Making Bryndzové Halušky, Slovakia’s National Dish.

April 21, 2021

Happy Earth Day! Let the good choices for the benefit of our beautiful environment continue!

Onto to the dish. Bryndzové Halušky translates in english to: Bryndza sheep cheese dumplings. Bryndza is an Slovakian cheese.

From the moment I saw this dish I was so intrigued. I had never seen anything like it so I was very excited to make it. I was lucky to find a good recipe (I think!) that yielded good results. I found this recipe at whereisyourtoothbrush.com, it is a recipe by by Otília Golis called: Otilia’s Slovak Kitchen: A Collection of Recipes.

This is a video that documents the process and my reactions to making this dish for the first time:

Ingredients

This recipe is for two servings.

1 cup flour
1 egg
1 potato
1/3 cup water
1/2 teaspoon salt
5 oz bryndza OR sheep feta mashed with 1/4 cup heavy cream. (I changed this to 1/2 cup of goat cheese and 1/2 cuo of heavy cream. It came out good! Like cream cheese )
5-7 slices of thick bacon
salt to taste

Directions

A. Making the Halušky

Peel the potato.

2. Peel the potato:

Careful!

3. Mix flour and egg into the grated potato and add salt to taste.

4. Bring water to a boil. Take a teaspoon of your mix and place it in the boiling water. Watch how it reacts. It should sink to the bottom but not break apart. Watch it until it floats, then it is done. Try it!

5. Add the rest of the mix in teaspoon pieces, let them boil for 7 or 8 minutes. While you wait get the bacon ready and the cheese if you have time.

7. Drain and set aside in the colander covered. I like leaving pasta or anything I drain there to cool off covered. I find the holes help in minimizing the accumulation of water from the heat.

B. Preparing the Bacon

Cut the bacon in small pieces. (The recipe calls for a block of bacon, but I couldn’t find that so I used thick slided bacon. I used the dark pink parts only.)