Hungarian Chicken Paprikash

Hungary is well know for its cuisine and chicken paprikash is one of the dishes people associate the country's name with as it's one of Hungary's national dishes. The dish is well know all over the world but unfortunately some versions have nothing to do with the original. I know a few versions myself and cook them all but today I wanted to bring you the one that is the closest to the original.

Chicken paprikash in Hungarian is csirkepaprikás, paprikás csirke or just paprikás as everyone knows it's made of chicken. I however prefer the csirkepaprikás term better.

Ingredients

3 medium onions,
3 - 4 garlic cloves,
1 red pepper (optional),
2 tbsp ground paprika,
4 - 5 tbsp olive oil,
4 - 5 black peppers,
1 tbsp salt,
4 bay leaves,
3 tbsp all purpose flour,
3 tbsp milk,
sour cream.

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Method

Cop the onions, add oil to the pen, heat the oil and add the chopped onions. As you can see on the photo, I'm using 3 different type of onions as diversity can give you a nice flavor as each type of onion is different.

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Add the chopped paprika. I had one half of paprika and the rest is canned paprika, canned by me, it's almost the same as fresh paprika. Stir for a few minutes, then add the chopped garlic.

If you don't have fresh paprika or don't like it, you can skip this step and use only paprika powder.

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Add 2 tbsp ground paprika, add water to cover and bay leaves. If you're not used to ground paprika, please pay attention as it burns quickly and then it's bitter. So add paprika powder, mix well and then add water immediately. Also make sure you use genuine ground paprika as there's so many counterfeit ground paprika, many even poisonous. I have a few trusted companies I know from Hungary and only use those.

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Add the chicken legs, pepper, salt, water to cover, cover with a lid and cook at a medium heat till it's tender.

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Remove the chicken, transfer to a plate, mix 3 tbsp flour to a bowl, mix with some milk. add the mix to the sauce, whisking constantly to prevent lumps. Bring it to a simmer for a couple of minutes until the sauce is thickened. Add the chicken legs, sour cream, cook for two minutes and it's ready.

Serve while it's still hot and pour sour cream over it. I should have sprinkled with fresh, chopped parsley but I forgot. It's optional anyway.

Normally it should be served with nokedli, a Hungarian garnish, but I didn't have time for that, so I served it with homemade bread. If you have the time, here's a recipe for you. It's called German spaetzle but it's basically the same thing.

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