Hungarian Chicken Paprikash from Hungarians

Have you ever tried chicken paparikash? If not you most definitely missed out because this Hungarian dinner dish is amazing!

Magyar or Hungarian cuisine is one of the culinary reps in Eastern European food art. It often goes unnoticed unless you have a big Hungarian diaspora in the area near where you live. Also, people are frequently confused about Magyar foods considering Russian cooking the only high well-known performer in Eastern European food family. Well, this is assumption is wrong although, to be completely honest Hungarian, Ukrainian, Polish, and even Russian cuisines have some features in common, for example, a great variety of pickled winter vegetables and all sorts of cold and hot soups, including cabbage soup or goulash.

Likely, if you are a Clevelander, you must know the difference by now thanks to the effort of restaurant Balaton or West Side Market. For those who are still curious about what’s Magyars like to cook for dinner, ladies and gentlemen, I now would like to introduce you an original genuinely authentic recipe of chicken paprikash!

I asked my Hungarian friends to share this recipe with, so I in my turn could share it with all of my readers.
Chicken paprikash is one of the most well-known Magyar dinner dishes and could be found in every Hungarian restaurant like angel hair spaghetti at any Italian dinner.

Here are the recipes from my friends. The first one is short and sweet posted here for emphasize that this dish could be cooked at ease. The second recipe goes more in depth. So enjoy, and post in the comment if you are going to use any one of these recipes so I can pass kudos to my Hungarian friends.

Marton Toth: “Chicken paprikash is easy. Fry up some onions, maybe some pepper and tomatoes if you want to. Then chicken, fry it a little bit. Then add paprika, water and cook it till it’s good. Then mix together flower with sour cream and mix it in it…. Boil it up, after then it’s done.”

Andras Kovach: “First of all you need the ingredients, here is the list:
• you need chicken (breast, thighs, legs), any could be used (I usually use chicken breast cause that’s my favorite)
• Hungarian red pepper
• flour
• sour cream
• onions
• tomatoes
• a bell pepper (but it is optional)
• salt and pepper
• vegetable oil
You should chop the onions and start cooking them on the oil on medium heat. Cook it until glassy. Then, add the tomatoes, and cook it with the onions for a while. After a couple of minutes, take the pan off the hot stove and put the red peppers in, and it mix it with the onions and the tomatoes. Afterwards, put it back on the hot stove.Add the chicken.

You should cut the chicken a little bit larger pieces. When the chicken gets white, add cold water and salt and pepper. Do not add to much water because it is not a soup. When the chicken is soft, mix a small amount of sour cream with flour in a separate bowl and add it to the paprikash. Stir it and let it cook for another 5-10 minutes. Paprikash should be done afterwards.”

A few side notes:

For more reading on all sorts of cultural cooking tricks in Eastern European cuisines check out DMOZ website with its chapter about Hungarian recipes.

Hungarian paprika refers to a spice as well as red bell pepper, so read carefully. It will be clear from the context what is what. As a spice, Hungarian paprika is a complimentary part of almost every Magyar dinner dishes.