Lángos - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Lángos (ˈlaːŋɡoʃ) is a Hungarian

Hungary

Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...

food speciality, a deep fried flat bread

Flatbread

A flatbread is a simple bread made with flour, water, and salt and then thoroughly rolled into flattened dough. Many flatbreads are unleavened: made without yeast or sourdough culture: although some flatbread is made with yeast, such as pita bread....

made of a dough with flour

Flour

Flour is a powder which is made by grinding cereal grains, other seeds or roots . It is the main ingredient of bread, which is a staple food for many cultures, making the availability of adequate supplies of flour a major economic and political issue at various times throughout history...

, yeast

Yeast

Yeasts are eukaryotic micro-organisms classified in the kingdom Fungi, with 1,500 species currently described estimated to be only 1% of all fungal species. Most reproduce asexually by mitosis, and many do so by an asymmetric division process called budding...

, salt

Salt

In chemistry, salts are ionic compounds that result from the neutralization reaction of an acid and a base. They are composed of cations and anions so that the product is electrically neutral...

and water.

Variations

Lángos can be made with yoghurt, sour cream or milk instead of water, a dash of sugar along with salt and sometimes with flour and boiled mashed potato

Potato

The potato is a starchy, tuberous crop from the perennial Solanum tuberosum of the Solanaceae family . The word potato may refer to the plant itself as well as the edible tuber. In the region of the Andes, there are some other closely related cultivated potato species...

es, which is called Potato Lángos (in Hungarian Krumplis lángos or Krumplislángos). It is eaten fresh and warm, topped with sour cream and grated cheese, or Liptauer

Liptauer

Liptauer is a spicy cheese spread made with sheep milk cheese, goat's milk cheese, quark cheese or cottage cheese. It is a part of Slovak cuisine , Hungarian cuisine , Austrian cuisine and Italian cuisine...

, ham, or sausages, rubbed with garlic

Garlic

Allium sativum, commonly known as garlic, is a species in the onion genus, Allium. Its close relatives include the onion, shallot, leek, chive, and rakkyo. Dating back over 6,000 years, garlic is native to central Asia, and has long been a staple in the Mediterranean region, as well as a frequent...

or garlic butter, or doused with garlic water. Other ingredients and accompaniments can be mushroom, quark cheese, eggplant, cabbage, kefir, omelet, a confectioners' sugar, or jam.

Lángos may be cooked at home or bought from street vendors.

Traditionally lángos was baked in the front of the brick oven, close to the flames. It was made from bread dough and was served as breakfast on the days when new bread was baked. Now that people no longer have brick ovens and do not bake bread at home, lángos is virtually always fried in oil.

Lángos is sold at many fast-food restaurants not only in Hungary

Hungary

but also in Austria. In Austria, especially in Vienna, lángos is very popular as a fast food at fairs and in amusement parks like the Prater

Prater

The Wiener Prater is a large public park in Vienna's 2nd district . The amusement park, often simply called "Prater", stands in one corner of the Wiener Prater and includes the .-Name:...

. Lángos is known in the Czech Republic

Czech Republic

The Czech Republic is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The country is bordered by Poland to the northeast, Slovakia to the east, Austria to the south, and Germany to the west and northwest....

, Slovakia

Slovakia

The Slovak Republic is a landlocked state in Central Europe. It has a population of over five million and an area of about . Slovakia is bordered by the Czech Republic and Austria to the west, Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east and Hungary to the south...

and Croatia

Croatia

Croatia , officially the Republic of Croatia , is a unitary democratic parliamentary republic in Europe at the crossroads of the Mitteleuropa, the Balkans, and the Mediterranean. Its capital and largest city is Zagreb. The country is divided into 20 counties and the city of Zagreb. Croatia covers ...

as langoš, in Serbia

Serbia

Serbia , officially the Republic of Serbia , is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeast Europe, covering the southern part of the Carpathian basin and the central part of the Balkans...

as languš (although it is commonly called "Mekike"). It is also popular in Romania

Romania

Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...

.

Lángos is very similar to a version of frybread

Frybread

Frybread is a Native American food found throughout the United States. Frybread is a flat dough fried or deep-fried in oil, shortening, or lard. The dough is generally leavened by yeast or baking powder....

made by the American Indians

Indigenous peoples of the Americas

The indigenous peoples of the Americas are the pre-Columbian inhabitants of North and South America, their descendants and other ethnic groups who are identified with those peoples. Indigenous peoples are known in Canada as Aboriginal peoples, and in the United States as Native Americans...

.

Boortsog, boorsoq, or baursak ( bɑwərsɑ́q, boːrsóq, ˈpɔːrtsʰəq, , bɒʁɨrsɒ́q, busrɒ́q ,) is a type of fried dough found in the cuisines of Central Asia

Central Asia

Central Asia is a core region of the Asian continent from the Caspian Sea in the west, China in the east, Afghanistan in the south, and Russia in the north...

, Idel-Ural

Idel-Ural

Idel-Ural is a historical region in Eastern Europe, in what is today Russia. The name literally means Volga-Urals in the Tatar language. The frequently used Russian variant is Volgo-Uralye...

, and Mongolia

Mongolia

Mongolia is a landlocked country in East and Central Asia. It is bordered by Russia to the north and China to the south, east and west. Although Mongolia does not share a border with Kazakhstan, its western-most point is only from Kazakhstan's eastern tip. Ulan Bator, the capital and largest...

, being an "authentic example" of Mongolian cuisine. They may be thought of as cookies or biscuits, and since they are fried, they are sometimes compared to doughnuts.

Mekitsa is a traditional Bulgaria

Bulgaria

Bulgaria , officially the Republic of Bulgaria , is a parliamentary democracy within a unitary constitutional republic in Southeast Europe. The country borders Romania to the north, Serbia and Macedonia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south, as well as the Black Sea to the east...

n dish made of kneaded dough made with yoghurt

Yoghurt

Yoghurt, yogurt or yogourt is a dairy product produced by bacterial fermentation of milk. The bacteria used to make yoghurt are known as "yoghurt cultures"...

that is deep fried. They are made with flour, eggs, yoghurt, a leavening agent, water, salt, and oil, and are traditionally served with jam or white cheese (sirene

Sirene

Sirene/ Sirenje or known as "white brine sirene" .Salads: Shopska salad with tomatoes, bell peppers, cucumbers, onions and sirene. Ovcharska salad with the above mentioned vegetables, cheese, ham, boiled eggs and olives. Tomatoes with sirene is a traditional light salad during the summer.Eggs:...

). At breakfast, they are eaten with sugar or honey, and can also be eaten with yoghurt. They are similar to Hungarian lángos

Lángos

Lángos is a Hungarian food speciality, a deep fried flat bread made of a dough with flour, yeast, salt and water.-Variations:Lángos can be made with yoghurt, sour cream or milk instead of water, a dash of sugar along with salt and sometimes with flour and boiled mashed potatoes, which is called...

.

Mekitsa is conventionally a breakfast

Breakfast

Breakfast is the first meal taken after rising from a night's sleep, most often eaten in the early morning before undertaking the day's work...

dish and is inherently similar to Hungarian

Hungary

lángos

Lángos

.

Baursaki are a variety of doughnut

Doughnut

A doughnut or donut is a fried dough food and is popular in many countries and prepared in various forms as a sweet snack that can be homemade or purchased in bakeries, supermarkets, food stalls, and franchised specialty outlets...

-like pastry from Kazakhstan

Kazakhstan

Kazakhstan , officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a transcontinental country in Central Asia and Eastern Europe. Ranked as the ninth largest country in the world, it is also the world's largest landlocked country; its territory of is greater than Western Europe...

. They consist of fried dough, and are shaped into either spheres or triangles. The dough consists of flour, yeast, milk, eggs, margarine, salt, sugar, and fat. Baursaki is often eaten alongside Chorba.

Etymology

The name comes from láng, the Hungarian

Hungarian language

Hungarian is a Uralic language, part of the Ugric group. With some 14 million speakers, it is one of the most widely spoken non-Indo-European languages in Europe....

word for flame

Flame

A flame is the visible , gaseous part of a fire. It is caused by a highly exothermic reaction taking place in a thin zone...

.

The early-15th-century Glossary of Beszterce, the most ancient currently known Hungarian “dictionary,” reveals that the ultimate ancestor of flat breads was the panis focacius attributed to the Romans (of which derives also the Italian flat bread called focaccia

Focaccia

Focaccia is a flat oven-baked Italian bread, which may be topped with herbs or other ingredients. It is related to pizza, but not considered to be the same....

).
In ancient

Ancient Rome

Ancient Rome was a thriving civilization that grew on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 8th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea and centered on the city of Rome, it expanded to one of the largest empires in the ancient world....

Rome

Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...

, panis focacius was a flat bread baked in the ashes of the fireplace (cf. Latin focus meaning “fireplace”). However, the modern lángos, despite its name, is not prepared near an open flame but rather by deep-fat frying, and among Hungarian foods it is instead the pogácsa
Pogácsa
Pogácsa is a type of savory scone in Hungarian cuisine. It is also popularly eaten in nearby Slovakia, where it is known as pagáč. The Hungarian word derives ultimately from the Latin panis focacius, i.e. bread baked on the hearth or fireplace , via the Italian focaccia and, more directly, south...

which preserves the connection, both etymological and culinary, to the ancient panis focacius.

Variations

Etymology

See also