The Irresistable Túró Rudi

If a bar mad of chocolate-covered curd cheese doesn’t sound appealing, then you have’n yet tasted the irresistable túró rudi. A near-perfect combination of curd-cheese and dark or milk chocolate. I myself prefer the dark chocolate versions without sugar but I do not eat dairy products very often.

 It’s one of the best-known Hungarian delicacy, and probably the country’s most loved confection, but as the saying goes: „Pötyös az igazi” (Pöttyös is the real one)Pöttyös is is the oldest and most recognized brand. Many sweet -toothed Hungarians living abroad say what they miss the most about Hungary. Túró rudi translates roughly as „curd cheese stick” (it sounds much better in hungarian, as rudi is also diminutive form of the name Rudolf ) and they are little thirty gram  rounded bars made of  a stick of slightly sweetened , yet still tart, curd cheese dipped in dark chocolate, there’s also an „óriás” or large size stick or bar.

They now come in different varieties with a strip of flavour like apricot , raspberry, hazelnut or strawberry running through the center. Ther are also túró rudi ice cream bars. I am more of a túró rudi purist, and can’t bring myself to stray from the perfect natur variety. They are perishable and you’ll find them in the dairy case of practically every supermarket and convenience store in Hungary. You won’t miss them with their distinctive red-spotted wrappers , and they’re even sold in their own dedicated vending machines at schools.

Túró rudi was born during the Communist era after a group of from the Hungarian dairy industry travelled to the Soviet Union on a study tour in 1954 and apparently came up with the idea of creating the hungarian counterpart in a bar version.The russian product was rectengular bar in shape. It was only introduced in Hungary in 1968, however, after twelve years of experimentations. Perfection takes time , it seems. The delicious and addictive túró rudi is hardly available anywhere outside of Hungary (, making it very dangerous to fall in love with the things only to leave the country and have your access cut off.

When I was a kid in the late 80’s  and Túró rudi had a better  „rawer” -„curd-like” flavour. They have not used any preservatives back then in the early days and one flavour existed. It was fresh for for 3 days but there was a shortage in túró rudi in the stores all the time.The product underwent some modern changes to keep up with customer trends. For example, longer shelf life which was extended up to 14 days or even more.

The dairy industry went through modernization of course and also fell victim to the „privatiziton” process and international takeover of the big food industry.The decent amount of change in its flavour one can be attributed to fact that real milk fat content of Túró rudi’s curd was replaced by palm oil and of course due to the preservation methods.Palm fat is probably not the best fat for human consumption and especially for developing brains of Hungarian kids…

If you are still looking for the taste of past decades, the most resembling to the genuine taste of Túró rudi is probably comes from Cserpes’ Túró rudi which is named as Trudi.

If you wish to try out this delicacy at home here is the famous

Hungarian Home made Túró rudi recipe

Ingredients:

10g Gelatin granule

500g Quark (European Ricotta – less watery more sour than fresh ricotta)

100g Icing Sugar

1 Lemon zested

10g Vanilla Sugar

The making:

Dissolve the 10g gelatin granule in 150ml of hot water

Add dissolved gelatin to the quark and combine.

Add the remaining ingredients.

Place mixture into the fridge for 1 hour.

Roll out a clear foil on the table, spread a roll of the mixture, then roll it up to be the aproppiate thickness without air holes.  Do this to make a couple of rolls short enough to fit into your freezer on a tray.

Does not have to be he final piece length.

Put rolls into the freezer for 2 hours.

Take it out of the clean foil, cut them into the right size (approx 100mm).

Dip each piece into melted dark chocolate, and place them onto a dripping rack.

The chocolate will solidify on the top quickly.

source: www.europeanzest.com