Paprika chicken

Name: Paprika chicken
Cuisine: Hungarian
Ingredients: sunflower oil or lard, for frying; sunflower oil or lard, for frying; 1 onion, chopped; 1 small stick celery, chopped; 1 leek, chopped; 1 red pepper, deseeded and chopped; 2 cloves garlic, finely chopped; 1 tbsp paprika; ½ small chilli, deseeded and finely chopped; 1 tbsp tomato passata; salt; 1.5 kg chicken; 2 tbsp soured cream; 1 tbsp plain flour; 1 tsp white wine vinegar

Preparation info

Serves
4

Difficulty
Easy

Appears in

How to Cook Better

By Shaun Hill

Published 2004

About

This chicken dish produces its own stock. When I cooked this dish in a Hungarian restaurant I worked in 30 years ago, it had to produce enough sauce to cover all the pork and most of the veal dishes as well. Like goulash, the dish was served with an accompanying marinated cucumber salad to cut through any creaminess in the sauce.

Ingredients

sunflower oil or lard, for frying
1 onion, chopped
1 small stick celery, chopped

Europe
Hungary
Main course
Eastern Europe

Method

Use a heavy-based pot with a tight-fitting lid. Heat the pot, add the fat and then fry the vegetables and garlic until they start to colour. Add the paprika, then the chilli and passata.
Pour on 500ml water and season with salt. Bring to the boil, then add the chicken.
Cover with a tight-fitting lid and lower the heat so that the bird simmers gently.