Pasta with Bacon and Curd Cheese (Hungarian Túrós Csusza)

Túrós csusza is a traditional Hungarian pasta dish that consists of egg noodles, curd cheese, sour cream and smoked bacon. The noodles are cooked in salted water, drained, mixed with curd cheese, topped with sour cream and lardons, and baked for a few minutes before serving. The original noodles used for this dish are homemade, mixing flour, eggs and water into a dough, and torn by hand to uneven pieces. Making your own noodles is cheap, but time-consuming. Dumping a bag of egg noodles in the pot is easier, but if you have time and you are in the mood, give it a try, because homemade noodles are far superior, they and purchased pastas can’t be mentioned in the same breath.

9 oz curd cheese (250 g)
16 oz sour cream (450 g)
10 oz smoked bacon (300 g)
2 tsp. fresh dill, finely chopped
sea salt

For the Noodles:
3¼ cups all-purpose flour, unbleached (400 g)
3 eggs
2-3 tsp. water

Sift the flour in a bowl, make a well in the center and add the eggs. Start mixing, drizzle water, about 1 teaspoon at a time, over the mixture and knead until it starts to come together in a ball. The dough should be smooth and elastic, but not sticky. If dough is too dry, mix in more water, if it is too sticky, add more flour to make dough easy to handle.

You can either roll out the dough on a floured surface using a rolling pin until it is paper thin, or divide the dough into parts and pass them through a pasta machine. If you want to cook immediately, tear the dough to uneven pieces, or if you want to prepare the noodles later, let the dough dry, then break into pieces.

Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C/180°C fan, Gas Mark 6.

Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Add noodles and cook until al dente; drain well.

Fry the diced bacon until crisp, drain and set aside.

Sprinkle 1-2 Tbsp. of bacon fat over the noodles in order to prevent them from clumping.

In a bowl mix the curd cheese, half of the sour cream and dill together. Add noodles to the mixture to combine. (Here you can add some salt, if needed.)

Place the noodles in a greased baking dish. Spread the remaining sour cream over its top, then scatter lardons over it.

Bake for about 10-15 minutes.