Túrós csusza is a traditional Hungarian pasta dish that consists of egg noodles, cottage cheese, sour cream and smoked bacon. The noodles are cooked in salted water, drained, mixed with cottage cheese, topped with sour cream and lardons, and baked for a few minutes before serving.

The original noodles used for this dish are homemade, mixing flour, eggs and water into a dough, and torn by hand to uneven pieces. Making your own noodles is cheap, but time-consuming. Dumping a bag of egg noodles in the pot is easier, but if you have time and you are in the mood, give it a try, because homemade noodles are far superior, they and purchased pastas can’t be mentioned in the same breath.

As you can see, dill is listed among the ingredients, although it is not part of the classic recipe. But in my family it’s an obligatory spice of túrós csusza, it gives the noodles an extra “tone”, which makes the dish rich and intense. If you don’t like it, you may leave it out.

Ingredients:

• 250 g (~9 oz) cottage cheese
• 450 g (~16 oz) sour cream
• 300 g (~10 oz) smoked slab bacon
• 2 tsp dill, finely chopped (optional)
• salt to taste

For the noodles:

• 400 g (~3 1/4 cups) flour
• 3 eggs
• 2-3 tsp water

Sift the flour in a bowl, make a well in the center and add the eggs. Start mixing, drizzle water, about 1 teaspoon at a time, over the mixture and knead until it starts to come together in a ball. The dough sould be smooth and elastic, but not sticky. If dough is too dry, mix in more water, if it is too sticky, add more flour to make dough easy to handle.

You can either roll out the dough on a floured surface using a rolling pin until it‘s paper thin, or divide the dough into parts and pass them through a pasta machine. If you want to cook immediately, tear the dough to uneven pieces, or if you want to prepare the noodles later, let the dough dry, then break into pieces.

Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Add noodles and cook until tender. Drain well.

While the noodles are cooking, fry the diced bacon until crisp, drain and set aside.

Sprinkle 1-2 tablespoons of bacon fat over the noodles in order to prevent from clumping.

In a bowl mix cottage cheese, half of the sour cream and dill together. Add noodles to the mixture to combine, and salt to taste.

Preheat the oven to 200 °C / 392°F.

Place the noodles in a greased baking dish. Spread the remaining sour cream over the top, then scatter lardons over it. Put it in the oven and cook for about 25-30 minutes.