Traveling around Hungary and tasting national dishes in local restaurants, you will certainly get acquainted with a delicious, satisfying dish called paprikash. If you are not going to Hungary yet, prepare paprikash at home, for family and friends. This white meat dish is great for lunch and dinner.
Pick your recipe
Paprikash is, perhaps, not even a specific dish, but a cooking technology. Paprikash recipes - dozens, if not hundreds (after all, every chef can add something of his own to a free recipe). But some rules must always be followed. Here's what makes paprikash paprikash:
- white meat to your taste (the main thing is lean, tender) - it can be chicken, veal, lamb, paprikash from fish is also known;
- cream or sour cream in which this meat will be stewed;
- paprika - an extremely popular spice among Hungarians, which gave the name to this dish, without paprika paprikash, of course, is unthinkable.
In Hungary, cooks say so about the main principle of cooking paprikash: "Neither black meat, nor fatty." This means that beef, pork, lamb for paprikash are not suitable. They don’t take a duck or a goose for this dish.
Since paprikash allows the cook a lot of liberties, picking up ingredients for him is not difficult. In addition, you may need products such as onions, red bell pepper, tomato, garlic, olive oil - they are included in many paprikash recipes.
Outside of Hungary, paprikash can be made from pork and beef. This is not a classic Hungarian paprikash, but if you want
Why not experiment?
A classic example of this dish is chicken paprikash recipe. It will require:
- chicken (preferably fillet) - 1 kg;
- sour cream (or heavy cream) - 250 g;
- onion - 2 pcs.;
- bell pepper - 3 pcs.;
- garlic - 5 cloves;
- chicken broth - 1 tbsp.;
- olive oil - 3 tbsp. l.;
- ground paprika - 3 tbsp. l.;
- flour - 1 tbsp. l
- red and black pepper - generously;
- salt - to taste.
Before broilers filled the store shelves, adult hens were taken for chicken paprikash - for a more expressive taste. But now in Hungary they usually take the breast or legs of an ordinary broiler chicken.
First you need to finely chop the chicken and fry it, preferably in a deep saucepan. Salt and pepper right away.
Having laid the meat, in the same oil (already with chicken fat), fry the onion cut into cubes. Add bell pepper to the stewpan and chopped into strips. When the vegetables are fried, put the garlic and paprika directly in the oil.
Pour in the chicken broth, bring to a boil (if the stewpan is shallow, move the dish to the pan or cauldron). Lay the chicken and reduce the heat. Cook until chicken is separated from the bones.
Mix sour cream with flour (so that there are no lumps) and pour in paprikash. After that, simmer the dish for another 5-10 minutes. If necessary, add salt and pepper.
This is a variant of chicken paprikash without tomatoes. But during the roasting of onions and bell peppers, you may well add 3-4 chopped tomatoes. It will turn out very tasty. And chicken broth can be replaced with a glass of tomato juice.
How to serve paprikash? In Hungary, this dish will be offered to you with a side dish of green salad and tarragon (the so-called national pasta). When preparing paprikash at home, it is quite possible to take any pasta that can be found in the cupboard. Also, chicken paprikash is often served with dumplings.