It's bryndza season! Try this recipe for halušky with bryndza and bacon by Skô

Skô: Posúch, bryndza, lekvár

The dream of chef Tomáš Valkovič, at Skô, dishes are prepared over the fire, inspired by the cuisine of Slovakia and beyond. Come for a quick lunch and a glass of wine, a relaxed dinner, a traditional langoš accompanied by a good pint.

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Brynza hasn't always been the soft, creamy cheese we know today. It used to be pressed into sheepskins, smoked and so hard that it was chipped at with a chisel at markets. Similarly, halušky - small, pillowy potato dumplings - have evolved from a simple dough of flour and water to the potato classic of today, which in the mountain regions has reliably caught on as the best meal after honest work.

Halušky served with bryndza and bacon is a simple dish, but when made with the right ingredients it can dazzle. You can prepare them according to the recipe of chef Tomáš Valkovič from Skô. "I like the bryndza to be floral and just right in terms of saltiness. In addition to halušky, we also use it in pierogi," he adds. However, you won't find bryndza on the menu at Skô all year round. The aim is to give space to other Slovak ingredients and show their diversity in recipes based on Tomáš's life, memories and family cuisine.

Bryndzové halušky with bacon

Ingredients (for 1 serving):

• 1 larger raw potato
• semi-coarse flour (depending on the consistency of the dough)
• 80 g bacon, diced
• 100 g bryndza
• a little water from the cooked dumplings
• salt (to taste)
• fresh chives

1. Peel the potato, grate finely into a bowl and season with salt. Squeeze out some of the water - the resulting dough should be soft but not runny.
2. Gradually add the flour. The aim is a smooth dough that peels easily from the bowl.
3. Fry the bacon in a frying pan until crisp. Keep the rendered fat aside - it will be useful when serving.
4. In a large pot, bring water to the boil and lightly salt it. Push the dough through a sieve or cut off with a knife directly into the boiling water. In the latter case, make the pieces as small as possible, as they will increase in volume as they cook.
5. Once the halušky have floated to the surface, remove them with a perforated ladle and mix them in a bowl with the bryndza and a little of the cooking water. This gives a creamier consistency.

Service: Serve the halušky with the bryndza in a deep plate, drizzle with the remaining fat from the bacon and sprinkle with the crispy bacon. You can also add chopped chives.

A little history

Before bryndza became a typical Slovak culinary speciality, the production process went through quite a complex evolution. It is generally believed that bryndza was originally pressed and sewn into cleaned and dried sheepskins. It was then preserved by smoking. Initially, it was produced only for a small circle of people who worked in shepherds' huts and looked after the sheep.

The original bryndza was as hard as Parmesan cheese. It was exported to Vienna, where it was chipped with a chisel by market vendors. Bryndza as we know it today was invented by Ján Vagač, the founder of the first "brynzárna" in Slovakia, when he ground the cheese and mixed it with a salt solution.

The first bryndza of the season is called May's bryndza, and is considered the best among Slovaks. However, cheese from the summer, when the sheep graze different herbs and produce slightly different milk, is equally good (and exceptional in taste). In the shepherd's huts (with poorer production conditions) there is 'sudovka' - unsold bryndza, which is gradually stored in wooden barrels, salted and sold until the new spring batch.

And halušky?

This was originally a dish made from flour and water. When there was a shortage of grain, flour dishes were supplemented with various vegetable tubers. At the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries, grated potatoes took their place in halušky. This change took place in Slovakia, especially in the mountain areas, where flour was almost always in short supply. In the southern, more fertile areas, the flour pasta was often improved with egg.

The preparation of halušky with bryndza is also known in the adjacent Carpathian regions of Ukraine, Poland and Moravia. However, it was in the Carpathian region of Slovakia that they became most popular. Here, in the first decades of the 20th century, they were still an almost daily meal, especially in the morning, intended to keep people well fed before hard work. They were consumed by peasants, shepherds, woodcutters and miners. The cooking water was also eaten as a soup, sometimes thickened with bryndza, sometimes with milk, and had a high caloric value.

Source: Skô Recipes, Rastislava Stoličná: Strava ako etnoidentifikačný znak