Chicken Paprikash (Hungarian Comfort Food) Recipe on Food52 (2024)

FAQs

What is chicken paprikash sauce made of? ›

Paprikas csirke is made with pan seared bone-in chicken pieces tat are then braised in a simple sauce made with chicken stock, onions, garlic, tomato paste or tomatoes, and lots of good quality sweet Hungarian paprika. The one thing you mustn't skimp on is using good Hungarian paprika.

Paprikash, or paprikas in Hungarian, is a traditional paprika-based stew. The most famous preparation is chicken paprikash (paprikas csirke), although veal is sometimes used. Bone-in chicken pieces are browned in butter or lard, then braised until tender in a sauce of onions, garlic, water and paprika.

The spice Paprikash, or paprika, has a mild, sweet, earthy, sometimes musty flavor. Note that there are different types of paprika – sweet (called for in this recipe), spicy and smoked.

The origins of chicken paprikash predate the introduction of paprika and can be traced back to a simple one-pot chicken stew, a dish favored by the poor and thus often bolstered by large quantities of inexpensive onions. In time, paprika was added—and later a spare amount of tomato—creating a dish known as pörkölt.

Spanish paprika is typically of the sweet variety and is made from Spanish chiles. Hungarian paprika is often lauded as the most desirable and most flavorful iteration of the spice. It can be either hot or sweet and is made using ground Hungarian paprika chile peppers.

Lunch is the major meal of the day, traditionally with several courses, but often just one course in modern times. Cold or hot appetizers may be served sometimes (for example, fish, egg or liver), then soup. Soup is followed by a main dish.

“It's an essential ingredient in Hungarian cuisine and it gives many dishes their brilliant, orange-red colour and intense, peppery flavour and aroma. Paprika can be sweet, hot and even smoked – and it comes in different grades of coarseness and colour.”

Suggested pairing

We recommend serving a full-bodied Hungarian white, such as Disznókő Dry Furmint.

Paprika contains high levels of vitamins C and E, with the former providing protection against cardiovascular diseases such as heart attacks and strokes. The iron, magnesium, phosphorus and potassium also found in paprika helps to purify the blood and keep the heart healthy.

Hungary's national dish

Gulyás, known to English speakers as goulash, is a spicy meat stew containing lots of paprika pepper. Originally, it was eaten by the country's cattle herders and stockmen.

Which is better Spanish or Hungarian paprika? ›

Usually the Hungarian version is sweeter vs Spanish which is often smokier. This doesn't apply to all, and it depends on the brand/where you buy it in terms of how they label it. This also applies to US grocery stores, idk how or what they distinguish elsewhere.

Their beloved paprika has been banned from stores and markets after one-third of test samples were found poisoned with lead oxide. The drastic action was taken by health authorities last week after nearly 50 people were hospitalized with stomach aches, paralysis of limbs and other symptoms of lead poisoning.

Paprika is considered as the national spice of Hungary, where it was introduced by the Turks in 1569. Hungarian paprika is available in eight different varieties ranging in color and pungency. In 1937, the Hungarian chemist Albert Szent-György won the Nobel Prize for research on the vitamin content of paprika.

My belief is that, unlike goulash, which was invented by trail herders on the move, Chicken Paprikash originated among the farmers of southern Hungary.

Paprika is the Hungarian word for pepper, and Hungarian-style paprika is not smoked, but rather fairly sweet. It was the Turks who introduced the chilies to Hungary, and it's a very popular spice in Hungarian cuisine, giving distinctive flavor to soups and stews such as chicken paprikash and beef goulash.

Paprika is a spice powder made from drying and then grinding the pods of several different types of Capsicum annuum peppers (and in Hungarian the word paprika, confusingly, also refers to the peppers themselves).

Paprika paste is made from fresh Hungarian wax peppers, which are sweet and slightly hot (between 5,000 and 15,000 Scoville units on the heat scale), and deeply red when fully ripened.