Tejes kása – Polenta dumplings in milk

by | Jan 27, 2023 | Vegetable dishes

Tejes kása is an old peasant food made from only five ingredients, which was often on the tables in Békés (a small town in South-Eastern Hungary) and on the farms around the settlement. Tejes kása is nothing other than hot polenta dumplings served in cold milk. Polenta (kukoricadara) used in Hungary is a corn product made from coarsly ground yellow flit corn, and it’s usually somewhat coarse for cornmeal, but a bit too fine to be called grits.

Polenta dumplings in milk
Polenta dumplings in milk – photo: zserbo.com

Ingredients:

  • 1 liter (~4 1/4 cups) water
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 2 tbsp butter
  • 200 g (~7 oz) polenta (coarsly ground cornmeal)
  • 1 liter (~4 1/4 cups) milk

Bring water, salt and butter to a boil. Once water is boiling, add polenta and cook, stirring constantly, until the porridge thickens and becomes soft. With a spoon scoop dumplings in a plate, pour cold milk over them and serve immediately.

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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.

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