Hungarian pork jelly – Kocsonya

by | Jan 22, 2015 | Meat dishes

In Hungary pork jelly or kocsonya is known as a main dish, usually cooked during the carnival season. As a Hungarian journalist said, kocsonya is “the etheral essence of pork”. It’s not far from the truth since kocsonya is a rich, solid broth containing soft pork meat. We use skinned, gristly and bony parts that are simmered for several hours in order to have enough dissolved collagen in the broth, which turns the broth into jelly at low temperature.

Pork jelly can be made from pork feet, shank, ear, tail, pork skin, but it can also contain smoked meat, vegetables like carrot and parsley root, or hard boiled eggs. The bigger stores in Hungary provide so called pork jelly packs that include all the necessary pork parts that are suitable for kocsonya or you can even ask your bucther to prepare a similar pack.

We use only a few spices to season pork jelly: black pepper and allspice corns, salt and garlic. Many, many, many garlic cloves. Besides the ingredients the only thing you need to make the perfect kocsonya is patience. It takes 3-4 hours to simmer the meat, then broth needs several hours to set. But believe me, it’s worth. We eat with soft white bread, sprinkling ground paprika or squeezing lemon juice over its top.

Hungarian pork jelly - Kocsonya
Hungarian pork jelly – Kocsonya – photo: zserbo.com
Hungarian pork jelly - Kocsonya
Hungarian pork jelly – Kocsonya – photo: zserbo.com
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1 Comment

Hungarian cottage cheese

This is what Hungarian túró looks like

You often ask me what kind of cottage cheese (or curd cheese or farmer's cheese - call it what you want) I use in the recipes. In Hungary the store-bought cottage cheese is dry and crumbly as you can see in the picture. So if a recipe calls for túró, I mean this type. If you can't obtain túró, you can try to make your own from whole milk. Click on the link below.

Wish list

If you are looking for a Hungarian recipe that hasn't been published on this website yet, let me know, and I'll do my best to post it.

Metric system vs cup

In Hungary metric units are in use, all the recipes on this website are based on this system, so a kitchen scale is necessary. Since I’m not familiar with cup as a measurement unit, I convert grams to cups by using an online converter. The values in brackets, therefore, are only approximate volumes, so, please, double-check them before you start cooking.

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