Palatschinken
Encyclopedia
Austro-Bavarian
Bavarian , also Austro-Bavarian, is a major group of Upper German varieties spoken in the south east of the German language area.-History and origin:...
name of the thin, crêpe
Crêpe
A crêpe or crepe , is a type of very thin pancake, usually made from wheat flour or buckwheat flour . The word is of French origin, deriving from the Latin crispa, meaning "curled". While crêpes originate from Brittany, a region in the northwest of France, their consumption is widespread in France...
-like variety of pancake
Pancake
A pancake is a thin, flat, round cake prepared from a batter, and cooked on a hot griddle or frying pan. Most pancakes are quick breads; some use a yeast-raised or fermented batter. Most pancakes are cooked one side on a griddle and flipped partway through to cook the other side...
common in Central and Eastern Europe
Central and Eastern Europe
Central and Eastern Europe is a term describing former communist states in Europe, after the collapse of the Iron Curtain in 1989/90. In scholarly literature the abbreviations CEE or CEEC are often used for this concept...
.
The pancake
Central European pancakes are thin pancakes, comparable to the French crêpeCrêpe
A crêpe or crepe , is a type of very thin pancake, usually made from wheat flour or buckwheat flour . The word is of French origin, deriving from the Latin crispa, meaning "curled". While crêpes originate from Brittany, a region in the northwest of France, their consumption is widespread in France...
. Palatschinken are made by creating a runny dough from eggs, wheat flour, milk and salt and frying it in a pan with butter or oil. Unlike the thick American pancake, Palatschinken are usually served with different types of fillings and eaten for lunch or dinner.
Palatschinken are traditionally rolled with apricot
Apricot
The apricot, Prunus armeniaca, is a species of Prunus, classified with the plum in the subgenus Prunus. The native range is somewhat uncertain due to its extensive prehistoric cultivation.- Description :...
jam or strawberry
Strawberry
Fragaria is a genus of flowering plants in the rose family, Rosaceae, commonly known as strawberries for their edible fruits. Although it is commonly thought that strawberries get their name from straw being used as a mulch in cultivating the plants, the etymology of the word is uncertain. There...
jam and sprinkled with confectioner's sugar. A variety of different fruit sauces, (like apple
Apple
The apple is the pomaceous fruit of the apple tree, species Malus domestica in the rose family . It is one of the most widely cultivated tree fruits, and the most widely known of the many members of genus Malus that are used by humans. Apple grow on small, deciduous trees that blossom in the spring...
sauce) or thick fruit jams called lekvar
Lekvar
Lekvar is a thick jam or fruit butter. Lekvár is a very thick, sometimes coarse jam of pure ripe fruit. Lekvar is of Central and Eastern European origin....
, (plum
Plum
A plum or gage is a stone fruit tree in the genus Prunus, subgenus Prunus. The subgenus is distinguished from other subgenera in the shoots having a terminal bud and solitary side buds , the flowers in groups of one to five together on short stems, and the fruit having a groove running down one...
, prune
Prune
A prune is any of various plum cultivars, mostly Prunus domestica or European Plum, sold as fresh or dried fruit. The dried fruit is also referred to as a dried plum...
, raspberry
Raspberry
The raspberry or hindberry is the edible fruit of a multitude of plant species in the genus Rubus, most of which are in the subgenus Idaeobatus; the name also applies to these plants themselves...
, cherry
Cherry
The cherry is the fruit of many plants of the genus Prunus, and is a fleshy stone fruit. The cherry fruits of commerce are usually obtained from a limited number of species, including especially cultivars of the wild cherry, Prunus avium....
or sour cherry
Sour Cherry
Prunus cerasus, or the sour cherry, is a species of Prunus in the subgenus Cerasus , native to much of Europe and southwest Asia. It is closely related to the wild cherry Prunus cerasus, or the sour cherry, is a species of Prunus in the subgenus Cerasus (cherries), native to much of Europe and...
jam), lemon juice and sugar, chocolate sauce, hazelnut-chocolate cream, almonds, dried or fresh fruits, sweet cottage or quark cheese and raisin
Raisin
Raisins are dried grapes. They are produced in many regions of the world. Raisins may be eaten raw or used in cooking, baking and brewing...
s, cocoa powder, poppy seed
Poppy seed
Poppy seed is an oilseed obtained from the opium poppy . The tiny kidney-shaped seeds have been harvested from dried seed pods by various civilizations for thousands of years...
, or any combination thereof, may also be used. Rakott palacsinta are layered pancakes with sweet cottage cheese and raisins, jam and walnut layers between the pancakes, baked in the oven.
A well known Hungarian version of palatschinke is the Gundel
Gundel
Gundel is a well-known restaurant located in the Budapest City Park, Hungary.- History :A previous restaurant in the spot, Wampetics, opened in 1894. In 1910, Károly Gundel took over the Wampetics lease and operated the restaurant. His son Janos Gundel, who had learned the hospitality trade at...
pancake (Gundel palacsinta), made with ground walnuts, raisin, candied orange peel, cinnamon and rum filling, served flambéed in dark chocolate sauce made with egg yolks, heavy cream and cocoa
Cocoa solids
Cocoa solids are the low-fat component of chocolate. When sold as an end product, it may also be called cocoa powder, cocoa, and cacao....
.
Palatschinken may also be eaten unsweetened, plain, or filled with cheeses, meat, mushroom or vegetable stew
Stew
A stew is a combination of solid food ingredients that have been cooked in liquid and served in the resultant gravy. Ingredients in a stew can include any combination of vegetables , meat, especially tougher meats suitable for slow-cooking, such as beef. Poultry, sausages, and seafood are also used...
s, topped with sour cream, or cut into thin strips, called Flädle
Flädle
Flädle is a southern German dish from the region of Schwaben, made from pancakes that are salty instead of sweet. In Austria Flädle are called Frittaten....
in Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
′s Alemannic
Alemannic German
Alemannic is a group of dialects of the Upper German branch of the Germanic language family. It is spoken by approximately ten million people in six countries: Switzerland, Germany, Austria, Liechtenstein, France and Italy...
dialects and Frittaten in Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
. Flädle/Frittaten are used in Frittaten soup - pancake strips served in clear broth.
Etymology
The name of the dish has followed a track of borrowing across several languages of central and south-eastern Europe. The AustrianAustro-Bavarian
Bavarian , also Austro-Bavarian, is a major group of Upper German varieties spoken in the south east of the German language area.-History and origin:...
-German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
term Palatschinke is borrowed from Czech
Czech language
Czech is a West Slavic language with about 12 million native speakers; it is the majority language in the Czech Republic and spoken by Czechs worldwide. The language was known as Bohemian in English until the late 19th century...
palačinka, that in turn from Hungarian
Hungarian language
Hungarian is a Uralic language, part of the Ugric group. With some 14 million speakers, it is one of the most widely spoken non-Indo-European languages in Europe....
palacsinta, and that in turn from Romanian
Romanian language
Romanian Romanian Romanian (or Daco-Romanian; obsolete spellings Rumanian, Roumanian; self-designation: română, limba română ("the Romanian language") or românește (lit. "in Romanian") is a Romance language spoken by around 24 to 28 million people, primarily in Romania and Moldova...
plăcintă (a cake, a pie), where it ultimately derives from Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
placenta
Placenta (food)
Placenta is a dish from ancient Rome consisting of sheets of flour dough topped with cheese and honey and flavored with bay leaves. Cato included a recipe in his De Agri Cultura. Its origin is the traditional Ancient Greek thin flat bread or cake, plakous ....
(a flat cake), a word of Greek origin. Palačinka is also the name in most Slavic languages (Ukrainian, Slovak - palacinka, Serbian, Slovenian, Bosnian, Bulgarian, Czech, Macedonian, Croatian - palačinka/палачинка). In Polish, the equivalent is called a naleśnik, in Romanian clătită.