{"id":11715,"date":"2012-10-14T22:48:28","date_gmt":"2012-10-14T20:48:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.withaglass.com\/?p=11715"},"modified":"2013-05-12T16:42:46","modified_gmt":"2013-05-12T14:42:46","slug":"hungarian-chicken-with-paprika-paprikas-csirke","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.withaglass.com\/?p=11715","title":{"rendered":"Hungarian Chicken with Paprika (Paprik\u00e1s csirke)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"paprikascsirkepj\"<\/p>\n

Sweet peppers are still on the market, it’s getting cold, we crave warming, hearty dishes… It seems the best moment to enjoy\u00a0paprik\u00e1s csirke<\/em>.\u00a0The first time I tasted paprik\u00e1s csirke<\/em> (pronounced\u00a0paprikash cheer-ke)<\/em>\u00a0was at my friend A.’s parents’ house in Hungary. It smelt deliciously, its deep beautiful red colour made it look like a Hungarian cookery magazine photo, and the taste was heavenly. It was served with small home-made dumplings called “galuska” (see the TIPS) and cream. Ever since then I have been repeating myself I had to try preparing it one day. I suspected Chicken with Paprika to be much more difficult and time-consuming. In reality it is ridiculously easy, requires few ingredients (I could practically make it every day given my fridge and cupboards’ content) and, last but not least, if you don’t put too much fat at the onion frying stage and if you remove the skin, the whole dish is not heavy neither greasy. In short, one more dish confirming that Hungarian cuisine is simple, delicious and not necessarily heavy or greasy.<\/p>\n

Once more during my exploration of the Hungarian cuisine, I decided to try the recipe from\u00a0Zsuzsa is in the kitchen<\/a>\u00a0blog. And once more I wasn’t disappointed. I have simplified the cooking process (my free-range chicken didn’t need any “improving” tricks), modified the quantities a bit and added 1 tablespoon hot paprika, since I wanted the dish to be a bit hot. Oh, and I would have forgotten – this dish is at least twice as good when warmed up the following day!\u00a0Thank you so much, Zsuzsa, for teaching me one more excellent Hungarian dish that has become a regular – and very welcome – guest on our table.<\/p>\n

TIPS: If like me this time you don’t have fresh tomatoes, you can use canned tomatoes or tomato pur\u00e9e (unseasoned).<\/p>\n

The perfect sweet peppers to use here are long green or yellow sweet peppers.<\/p>\n

The taste of caraway seeds is hardly perceptible, but it adds a certain je ne sais quoi to the dish. Do no skip it if you have it (if not, buy caraway seeds).<\/p>\n

Galuska (or nokedli) are small, irregularly shaped dumplings grated through a special grater \u00a0and served often with this chicken dish. Luckily, small Swiss dumplings called sp\u00e4tzli are made in the same way, so finding here the right utensil for next time shouldn’t be complicated. In the meantime I served the chicken with good white bread. Visit\u00a0Zsuzsa’s blog to see her n\u00f6kedli\/galuska recipe<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Last but not least, try the first, onion frying stage, with lard or (like I did) with duck fat. The taste will really be much better.<\/p>\n

Preparation: 1 hour 30 min<\/em><\/p>\n

Ingredients (serves 4):<\/em><\/p>\n

2 skinned chicken legs and 2 breasts cut in two parts each or 4 breasts \/ 4 legs but the best results are obtained if you keep some chicken bones<\/em><\/p>\n

6 medium tomatoes + 200 ml water (about 4\/5 cup) or the same volume of natural tomato pur\u00e9e (passata)<\/em><\/p>\n

5 – 6 green or yellow or any variety of sweet long peppers<\/em><\/p>\n

2 tablespoons lard\/duck fat or oil<\/em><\/p>\n

3 tablespoons sweet Hungarian paprika<\/em><\/p>\n

1 tablespoon hot Hungarian paprika<\/em><\/p>\n

1 big onion<\/em><\/p>\n

1\/4 teaspoon caraway seeds<\/em><\/p>\n

2 garlic cloves<\/em><\/p>\n

water<\/em><\/p>\n

sour cream or Greek yogurt (I use “sour milk”, which is roughly skimmed sour cream)<\/em><\/p>\n

(parsley)<\/em><\/p>\n

Put the tomatoes for a minute in boiling water and transfer them afterwards to a cold water bowl. Peel them and chop them.<\/p>\n

Remove the peppers’ seeds and stalks. Cut them into bite sized pieces.<\/p>\n

Chop the onion.\u00a0Saut\u00e9 it on a low heat until transparent.<\/p>\n

Add the chicken and fry it, stirring, for a couple of minutes.<\/p>\n

Remove from the heat. Add the paprika, the salt, the pepper, the caraway, the tomatoes, the peppers and 200 ml water (or 200 ml tomato pur\u00e9e and no water).<\/p>\n

Cook it covered over low heat until the chicken is soft inside (it’ll take around one hour to make the chicken very soft, as I prefer it, the flesh falling from the bones).<\/p>\n

Check in the meantime if some more water should be added.
\n<\/em><\/p>\n

Serve with sour cream and galuska (nokedli, see above).<\/p>\n

My chicken was still excellent served only with good white bread.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sweet peppers are still on the market, it’s getting cold, we crave warming, hearty dishes… It seems the best moment to enjoy\u00a0paprik\u00e1s csirke.\u00a0The first time…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[185,36],"tags":[45],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.withaglass.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11715"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.withaglass.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.withaglass.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.withaglass.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.withaglass.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11715"}],"version-history":[{"count":19,"href":"http:\/\/www.withaglass.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11715\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11744,"href":"http:\/\/www.withaglass.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11715\/revisions\/11744"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.withaglass.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11715"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.withaglass.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11715"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.withaglass.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11715"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}