Hungary - Chicken Paprikash

My friend, Kimberly, was kind enough to come over and cook Hungarian Chicken Paprikash. It’s a classic Hungarian comfort food heavily seasoned in paprika and served over spaetzel, dumplings made with flour, eggs and milk. While Kimberly stood over the stove and sautéed the meat, she told me about her trip to Budapest last summer with her husband and two boys.

Hungarian cuisine consists of spicy dishes, hearty soups and stews and delicious desserts. Paprika, the Hungarian name for sweet pepper, is infused in many of their dishes. The spice it made by grinding dried sweet red peppers into a red powder. It has a slightly pungent taste and there are many different kinds of paprika, ranging from sweet to hot.

Later, Kimberly showed me pictures of Budapest and I learned about the city’s architecture and rejuvenating spas. Hungary has been described as Europe’s soul and maybe one needs only to view the Danube River or to learn its history to know that this characterization fits.

To learn more about Budapest, plus travel tips, restaurants and the many sights the city has to offer, check out Kimberly’s blog at www.traveladdictonabudget.com

You may find that Hungary is a place you’ll someday want to visit – for it’s paprika infused cuisine, as well as its Nouveau and baroque architecture.


Chicken Paprikash

1 1/2 lbs boneless skinless chicken breasts, chopped into small pieces.
12 oz. sour cream
48 oz. chicken broth
1 onion, chopped
3 – 4 TBSP Hungarian paprika
2 TBSP garlic
1 TBSP salt
1 tsp black pepper
1/2 tsp ginger
2 bay leaves
corn starch
Olive oil

Heat olive oil in a pot and add chicken and garlic and sauté. Then add onion and enough chicken broth to submerge everything. You should have some broth left over to use for later. Stir in the paprika, salt, black pepper, ginger and bay leaves. Simmer to let the chicken and onions cook thoroughly.

When the chicken and onions are fully cooked, add the starch as a thickening agent, by mixing it into the remaining broth and pouring it into the pot. If you are out of broth use water. Remove from heat and let it thicken. Finally, mix in the sour cream and serve over the spaetzel.

Spaetzel

1/2 cup milk
1/1/2 cups flour
3 eggs

Get a pot of water going at a high boil. Mix the milk, flour and eggs in a bowl. The resulting batter should be a little thicker than cake mix. With a sppon, drop small blobs of batter into boiling water and let boil for 20 minutes keeping the water at high boil. Then fish out the spaetzel.

The blobs will expand s they cook so don’t make them too large.