Granatír-Potato Noodles

Granatír-potato noodles, called granatírmárs in Hungarian, is the kind of dish born from frugality and refined into comfort food. Cubed boiled potatoes get tossed with cooked pasta and a generous heap of slowly simmered onions, with each ingredient pulling its weight in texture and starch.

The name translates loosely to “grenadier’s march," supposedly because the chunky shape of the potatoes resembles soldiers tramping along. Don’t let the simplicity fool you. The trick is cooking the onions long and slow until they go soft and almost jammy, which builds the savory backbone the dish needs to taste like more than carbs on carbs.

A teaspoon of minced sweet pepper and a teaspoon of hot pepper jelly stirred in off the heat give the finished plate a faint sweet-spicy hum. Hungarian cooks would traditionally use a spoonful of paprika and a pickled cherry pepper for the same effect.

Pro Tips

• Boil the potatoes in their skins before peeling. They hold their shape when cubed and don’t get waterlogged the way peeled-then-boiled potatoes do.
• Simmer the onions in the oil over genuinely low heat for at least 15 minutes. Rushing this step leaves the dish thin and one-note.
• Cook the pasta a minute shy of al dente. It picks up the last bit of cook from the warm potato and onion mix and stays toothsome.
• Salt aggressively at the toss stage. Plain potatoes and pasta need more salt than you’d think to come alive.

Variations

• Stir in a heaping teaspoon of sweet Hungarian paprika with the onions for the more traditional ruby color and warmth.
• Top each portion with a fried or soft-poached egg for a richer one-bowl dinner.
• Add diced smoked sausage or kielbasa with the onions for a meaty version closer to what would have been served with whatever scraps were on hand.