International Pizza Pie Incident: Lángos, aka Hungarian Pizza, Three Ways

 Because a little tiny bit of fried pizza never hurt anyone ...

Welcome to the second International Incident Party, in which food bloggers from around the world put their own spin on a different dish each month. For April, we celebrate the birthday of the Incident Crew's founding member, Penny aka Jeroxie, with variations on the theme of pizza pie. (For full details and info on how to participate, check out her post about it here.)  

I must admit that when pizza was announced as the theme, I initially felt a bit stymied. You see, though in general I don't tend to be overly didactic or rules-y about cuisine, pizza, to me, is a simple and beautiful thing. It's a plain New York-style pie, with no toppings other than a modest amount of mozzarella cheese, maybe a bit of fresh basil,  and that beautiful, tangy tomato sauce. That's how I always used to order it in Brooklyn, and that's how I make it at home.

I wanted to  break out of my own pizza preconceptions and go a completely different route for this party, but what to do? Well, my quandary was instantly obliterated during my trip to Budapest, where I tasted the delectable lángos, otherwise known as ... Hungarian pizza! Bingo.
I made three different types: Two are closely modeled after lángos I had in Budapest, and the third is a dessert lángos of my own creation, inspired by the fig torte I had at the Cafe Gerbeaud. But before we get to the toppings, first things first - let's talk about dough.

I put this recipe together from several I found online. My biggest deviation from the standard lángos recipe is that I didn't deep fry my dough in lard!  I actually tried a few methods, as you'll see. The recipe makes enough for 4 lángos,  and you can refrigerate the extra overnight.

Lángos  Dough

1.5 cups of potato, boiled, peeled, mashed, and cooled

2.5 tsp instant yeast

1 tsp sugar

1 3/4 cups AP flour

1 tbsp veggie oil

3/4 tsp salt

1/2 cup milk

Warm the milk to about 100 degrees F & mix with the yeast & sugar. Let sit for 10 minutes. Mix the potatoes with the flour, salt, and oil. Add the starter and knead for 10 minutes. Place in a bowl and cover; let rise one hour. Punch down the dough, divide into 4 equal portions and form them into uniform balls. Let them rest for 20 minutes, covered,  on a floured  surface.

Now for the fun part ... frying!

In a skillet, heat about 1" of oil at 350 degrees F; I used a canola/olive oil blend (make sure of your oil's smoke point before frying). Rather than roll out the dough, you want to pick it up and gently pull it out into a cicular shape:

 

It's okay if you a pull a little hole in it here and there. Next, gently lay the dough in the hot oil, and press the middle down with a spatula. This is important to ensure that the middle cooks properly. You may want to wear an oven mitt to avoid oil burns ... I learned this the hard way!

Cook for about 3 minutes on each side, until golden brown:

Remove and drain on a rack lined with paper towels. The strange thing is, once the lángos drained they didn't taste heavy all all - they were crispy on the outside, and chewy on the inside, with none of that yucky greasy residue that fried food often leaves on your fingers.

I fried two lángos in this way, and here's how I topped them:

Sour Cream, Emmental Cheese, & Red Onion:

As easy as 1, 2, 3 ... 

1. Spread the Sour Cream

2. Add the grated Emmental cheese 

3. Plop on the red onions - lots and lots of red onion. This isn't exactly a first date dish:

The flavor of this one really took me back to the Central Market Hall in Budapest! Those pungent onions combined with the pleasantly sour taste of the potato dough is unmistakable. 

Next up, a garlic & paprika lángos:

 

 For this one, I went a little garlic crazy (even for me) and mashed up a bunch of cloves with oil:

 I smeared this on the hot dough and dusted with sweet paprika:

 This was good, but ... yowsa! Pretty pungent stuff. In the future, I would go the more traditional route and just rub a cut garlic clove all over the dough. 

Just in case you don't want to fry every single thing you eat (believe me, I never fry things, so this was new for me!) I tried baking the dough for my dessert  lángos. To make sure I got a crispy crust, I baked it at 450 degrees F in a preheated skillet, into which I'd drizzled some oil. I brushed the top of the dough with oil before I put it in the oven, and flipped it after a few minutes to make sure both sides would brown:

 

Though this wasn't quite as "lángos-y" as the fried versions, it was still crispy and good, and served as the perfect vessel for my ...

Sweet & Spicy Fig Spread

For this, I simply mashed together 8 preserved mission figs, a glug of walnut oil, about 1/4 - 1/2 tsp ground java pepper, a few pinches of freshly ground nutmeg, a pinch of cardamom, and enough honey to bind the whole thing together. I topped it off with a poof of confectioner's sugar. It was great - not too sweet, and a nice complement to the savory dough. 

Because I had one leftover dough ball, I decided to see what would happen if I pan fried it in just a couple of tablespoons of oil.  It worked, but the consistency was a bit more like a pancake than a lángos:

 

Bottom line: No matter how you cook it, you just can't go wrong with crispy potato dough topped with sweet or savory goodies. Happy Birthday to Penny and all the April babies! Enjoy the pizza party, and make sure to check out everyone's creative contributions!

 

Divina - Sense & Serendipity
Christine - Christine’s Recipes
Mardi - Eat, Live, Travel, Write
Conor - Hold the Beef
Shirley - Enriching your kid
Natasha - Five Star Foodie
Anges - Off the spork
Joanne - Second Helping
Celeste - Berry Travels
Momofuku for 2
The Cake Mistress
Ahn - A food Lover’s Journey
Cherry - Sweet Cherry Pie
Tangled Noodle
Evelyne Cheap Ethnic Eatz 
Jessica - Yum-O-Rama
Mark - Cafe Campana