"A Summer Stew"
This dish takes me back into a part of my history that feels almost dreamlike. It takes me to the tiny kitchen of an artists house in Tatabanya (a small city built around a mine, about an hour away from Budapest). I had gone with my friend Tibi to meet his father, look at some art and accept some hospitality (my friends mother was also in the house but she was asleep on the sofa after having worked in the hospital for more than eighteen hours) I remember the small kitchen, not being allowed to cut the tomatoes or peppers, the smell of the paprika and caraway. I remember Tibi's dad shouting at the excess of liquid in the pot then laughing at me trying to figure out what was wrong (we didn't share a language). It was the kind of good natured chaos that made me feel at home.
Ingredients
- Hungarian wax peppers (not the red ones, not the green ones, if you cant get the pale ones don't bother making this it will be too sweet and cloying I've put a picture below you can often get these most easily in Turkish supermarkets in the UK)
- Tomatoes (you want fully ripe summer tomatoes, I wouldn't dream of making this in any season but the summer, dont be tempted to use cherry tomatoes again this would be too sweet)
- Onions (no special pleas or shopping instructions for this one)
- Garlic (not to much)
- Sweet Paprika (preferably from Szeged)
- Caraway seed
- Salt
- Oil
- Chop the peppers and tomatoes into fairly large chunks (not to small because then they will break up too much but also not big enough to be a pain to eat) and roughly dice the onion.
- Start by sautéing onions in oil until they just begin to turn translucent.
- Add a teaspoon of caraway seeds and cook briefly until fragrant, then add a heap of paprika and allow it to bloom briefly before adding the tomatoes and peppers and stirring.
- Put the lid on and cook on low, let the tomatoes release their juices.
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