24.1.10

CURD CHEESE BUNDLE - TÚRÓS BATYU

Aaah the quintessential túró! I could have experimented with cream cheese and dry cottage cheese combinations, but there are recipes worthy of túró... and surely this happens to be one of them. 

My paternal grandmother often made curd cheese bundles on Thursdays. Meanwhile my poor mom was relegated to menial tasks in her own kitchen. I remember Nagymama came home unexpectedly one time from one of her annual visits to Siklós. She was mortally wounded, [it happened more than once] because she met her match in her "other" daughter in-law. She didn't know yet but another heartbreak was waiting for her in Budapest; mom's perfect curd cheese bundles! "Olga, alig tudok magamhoz térni hogy te igy tudsz sütni!" [Olga, I can barely recover you can bake like this!] It was not known but my mother was a great cook except the kitchen was her mother in-law's domain. Nearly every family I knew back then was multi generational. Adult children were forced to live with their parents or in-laws. I watched my mother and my grandmother juggling for power and felt sorry for them both. What caused all that? Hungary being on the loosing side following two world wars and the lengthy Russian occupation; the lack of housing and the lack of livable pensions were some of the reasons. There were cultural pressures as well, but those were far too complex to go into. Suffice to say I couldn't have been more than ten when I decided this was not the type of adulthood I envisioned and hell or high water I will leave Hungary.

CURD CHEESE BUNDLE
Pastry:
2-1/2 cups flour
4 Tbsp sugar
1/3 tsp salt
1/4 cup butter
2 Tbsp instant yeast
1 egg
1/2 cup milk
Filling:
1 cup túró
1 egg yolk
2 Tbsp sugar
1 pkg. vanilla sugar
1 Tbsp farina
grated zest of 1/2 lemon
powdered sugar

• In a bowl crumble together flour sugar, salt and butter to a fine meal.
• Stir in the yeast.
• Add the egg and the milk and kneed the dough until elastic.
• Cover and let rise until doubled.
• On floured board roll out dough and cut into 12 rectangles.
• In a bowl combine the túró, egg yolk, sugar, vanilla sugar and farina.
• Stir in the lemon zest.
• Spoon the túró mixture on top of the rectangles.
• Pinch together the opposite corners and twist the top to seal in the filling.
• Line a rectangular baking pan with parchment paper.
• Lightly grease or spray with cooking spray.
• Arrange bundles in the pan.
• Brush the tops with egg yolk and set aside to rise.
• When bundles doubled in size bake at 375F for 25 minutes or until golden brown.
• Sift with powdered sugar and serve.

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It began with posting a few recipes on line for the family. "zsuzsa is in the kitchen" has more than 1000 Hungarian and International recipes. What started out as a private project turned into a well visited blog. The number of visitors long passed the two million mark. I organized the recipes into an on-line cookbook. On top of the page click on "ZSUZSA'S COOKBOOK". From there click on any of the chapters to access the recipes. For the archive just scroll to the bottom of the page. I am not profiting from my blog, so visitors are not harassed with advertising or flashy gadgets. The recipes are not broken up with photos at every step. Where needed the photos are placed following the recipe. Feel free to cut and paste my recipes for your own use. Publication is permitted as long as it is in your own words and with your own photographs. However, I would ask you for an acknowledgement and link-back to my blog. Happy cooking!