So, what are you making for dinner? I thought I would share one of my favorite recipes, that I plan on making tonight...Chicken Paprikas. It's really good. You should try it. It's actually fairly easy to make.
2 lbs chicken. I usually go with 2 lbs boneless chicken breasts or 1 lb chicken breast and 1 lb of deboned chicken thigh meat. Cut into Cubes.
1 big yellow onion, diced
2-3 cloves of garlic, minced.
3 tablespoons of fat (butter, olive oil, or whatever)
about 1 to 1 1/2 cups chicken stock (enough to almost cover the chicken).
3-4 heaping tbsp. of Hungarian Paprika. You can use sweet or hot, or mix the two according to taste. I like to do 50/50, but I usually just use sweet paprika because my wife and her family don't do hot.
1 tsp. kosher salt, + 1/2 tsp. (doesn't have to be, but I prefer kosher salt after watching too many episodes of "Good Eats")
1/2 to 1 cup sour cream (to taste)
Spaetzle - German dumpling-like noodles. You can make them yourself. There are plenty of recipes online, but I usually go to the grocery store, where they have them ready made. A poor substitute is to get the box o' dried spaetzle from the pasta section or just use egg noodles.
Hardware:
1 big saute pan, cast iron skillet or whatever you have, plus a lid or something to cover it with.
A wooden spoon or something to stir with.
Put the cubed chicken into a big bowl, toss in 2-3 heaping tablespoons of paprika and 1 tsp. salt. Mix it up good and let it sit on the side while you work on the rest (you could even prep it the night before for a dry-rub effect).
Heat up the butter or oil in your big saute pan, or your cast iron "goulaschkanone" if you have one. Toss in the onion and cook it until it gets translucent. Then throw in the garlic and cook for about 30 seconds. Then toss in 2-3 tblspoons of paprika (whatever you didn't use on the chicken) and 1/2 teaspoon of salt. Keep stirring. The heat brings out the flavor of the paprika, but if you let it sit too long, it will burn. Add the chicken cubes and brown them for about 4 minutes. Add enough stock to just about cover the chicken and bring it all to a boil. Cover it, knock down the heat to low, and let it simmer for about 25 minutes. If you're loosing too much liquid because your lid doesn't fit tight, add more stock if needed.
While your paprikas is simmering, bring a pot of salted water to boil. Add the spaetzle to the boiling water. If it's fresh made, it will only take a minute or two to cook. If it's from a box, follow the box instructions. When the spaetzle are done, drain and set aside.
When the paprikas has finished simmering, add the sour cream. If you want a thicker sauce, mix together a few tbsp. of flour with an equal number of tbspn. water and stir it into the paprikas. Let it sit for a few minutes.
Now, just make a bed of spaetzle on your plate. Ladle or spoon the chicken paprikas onto the spaetzle. If you like, you can add a dollop of sour cream to the top. Enjoy.
Some crusty bread is nice to have around to sop up the leftover sauce off your plate.
Note: Some recipes online call for tomatoes. Authentic Paprikas (and goulasch for that matter) does not have tomatoes in it. You can try some canned or stewed tomatoes in if you like. I actually came up with this recipe by taking one from Emeril, removing the inauthentic ingredients and adjusting the others until I got something to my liking.
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Originally Posted by Sweetstop
