Lángos and other street food – in Hungary

If you’re visiting Budapest, you might be looking for a cheap and tasty snack that’s typically Hungarian. look no further than Lángos, pronounced Lang-gosh (I’m sure the Hungarian speakers out there will correct me).

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We ate Lángos on a couple of occasions, once from a booth on the top floor of the Central Market in Budapest, which I recommend as a place for inexpensive food at lunch time. On another day we tried this typical Hungarian snack from the cafe at the Palatine Strand baths on Margaret island, along with six plates of chicken livers (but that’s another story!)

What is Lángos?

Lángos is somewhere between a doughnut and a pancake, made from a yeasty dough that’s rolled into balls then flattened by slamming from hand to hand. We watched this being done in the Budapest Central Market.

The flattened pancake is then deep fried in hot oil so that it puffs up and is served with your choice of savoury or sweet toppings. The topping  with sour cream and grated cheese is one of the most popular and is called sajtos tejfölös, sajtos being cheese and tejfölos being sour cream.

Kürtős Kalács – another Hungarian street food

Another Hungarian speciality you might come across sold as a street food is the Kürtős Kalács. We saw some at the Hungarian Arts and Crafts Festival in August, amongst other places.

It’s a milk-dough that is rolled into strips that are then wound around a metal cylinder and toasted over an open fire, just like you might do when camping.

The name comes from the funnel inside a chimney that it resembles once it’s taken off the metal spit. When it’s cooked it is generally rolled in sugar and cinnamon and sometimes nuts. Then you can pick strips off the roll to eat – great for a family to share.

Thanks to a Hungarian friend for filling me in on these little details. All I know is that they were fun and tasty to eat!

While visiting Budapest we stayed at Park Plaza Budapest.

More Hungarian Experiences

My Top 10 sights in Budapest with the help of the Eyewitness Guide from Dorling Kindersley
The Festetics Palace and the marzipan museum at Keszthely – in Hungary
Sour cherry soup at Salföld in Hungary

This article is originally published at Heatheronhertravels.com

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