In this issue of our magazine we’d like to introduce a few recipes from a beautiful region of the Dyje river.

The first recipe is a soup of all fishermen inspired by Hungarian cuisine called Halaszle. There are approximately three varieties of this tasty dish, the Danube, Budapest and Szeged. It is mainly about the chef’s own fantasy and availability of ingredients. It is however best cooked in a cauldron right by the river where you go fishing. Carp is the best fish to use but any other fish you catch can also be made into a soup. Start with frying chopped onions in oil. Sunflower oil is best because its nutty taste really stands out. Cut off the head and tail of your fish and add in with the onions, add some water and boil. The rest of the meat, together with green peppers and tomatoes is added at the end. After about an hour of boiling remove the head and tail and add the remaining ingredients and simmer for about ten minutes. Add some paprika, simmer shortly, add a bit of salt, let stand for a little while and serve. Someone might want to add some potatoes but in my opinion the best variety is mentioned above. It is such a simple cauldron dish.

Another recipe is a speciality from Hlohovec and Charvatská Nová Ves and it is a roasted chicken in tomato sauce. Such recipes arrived in Moravia from Bulgaria and Croatia and they made the local Upper-Austrian cuisine a bit more interesting. In which way is our recipe different? By lifting the skin of the chicken and brushing the chicken breasts with some garlic or butter with herbs. These flavours will penetrate the meat making it juicy and more flavoursome. Chicken is served with home made tomato sauce. Fry the onions in oil and add a bit of flour. Add chopped tomatoes. Stir everything well and wait for tomatoes to run some juice. Cook for twenty minutes, liquidize in a blender and add a pinch of salt. It is a simple recipe to prepare and it can be enjoyed with a glass of rose during the hot summer months.

The last recipe is a spring recipe as morel mushrooms are its main ingredient. Morel mushrooms grow in our local forests and this recipe is called Špecle (buckwheat doughy “bits”) with morels. Fry the buckwheat in butter with chopped onions and add a bit of water. Cook and leave to stand. When the mixture has cooled, work it into dough, roll it out thinly and cut out your “špecle”. Place them in salted boiling water.

Wash the morels and cut them in half. Leave half the morels as they are for decoration, cut the other half into small pieces. Fry some onions, add the morels and some water and cook for five more minutes. Add some salt but no other seasoning. That’s when the taste of morels really comes out. Again, here’s a very simple, home cooked dish which is also quite light. It is best accompanied with some very dry white wine such as Savignon, Green Veltlín or even Green Sylván which doesn’t overpower the dish itself.