Do you know lángos? It’s one of the most famous, most simple and most unhealthy Hungarian specialities: it’s a must-have at any bath or beach at Lake Balaton, a common street food in even the smallest of towns. It’s a simple flat bread deep-fried in oil. It’s usually served with lots of garlic dressing, sour cream and cheese on top, but there are all sorts of toppings available nowadays. The problem is, it really tastes as great as it is simple and not very good for our health.
My husband, Z has been mocking me for ages about making lángos healthy. Turning something made of plain white wheat flour and deep fried in oil into something wholesome, healthy and compatible with a gluten-free insulin-resistency diet that tolerates low-glycemic foods, only, didn’t seem as simple to me.
Actually, I didn’t like lángos that much. I had it mostly once a year: on some beach of the Lake Balaton, or while having fun at some music festival – I thought I could live without it from now on. Especially, as I prefered mine with lots of garlic, sour cream and cheese on top. How would I make dairy-free sour cream and cheese, too…? No, I didn’t want to have any lángos, at all.
Later, I found myself craving lángos something desperately one of these oh-so-hot August days. You see, all you need is a little inspiration to create a recipe out of the blue… 🙂
The solution turned out to be a very simple one, of course, I honestly don’t know why I didn’t take the time to make this earlier.
In case you had lángos before, let me warn you. My version is not going to give you the same experience as that flatbread bought at some food truck: this one is not dripping in oil and is not paper thin and crispy in the middle.
It is a lot more like the ones we made with my father a couple of years back, based on a recipe from a very old Transylvanian cookbook. It took us about half a day to cook the potatoes, mash them, mix with plain wheat flour, knead the dough, let it rise, roll out, and finally, fry. The whole kitchen was a mess afterwards but we had a lot of fun and that lángos was the best I ever had until then. It was hearty, and tasted like something you would think only your grandmother could do right.
So, to adapt to our new lifestlyle, I had to make some changes: ditch the mashed potatoes (high GI), change plain white wheat flour to wholegrain brown rice- and buckwheat flours and forget about deep-frying, too.
Notes to the recipe:
– Yes, you may sub brown rice and buckwheat flour with other GF flours. This recipe would work even with white rice flour. I chose brown rice and buckwheat for a hearty, wholesome result.
– You may omit the use of yeast, as well: the dough makes a great potato pancake, too, without any yeast or rising.
I had some garlic cashew sour cream and chives on top. Inventing the shreddable dairy-free cheese seemed like a littlebit too much for a single afternoon. Maybe next time…
Ingredients for 10-11 flatbreads:
4 medium or 1kg of potatoes
1 cup or 120g buckwheat flour
1 cup or 120g brown rice flour
1 1/2 teapoons of salt (I use pink Himalayan)
1 cup of water
1 heaping teaspoon of fresh yeast
1 teaspoon of sugar (for the yeast)
coconut oil or olive oil for frying
for the garlic cashew sour cream:
3/4 cup or 100g of cashews (soaked 2 hours in cold or 30 minutes in hot water)
1-2 cloves of garlic
1/2 teaspoon of salt
water
Instructions:
- Wash, peel and finely grate potatoes. Add salt and give it a couple of minutes.
- Put salty grated potatoes in a food processor and whizz until smooth.
- Transfer to a mixing bowl, add flours and yeast previously activated with sugar in a cup of lukewar water.
- Set dough aside to rise to twice it’s original volume.
- Put 2-3 heaping tablespoons of the dough into a slightly greased frying pan. Spread with the back of a tablespoon with circular motions. Fry over medium heat until the top starts to turn solid. Flip and finish frying. (I prefer mine slightly browned.)
- Finally, for the cashew sour cream: rinse soaked cashews, add garlic cloves, salt and mix with an immersion mixer until smooth.
Wholesome and gluten-free, though not exactly a lowcarb recipe: 40g CH/flatbread, sour cream included. Although in many aspects this lángos is a whole new world compared to the “original” (?) version, they have one thing in common: they are enjoyed the most when fresh. You can keep leftovers in the fridge for the next day, and it’s going to be good, but only good, not as awesome as freshly from the stove. 🙂
When my husband arrived home that day, he saw me working on the stove in our already too hot apartment, with our not exactly light-weight baby girl taking a nap on my back. She had a sort of “it’s too hot, please, hug me” kind of mood that afternoon… 🙂 I wished I could store some of this heat for cold winter days.
I’d like to make it clear that I can’t even remember the day when I had “real” lángos before, so I can’t really tell you how this would resemble the original version. One is for sure, though: these were gone quite quickly, and Z also took his fair share even though he has a “real” lángos every now and then… 🙂
This recipe was shared at Gluten-free Fridays.
- 4 medium or 1kg of potatoes
- 1 cup or 120g buckwheat flour
- 1 cup or 120g brown rice flour
- 1½ teapoons of salt (I use pink Himalayan)
- 1 cup of water
- 1 heaping teaspoon of fresh yeast
- 1 teaspoon of sugar (for the yeast)
- coconut oil or olive oil for frying
- for the garlic cashew sour cream:
- ¾ cup or 100g of cashews (soaked 2 hours in cold or 30 minutes in hot water)
- 1-2 cloves of garlic
- ½ teaspoon of salt
- water
- Wash, peel and finely grate potatoes. Add salt and give it a couple of minutes.
- Put salty grated potatoes in a food processor and whizz until smooth.
- Transfer to a mixing bowl, add flours and yeast previously activated with sugar in a cup of lukewar water.
- Set dough aside to rise to twice it's original volume.
- Put 2-3 heaping tablespoons of the dough into a slightly greased frying pan. Spread with the back of a tablespoon with circular motions. Fry over medium heat until the top starts to turn solid. Flip and finish frying. (I prefer mine slightly browned.)
- Finally, for the cashew sour cream: rinse soaked cashews, add garlic cloves, salt and mix with an immersion mixer until smooth.
You may omit the use of yeast, as well: the dough makes a great potato pancake, too, without any yeast or rising.
These sound delicious, and I love anything with buckwheat. 😉
Buckwheat is my favorite GF grain, so hearty!
I'll take your version any day over a deep-fried, oil-drenched one! This looks yummy, especially with that garlic sauce 😛 And I love buckwheat. I had buckwheat flatbread for dinner tonight as a matter of fact 😀
Buckwheat flatbread sounds really hearty! Thanks for stopping by. 🙂
This flat bread looks so delicious! I haven't tried one like this before. Yum!!
Thanks for sharing your recipe!
Andrea
I'm glad you like it! So simple, I hope you try this one. 🙂