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:
700 g shredded chicken*
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 San Marzano DOP tomatoes**
15 g sweet Hungarian paprika
1 l water or stock
2 tbsp sour cream
3 tsp corn starch
salt and pepper, to taste
500 g wide egg noodles
*traditionally chicken pieces, bone-in, and skin-on are used, but my husband doesn’t like it that way, so I always used shredded chicken. If you decide to use chicken pieces with bones, increase the amount to 900 g. I often make a vegetarian version of this dish, where I replace the shredded chicken with grilled veggie chicken pieces.
**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 (remove the skin if using chicken pieces with skin and bone) and season them with 1 tsp of salt and 1/2 tsp of pepper.
In a deep pan, melt the butter at medium-high heat. Add chopped onions and sauté until the onion is translucent.
Add chicken pieces and cook until golden on all sides. Stir and turn occasionally.
Dice the tomatoes and add them to the meat along with the tomato passata from the can, sweet paprika, chopped peppers and minced garlic.
Cook until the water evaporates.
Add water or stock and bring to a boil.
Lower the heat to medium or low-medium and cook for 45 minutes. Stir occasionally.
Cook the wide noodles until they are al dente.
After about 35 min, add the sour cream and corn starch mixed with about a tablespoon of water (the water-starch mixture must be smooth when you add it). If you use chicken with bones, increase the cooking time to 45 min.
Cook a while longer until the mixture thickens. Add more starch if needed (but it must always be mixed with water).
Add salt and pepper to taste. I usually add about a teaspoon of salt.
Serve on top of wide noodles along with sour cream, sweet paprika, and fresh parsley.