarian cuisine from the James Beard Award-nominated chef and owner of Agi's Counter right here in Brooklyn. Jeremy Salamon grew up with his grandmother Agi, a Hungarian Jewish woman who came to America after surviving decades of hardship in Europe, from Jewish ghettos during World War II, to the Hungarian uprising of 1956.

Here in the States, one of the ways she connected with her homeland and taught her grandson, Jeremy, about it was through food. Now Jeremy takes on that heritage and adds his own 21st century spin in his new cookbook, Second Generation: Hungarian and Jewish Classics Reimagined for the Modern Table. You'll get your recipes, including paprikash and goulash, and some new innovations and beloved recipes from Agi's Counter, plus a section called remedies, which includes Nana's German chocolate cake and a glass of cognac to end the book. The book is out today. Tomorrow, Jeremy will be speaking at Archestratus in Brooklyn, but right now, he joins me in the studio. Hi, Jeremy.

Jeremy Salamon: Hi. Thanks for having me.

Alison: Listeners, we want to hear from you. What's a Hungarian recipe you grew up eating, cooking, or loving? How do you connect with your Hungarian roots, or maybe you have a question about Hungarian cuisine? You can give us a call, 212-433-9692. That's 212-433-WNYC. You can call or text to us at that number. It looks like your relationships with your grandma Agi and your Nana Arlene helped you develop your love of cooking. What did you learn about food from each of them?

Jeremy: Both my grandmothers were incredibly influential growing up. I grew up literally right in the middle of them geographically. Friday nights at Nana Arlene's and Sunday nights at Grandma, at Nana Agi's. It was a colorful childhood, and I learned to make tablescapes and trussed chicken and make a chocolate cake, but also make a pot of goulash and serve a family of 10 to 12. I learned a lot from them.

Alison: For someone who has never tried Hungarian cuisine, how would you describe it?

Jeremy: Hungarian cuisine, at first glance, or Eastern European cuisine in general can probably come off as a very sauce-heavy, meat-heavy food, which it can be, but if you peel back the layers, you'll find that there's actually a lot of vegetables and fruit and stone fruits involved, and it can be a really beautiful cuisine.

Alison: Are there special spices that are Hungarian food?

Jeremy: Yes. Well, paprika probably comes to mind if you know anything about paprika, but certainly, the one here in the States is not authentic. You have to do your digging to find it.

Alison: Oh, what's real authentic paprika like?

Jeremy: Well, it's got this really deep, robust flavor. It's not just something you sprinkle on top of your mashed potatoes at Thanksgiving. It's got a little bit more flair to it, but you're supposed to actually toast it for maybe 10 seconds right before you add a wined and deglaze the pan. It just really has this earthiness, this pepper earthiness that's really lovely.

Alison: Let's say you were going to buy some paprika in New York, where would you suggest?

Jeremy: While New York City highly recommend Kalustyan's, great spice store-

Alison: Always.

Jeremy: -or SOS Chef down in the East Village, you can also order from Burlap & Barrel online. They ship nationwide.

Alison: First time you went to Hungary is when you were how old?

Jeremy: I was probably about eight or nine when I first went.

Alison: What was that experience like? What did you take in from it?

Jeremy: Looking back, I probably wasn't as aware of what was going on. I knew I had a Hungarian grandmother, although that was very normal to me. I thought that everyone had a Hungarian grandmother. When we traveled to Europe, it was a really cool experience and I got to see family I'd never met before. There was a lot of similarities because I mostly just ate a lot. Since returning many years later, I continue to eat a lot every time I go to Hungary.

Alison: Do you remember what you ate?

Jeremy: It was more paprikash. Lots of meat fats that get smeared on bread with pickles and onions. There would be lots of fruitcakes, things with plum cakes and raspberry cakes and high chocolate cakes. The sweets and the desserts are incredible in Eastern Europe, and specifically in Austria and Hungary. That was a memorable experience.

Alison: Let's take a call. Lori from Ringwood, New Jersey. Hi, Lori. Thanks for calling All Of It.

Lori: Hi. My mom was a first generation Hungarian, and she taught us that we could eat dessert for dinner because she used to make her plum dumplings, which were prune plum which was wrapped in a potato dough and then boiled and then rolled in buttered breadcrumbs. They were just luscious. You can only make them this time of year because you're lucky if you can now find prune plums, which I did yesterday.

Jeremy: There is actually that recipe in the cookbook in the dessert chapter. It's a recipe that my grandma used to make for me as well, and I had to adapt it because that dough can be really tricky, especially, because it's made out of potato. You have to add cornstarch to it. Hopefully, I've done it justice so people can make it more easily now.

Alison: Listeners, we want to hear from you. What's a Hungarian recipe you grew up eating, cooking, or loving? How do you connect with your Hungarian roots, or maybe you have a question about Hungarian cuisine? Maybe you're like, Lori. Give us a call, 212-433-9692, 212-433-WNYC. You can call or text us. Our guest is Jeremy Salamon. His cookbook is Second Generation: Hungarian and Jewish Classics Reimagined for the Modern Table. All right, we already talked about paprika in our pantry. What else should you have in your pantry if you want to cook Hungarian?

Jeremy: If you want to cook Hungarian or Eastern European food, I highly recommend having really good caraway seeds. Also, just as from a chef--

Alison: That's everywhere in the book, by the way, caraway.

Jeremy: Caraway and dill. Dill's a big component at my restaurant, Agi's Counter. Dill everywhere. We call it our glitter. We find it in our underwear and under our nails. Dill and beets, caraway, paprika, sometimes even cumin could be a really wonderful ingredient. Always have some good cognac on hand.

Alison: What does the caraway do?

Jeremy: Well, I think Caraway provides this-- I don't know if you have rye bread. I always love to have caraway in there, but it gives this nuttiness to it and this toasted flavor that I think pairs really well with lots of different items, including sweets. I actually have a recipe for a caraway sugar in the book. That's really wonderful. I think caraway can be expanded not just for savory, but also for sweet.

Alison: Let's talk to Melissa who's calling from the Catskills. Hi, Melissa. Thanks for calling All Of It.

Melissa: Hi, how are you? Thanks for taking my call.

Alison: Sure.

Melissa: So I grew up with my Hungarian grandmother in Buffalo, New York. She and her three sisters were a big part of our lives, and all the food you're talking about, stuffed cabbage and paprikash, we also-- My grandmother baked every day. For us, it was just I grew up in a household where she lived with us, and we had kifli, which were little cinnamon nut cookies. They look like tiny pastry croissants, anything with apricot and sour cherry.

We had a poppy seed roll that she would bake, as well as nokedli, I think I'm pronouncing it right, but a noodle that's grated over hot water and then served in broth. We also grew up knowing that she drank pálinka, which is a spirit in Hungary that I understand from my trips there is distilled in villages. People bring their fruit from their orchards or their backyards and take it to a little rural local distillery and come out with their own Hungarian hooch.

Jeremy: It's like Hungarian moonshine.

Melissa: It's a big part of my-- Yes, exactly. Huge part of my growing up, and I'm really proud of my Hungarian heritage.

Alison: Love it. Thank you so much for calling in. Let's talk to Cheryl from Verona, New Jersey. Hi, Cheryl.

Cheryl: Hi. I wanted to ask about a pastry or a cake. My grandmother's Hungarian and for birthdays, she always used to make this eight or nine-layer cake called the Dobos Torte. I don't want to make it because it looks like too much work, but I want to know where I can buy it in the New York, New Jersey area.

Jeremy: Oh, gosh. Great question. We actually did make it at my restaurant for a little bit. It is a harrowing cake to make in so many layers.

Alison: Oh, no.

Jeremy: I mean, if you make a plain vanilla cake and make really thin layers and just put chocolate frosting, essentially, that's what it is at the end of the day. There is the caramel aspect to it. I would say maybe check out the Hungarian pastry shop on the Upper West Side, and then in the upper 80s, Andrea's. I don't know if it's still around, but they also had Dobosh at one point.

Alison: Good luck with your hunt. Let's talk about some appetizers. Let's talk about the cookbook. You write, "If you told me the most famous dish to come out of my restaurant would be deviled egg, well, it's surprising, but a distinction with pride." What makes deviled eggs so special, and what do your patrons tell you about it?

Jeremy: I think when I started writing the book, the deviled eggs were just-- its star was on the rise and I think it's there, but there are also these other iconic dishes that I feel like now are in that mix. The deviled eggs, they're a party living room treats that are just nostalgic for everybody. These eggs that we make, we cook them to six minutes, so they're a little jammy in the center. Then we boil another set of eggs, and we whip all those eggs up with Kewpie mayo, which is this delicious Japanese mayo. It gets piped on top. We're using the entire egg in two different forms. It's a great dish.

Alison: Here's a text. Hungarian cuisine, please don't forget the importance of the sour cream and whipped cream... on everything.

Jeremy: Totally, sour cream, you can put in literally every braise just as a garnish. Also with some dill and unsweetened whipped cream for all your cakes. Absolutely.

Alison: Let's stay in our appetizers. You said you were terrified of chicken livers when you were little, but chicken livers, they're having a moment.

Jeremy: They are.

Alison: Every fancy restaurant has a chicken liver dish.

Jeremy: Paté, mousse. It's all coming back.

Alison: What changed your mind about chicken livers?

Jeremy: Philadelphia cream cheese. I started whipping it into my mousse, and it just changed the entire dish. That and a lot of onions that get deglazed with port wine can really help it out, but I feel like the chicken liver mousse that we serve at Agi's and that's in the book is like a gateway liver. I guess we can coin that phrase. If you're skeptical about chicken liver mousse, please try this recipe. You will not regret it.

Alison: Let's talk to Holly. She's calling in from Rockland County. Hi, Holly. Thanks for calling All Of It.

Holly: Oh, thank you for taking my call. The recipe that I remember the best from growing up was stuffed cabbage. My grandmother used to make a delicious stuffed cabbage, but unfortunately, my mother never was interested in keeping the recipe. In more recent years, when I've craved it, I decided to try to reverse engineer it. I've come up with some stuffed cabbage that actually tastes exactly like my grandmother's. I know that it couldn't possibly be the same recipe because I use gelled cranberry sauce in it, which I know that she wouldn't have used, but it gives it just the right sweet and sour flavor.

Alison: Thanks for calling in. Page 76 in your book, Jeremy, stuffed cabbage.

Jeremy: Yes.

Alison: Do you have a special spin on it?

Jeremy: No. For the stuffed cabbage, I tried to keep it as close to the heart and home and as authentic as Grandma Agi would have made it. I feel like stuffed cabbage is just one of those dishes. Everybody has their own, and you don't mess with it.

Alison: Gotcha. Now, you spent a lot of time growing up in North Carolina, yes?

Jeremy: Spent a lot of summers in North Carolina.

Alison: Last summer. You have a recipe for Hungarian pimento cheese, which is an interesting mix. How did this recipe come about?

Jeremy: I grew up eating this Hungarian dip known as Körözött. Lots of dots above the o's and the z's and the t's. It's a fresh cheese with toasted caraway and minced onion and sometimes a little paprika. Everyone makes it slightly different. You have it with bread and crackers and crudités. When I had it, I remember thinking to myself, this would be really cool if I mashed it up with pimento cheese, which I love, like a pimento cheese sandwich. Pimento cheese is cream cheese and cheddar cheese and peppers. I added hot paprika, sweet paprika, and just made my own second-generation version of that. It's a great dish that you can also stuff into squash blossoms, which I use later on in the book.

Alison: Let's talk to Kuldip. Hi, Kuldip. Thanks so much for calling in.

Kuldip: Hello, Alison?

Alison: Hello.

Kuldip: Good morning. Hi. I'm calling from India. I went to school for my graduate studies in Nova Scotia, Canada, and my professor was Hungarian, Professor Michael Mazze. I also had a friend in [unintelligible 00:15:05]. If I remember, it was in '80s, long time ago. They would feed us something. I think it was called goulash. I want the author of this book to please elaborate and remind me how to make it.

Alison: Thank you so much for calling from India. Tell us about goulash.

Jeremy: Well, I make mine a little differently in the book. I use short ribs, which are really tender meat, but you can use any beef chuck. As long as you've got onions, chicken stock, paprika, you've got yourself goulash. Some people add tomato products, tomato paste or canned tomato, but that's baseline goulash. Then you can throw your own. I love to throw a bunch of herbs on it because it is such a heavy dish. Having an herb salad accompany it is definitely a second-generation approach to it.

Alison: Is that the American approach?

Jeremy: That's the American approach, yes. To do the traditional Hungarian would just be searing off just chuck meat, lots of onions, having a really good beef stock or chicken stock, and paprika.

Alison: Jeremy Salamon, he's written a cookbook called Second Generation: Hungarian and Jewish Classics Reimagined for the Modern Table. We want to hear about your favorite Hungarian recipe that you eat or that you just love. 212-433-9692, 212-433-WNYC. When we come back, we'll talk soups and stews.

[music]

You're listening to All Of It on WNYC. I'm Alison Stewart. I'm speaking with Jerry Salamon, chef and owner of Agi's Counter in Brooklyn. His new cookbook, Second Generation: Hungarian and Jewish Classics Reimagined for the Modern Table, is out today. I said we'd get onto soups and stews. Your borscht recipe is chilled with buttermilk. Some people like it hot. Why do you like your borscht cold?

Jeremy: I think beets lend itself really well to cold applications and gives off this nice fruity and sweetness from it. I think combined with the buttermilk and also shallots and aromatics, it just makes for a really refreshing, almost like a smoothie or drink if you would, in the spring and summertime.

Alison: You also have a recipe in here for a sour cherry soup. Is this sweet? Is this savory? What is the soup like?

Jeremy: It's a little bit of both, but it's mostly sweet. It can be used as a dessert. It could be used as a mid-course meal. You can start off a meal with it. It's really whatever you make of it. Sour cherry soup, very popular in Hungary because cherries just go rampant.

Alison: What is the Hungarian name for that?

Jeremy: Meggyleves.

Alison: Meggyleves.

Jeremy: Yes. Everything sounds like you have peanut butter stuck to the roof of your mouth, just a little bit.

Alison: Well, you know what's interesting in the book, there's little handwritten notes from you at the bottom of the page about, take this out of the refrigerator 30 minutes early, or this might be good if you made it this way. Why do you have the little handwritten notes?

Jeremy: My grandmother Arlene, my American grandmother, she would used to rip out magazine recipes or newspaper clippings. When I was in school or camp, she used to send them to me and write these notes on it being like, you should make this or do it this way. I wanted to incorporate that aspect because I want to be a little voice of reason, like, explore, do something different, try this, remind you to do that.

Alison: Here's our last soup we're going to talk about, not soup. You wrote, "This is a soup that doesn't exist from a town that doesn't exist." What do you mean?

Jeremy: My boyfriend, Michael, and I had gone to Hungary. It's a very long story, but the little synopsis is that our car broke down in a sunflower field. We wound up being had to go to a little town nearby to have some Ukrainian cigarette smugglers help us fix the car. We traded a Dobosh tort that we had in the backseat for helping them.

Alison: As everyone does.

Jeremy: We finally got to this town that felt like it just was this magical, cute town that seems like it came out of nowhere. We stayed at a bed and breakfast, and we were made this soup called not soup. Essentially, that's what it translates to. I have asked Hungarians far and wide, it does not exist. No one has any recollection of it, so I think it was a recipe that someone's grandmother told somebody else. It was a game of telephone, essentially.

Alison: Let's see. We got a text that says, "Oh, we use at least twice the sour cream in a recipe from a US cookbook." That's funny. "You had me at short ribs and chicken liver mousse buying your book." Let's talk to Cynthia from Fanwood. Hi, Cynthia. Thanks for calling up.

Cynthia: Hi. Thanks for having me on. [unintelligible 00:20:15]. How are you?

Jeremy: I'm doing well. Thank you.

Cynthia: I am first generation American, and I was taught to cook by my grandmother who came from Hungary. She was from a place called Győr, which is in the northwest portion of Hungary, not far from Vienna. She was an excellent cook, well known by our whole family for her wonderful cooking and also her wonderful baking. She made a soup that I don't know if you've ever heard of. It's called cauliflower soup. Have you ever had this one?

Jeremy: Yes. My grandmother used to make it as well. It had more paprika in it as well, and onions. It's a simple soup, but it's really delicious.

Alison: Cynthia also mentioned that she wanted to hear about Hungarian cream cake. Do you know [unintelligible 00:21:14].

Jeremy: The krémes, which maybe she's referring to. It's in Hungary. They're really thick slices of essentially cream, solidified. It's a custard. It could be a mile high, and then it's sandwiched between two flaky layers of dough and powdered sugar. Anyone would love it.

Alison: We're going to move on to some other meals. There's a Hungarian pasta. Somebody mentioned it earlier. They said it and I didn't know how to pronounce it. N-O-K-E-D-L-I.

Jeremy: Nokedli.

Alison: Thank you. Tell us about the pasta.

Jeremy: Nokedli is a graded dumpling. They're like little teardrops. You can make it at home through a perforated pan set over boiling water. You just take a paddle and you scrape the dough into the boiling water. It's traditionally served with a meat or a stew. I think they're really wonderful just like in a very good chicken broth with a little bit of butter in it, and then finished showered in dill. It's actually a dish that became really popular in the fall and winter time at Agi's Counter. I include it in the book as well.

Alison: Let's talk about the cakes. That chocolate cake blew my mind. Tell me about the chocolate cake.

Jeremy: The Rigójancsi I think you're referring to. There's two items that have chocolate.

Alison: Second to last. The second to last with the cognac. Hold on, we're looking.

Jeremy: Oh, the German chocolate cake.

Alison: Yes.

Jeremy: That is Nana Arlene's recipe. It's in the remedy section. That was a very nostalgic cake for me. It was there for my family and I in the best of times and the worst of times. She called it German chocolate cake because of the chocolate that was used was actually called German chocolate. I grew up most of my life thinking that German chocolate cake-- I didn't know that actual German chocolate cake had coconut on it. I just learned that a couple years ago. It just makes the house smell so good. It's a really wonderful cake.

Alison: You have a recipe for what you call the Betty Crocker of Hungarian cakes.

Jeremy: Yes.

Alison: I don't know how to pronounce it.

Jeremy: Can you show me?

Alison: Gerbeaud. Is that it?

Jeremy: Gerbeaud, yes. The Gerbeaud, it's almost like a cookie. Everybody makes their version of it, but essentially, it is a cake like cookie dough. It's this hybrid with-- it sometimes has walnuts in the center of it, and then it's finished with a chocolate ganache on top, and it freezes really well. You can make big batches of them for parties. It's a good dish.

Alison: Let's talk to Franziska from Norwalk. Hi, Franziska. You're calling about something that many people have texted us about. Go for it.

Franziska: Well, I feel lucky that I get to talk about it. Túrós csusza or túrós teszta, which is Hungarian comfort food. Is that in the cookbook?

Jeremy: I don't believe it is. I'm wondering if it's some-- Is it a pasta with the cottage cheese and the bacon? Is that what you're referring to?

Franziska: Oh, yes.

Jeremy: Oh, I got it.

Franziska: Farmer's cheese here. My mom adapted it for American life, so we used cottage cheese or farmer's cheese if we could get it, Jarlsberg cheese. It's made with bacon and big old wide noodles. We don't eat it too often in our house, but whenever we bust that recipe out, everybody's very happy.

Alison: Love that. Thank you so much for calling. All right, you know I'm going to ask you, do you have a favorite recipe in here, one that you knew that had to be in the book? How about that?

Jeremy: I feel like it changes every day, but I feel like some of my favorite recipes would actually be the chilled borscht, I really do. I do love a glass of chilled borscht. I love the chicken liver mousse. I also think that the caraway Caesar is a recipe that I hold near and dear to my heart because I love a Caesar salad. Also, the caraway thimbles in the dessert section, which are a fried doughnut. Essentially, they get dusted with caraway sugar.

Alison: The name of the book is Second Generation: Hungarian and Jewish Classics Reimagined for the Modern Table. It is out today. My guest has been Jeremy Salamon. Thanks so much for sharing the story with us.

Jeremy: Thanks for having me.

 

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