Chicken Paprikash with Spaetzle

One of my favorite Hungarian dishes. Again this isn't the traditional Hungarian recipe or way to do it, but it has all the same ingredients. Just done a little different that is a little bit easier and saves a bit of time.

For those that have never heard of chicken paprikash, it's essentially "chicken paprika". The two key ingredients in the dish. There are many variations on how to make this and for the most part they're all good, so feel free to experiment with this and take some liberties with it. The recipe below is the one I usually make.. sometimes I switch things up though. Another thing with this recipe, and most recipes unless I'm baking, I've gotten terrible at measuring out things because it's mostly "to taste".

Have some fun with it. Remember, you don't have to be a master chef or overly fancy to make good food... you just have to have an iq higher than your shoe size.

Skill level: Intermediate
Chance of burning down the house: Medium
(I wouldn't attempt to cook this if you're at all inebriated)


Stuff you need:

- 1 package(or about 1 pound) boneless chicken tenderloins... or pork.. whatever.
- 1 package Italian or Polish sausage
- 3 Tablespoons butter
- 1 onion
- 1 green pepper
- 1 red pepper
- 1-2 yellow onions
- Optional: sometimes I like to switch it up and add in slices of zucchini or summer squash
- 1 package mushrooms (I usually use baby bella, but white mushrooms are good too)
- 1 normal size container of sour cream
- Spices, paprika, garlic, black pepper, red pepper flakes, little salt
- 4-6 cups of water

For the spaetzle;
- 2 cups flour
- 3 eggs
- Black pepper
- 1/4 cup sour cream


Instructions:

1. To save you time - before you start anything - put the chicken in pot with a simple brine of about a cup of salt and cool water. Salt changes the structure of the muscle tissues in the meat which allows it to swell and absorb water/flavorings which results in tender meat. Nobody wants to eat desert chicken.

While the chicken is chillin out in a salt bath, wash and cut up all your veggies however you like them cut. Once that is done, set them aside and cut up the chicken and sausage into bite-size pieces. Put the sausage off to the side and return the chicken to the brine.

2.  Heat a deep pan on the stove, melt the butter and add your sausage and chicken. Cook that up 5-10 minutes, depending on how thick the sausage and chicken is. Remove the meat from the pan and set aside, leaving the juice and remaining butter in the pan.

3. Add your veggies to the pan and saute them, adding some black pepper to them, about 7 minutes. Remove from the pan and set aside.

4. By this time you've probably realized that a deep pan isn't going to hold all the glory that will be chicken paprikash so get out a big ass pot in addition to your deep pan and prepare yourself.

5. Now we're going to start making the sauce in the deep pan with all the chicken and veggie butter juice that is left over. Add 1/4 cup of paprika AND a few tables spoons of flour to the juice and cook that for 2-3 minutes on medium (again, the idea is to not burn things haha) before adding the water. I would start with about 4 cups of water, you can always add more later when it is all simmering. So once the paprika is good to go, add in that water. You may have to whisk this mixture after adding the water just so it's not lumpy.

6. Add in your spices to the pan. Let it simmer a bit then taste-check for flavor, if it's weak or needs more of something.. add more of whatever you think it needs. Bring it all to a boil.

7. Now here is the boring, and slightly tricky, part... shut the heat off and let the broth cool for a few minutes. Then we're going to slowly add the sour cream. Pay attention to this because if you don't do this right, the sour cream will curdle and you'll have some lumpy ass chicken paprikash.

Start by adding and whisking in a tablespoon of sour cream at a time, assuring that it's not going to curdle. Once you get it going, depending on how creamy you want the sauce, keep adding it to your liking. I pretty much add all of it except for what I'm going to use for the spaetzle... which is about 1/4 cup.

8. If you've successfully done that part, pat yourself on the back and grab a glass of wine or something. From here on out it's easy street.

9. Pour the broth into your big ass pot I told you to get out earlier, add in your chicken and veggies, add more water if you need to. Set the heat on low, let all that flavor excellence simmer with a lid on, stir it now and then.

10. While your paprikash is simmering, this gives us the perfect time to start on the spaetzle. Get out another large pot, fill it with water and bring it to a boil. By now you've heard the saying "watching eyes never boil". So! Instead of being a herpty-derp and staring at water, go get out a mixing bowl and make the dough.

11. In a mixing bowl, combine flour, black pepper (to taste), eggs and sour cream.

12. Look at that, the water is boiling. Start spooning the dough into the boiling water one tablespoon at a time. but not on top of one another in the pot. You'll know when it is done because it'll float to the top. Convenient little shits these are.

13. However, sometimes they stick to the bottom of the pot so just stir it after a couple minutes to make sure that's not happening. Take the spaetzel that is done and place it in a container off to to the side, and continue that process until you've run out of dough to cook... of course.

Ahh! Perfection. Put some spaetzel on a plate or in a bowl, put your veggie/chicken/sausage/sauce over it and enjoy.

I know this seems like a lot of instructions but once you've made it a couple times it basically comes back down to "cook all the things in a pot".

Om nom nom.