Pandúrleves – Pandour’s soup

by | Sep 14, 2016 | Soups

This soup is named after pandours, originally Serbian and Croatian soldiers who were on duty at the southern borders of the Hungarian kingdom. Later in the 19th century, between 1867-1881 (before the national gendarmerie was established), those officers who served as armed patrolmen in the Hungarian comitats were also called pandour.

Pandour’s soup can be made in different ways depending on which part of Hungary you are. It can be prepared with pork, beef or mutton, there are recipes that also call for pork brains. But there are also some fixed ingredients: carrot, parsley root, mushrooms and mustard. The soup is usually seasoned with dill and marjoram, but bay leaf also goes well with it.

Pandour's soup / Pandúrleves
Pandúrleves – Pandour’s soup – photo: zserbo.com

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4 Comments

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.

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.