[Sca-cooks] Hungarian Torta

[Philip & Susan Troy]

Also sprach Randy Goldberg MD:
>In Redon's "The Medieval Kitchen", recipe 88 is for a "Hungarian Torta".
>Has anyone made this dish? Does it really serve 12? Can I substitute
>olive oil +/- butter for the lard? (Several reasons: 1. I don't have a
>cholesterol problem, but my guests might; 2. I don't care for the taste;
>3. I'm not about to render it myself, and the stuff you buy in the
>butter case often has off flavors, lard is more sensitive than butter.)
>How MUCH oil is equivalent to a pound of melted lard?

Well, apart from the fact that lard is _the_ main cooking fat of
Hungary, sort of like ghee in India, and it probably detracts from
the innate Hungarian-ness of the dish to use anything else, you can
certainly use something else. I guess it's a situation where, if your
guests aren't expecting lard, what they don't know won't hurt them.
And in this case, it may actually save them.

Since lard has, in theory, no water phase (which butter does), a
one-to-one substitution should be fine. If you're concerned about
olive oil having a strong olive flavor (to which I would respond that
if it doesn't taste like olives, what's the point?), maybe a mixture
of olive and other unsaturated oils might work just as well.

N.B.: Another possibility, and one I have not tried and therefore
cannot wholeheartedly recommend, is pumpkinseed oil, which is another
common cooking fat in that part of the world. It is, however, very
prone to rancidity, so it has to be made in small quantities. Just an
FYI...

Adamantius