Lángos (Hungarian Fried Flatbread)
Difficulty 3/5 Ingredients 6 Steps 9
Ingredients
- 500 g all-purpose flour
- Instant yeast
- 4 eggs
- 4 tbsp yogurt or sour cream
- 2 tsp salt
- Lard or canola oil
Steps
- Combine flour and yeast. Add eggs. Mix in yoghurt to make a dough.
- Add salt. Knead until pliant and not too sticky, adding more flour or yogurt as necessary. Texture is similar to egg pasta dough but less stiff.
- Transfer dough to an oiled bowl. Cover. Rise overnight in a cool place, like the refrigerator.
- Deflate the dough gently.
- Heat about 2 inches of lard in a pan. It is hot enough when a very small piece of dough sinks to the bottom and immediately rises to the surface frying.
- Take a lump of dough, bigger than a ping-pong ball and smaller than a tennis ball. Flatten by hand, not a rolling pin, pressing between fingers and thumbs and turning, into a disk about 8 inches across with a thin centre and thicker edge. It need not be perfectly circular.
- Slide the disk into the hot oil. Fry about 30 seconds until it puffs up. If it does not puff, the oil is too cool or the disk too thick.
- Turn over. Fry about 30 seconds more. Check the underside; fry longer until both sides are golden brown and puffed up. Adjust times for subsequent ones.
- Remove from the oil. Drain excess.
Notes from the original
- Lángos are traditionally served with a pungent fresh garlic dressing. This is made by mincing up several cloves of garlic and mixing them into a small amount of oil and water, which is left to infuse for a while. You just spread the garlic dressing over the hot bread and eat.
- You can also top lángos with crème fraîche, sour cream, or thick yoghurt (as a substitute for something called tejföl that you can't get outside of Hungary), and grated cheese. Fried lardons or diced pancetta are a good topping too.
- Three or four of these will leave you feeling pretty full, but if you've really hungry you could also have some good continental sausage (ideally Hungarian kolbász, naturally) to go with them.
Source. Adapted from “Cookbook:Lángos (Hungarian Fried Flatbread)” by Wikibooks contributors, revision of 2026-04-05, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Changes. Steps rewritten into short commands. Introduction shortened. Wiki formatting removed. This adapted recipe is shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Photo. Merry Christmas from Budapest! (42).jpg by Elekes Andor, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia. Resized; otherwise unchanged.