Chicken Paprikash
The name of this dish, Paprikash, comes from the most important ingredient in the dish: Hungarian paprika, a spice made from dried and ground red peppers.
Peppers were brought to Europe from the New World by Christopher Columbus and they spread to Eastern Europe via the Ottoman Empire. The conditions for growing peppers were especially favorable in the south of Hungary, in cities like Szeged and Kalocsa, and Hungary quickly became one of the biggest producers of paprika.
The origins of this dish are not entirely clear. One story goes that Chicken Paprikash is a successor to the various chicken stews that were prepared and spread by the herders of the Great Hungarian Plane. Once paprika became popular in the area of modern day Hungary, it was probably added to those stews along with sour cream, and voilá, Chicken Paprikash was born.
From Hungary, Chicken Paprikash spread to the other lands of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and elsewhere across the globe with the immigrants from these lands. Of course, the dish has been adapted everywhere it has traveled, including in my mother’s recipe, which you can find below.
Recipe
Ingredients:
900 g chicken thighs and other chicken pieces (bone-in and skin-on are traditional)
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
50 g butter
2 onions, chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced
3 red peppers (about 500 g), chopped
400 g can of whole tomatoes*
15 g sweet Hungarian paprika
1 l vegetable stock
2 tbsp sour cream
3 tsp corn starch
salt and pepper, to taste (I usually add about 1 tsp of salt)
500 g wide egg noodles
extra sour cream and fresh parsley to garnish (optional)
*if you have home-grown fully-ripened tomatoes at hand, you can replace the canned tomatoes with 2-3 tomatoes.
Instructions:
Wash the chicken pieces and season them with 1 teaspoon of salt and 1/2 teaspoon of pepper.
In a deep pan, melt the butter over medium-high heat. Add the chopped onions and sauté until translucent.
Add the chicken pieces and cook until golden on all sides, stirring and turning occasionally.
Dice the canned tomatoes and add them to the pan along with their juice, sweet paprika, chopped peppers, and minced garlic.
Add the vegetable stock and bring to a boil.
Lower the heat to medium or low-medium and cook for about 45 minutes, stirring occasionally.
After about 35 minutes, add the sour cream and the cornstarch mixed with about a tablespoon of water. Make sure the cornstarch mixture is smooth before adding it to the pan.
Continue to cook until the sauce thickens. Add more cornstarch slurry if needed, but always mix it with water first.
Add salt and pepper to taste.
Cook the wide noodles according to package instructions until they are al dente.
Serve the paprikash over the noodles with a spoonful of sour cream, a sprinkle of sweet paprika, and fresh parsley.