Amazing Hungarian Chicken Paprikash With Dumplings

"This recipe has been passed down in my Hungarian family for generations and perfected. I now use boneless chicken despite bone-in being the tradition. I think it makes it a little more friendly without losing any taste."
 
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photo by Chelsea L. photo by Chelsea L.
photo by Chelsea L.
photo by Jamie W. photo by Jamie W.
photo by Phoenix Food Queen photo by Phoenix Food Queen
Ready In:
50mins
Ingredients:
14
Serves:
8
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ingredients

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directions

  • Set a large pot of water on to boil for the dumplings.
  • De-fat, and tenderize chicken. Cut into bite-sized pieces. With oil, brown chicken in a large pan on medium-high heat (6-10 min).
  • Add paprika, onion powder, salt, pepper, and chicken broth to the chicken in the pan. Stir them to mix. Bring to a boil and then lower heat to simmer and put a lid on and let simmer for 25 minute.
  • In a container with a lid (tupperware is good) mix water, flour and sour cream for the chicken. Shaking the mixture aggressively is the best way to ensure a smooth mix. Set aside mixture for later.
  • While chicken is simmering, mix all ingredients - eggs, flour, water, and salt - for the dumplings together in a mixing bowl. It should be a pretty thick, dry mix when you are done. If it's too gooey, add small amounts of flour until it is more dry.
  • With water boiling, turn down the heat to low. Tip the mixing bowl until the dumpling dough rests at the edge. Using a dull knife (butter knife), slice the dough from the lip of the bowl into small blobs and into the pot. Continue this process until all of the dough has been used. This process takes about 3-5 minute Dipping the knife occasionally into the boiling water will prevent dough from sticking to it.
  • Raise heat and boil dumplings for another 5-6 min or so.
  • Meanwhile, the chicken should be about done simmering. Using a spoon, draw some of the chicken sauce and put it into the sour cream/flour/water mixture that you had set aside. This is important to prevent sour cream from curdling. Put the lid on and shake the mixture once more. There should be no flour or sour cream chunks in the mixture.
  • Finally, stir the mixture into the chicken pan. Mix until consistent. Bring the sauce to a boil stirring occasionally for sauce to thicken.
  • Drain the water from the dumplings.
  • Usually, chicken and sauce are served on top of the dumplings.

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Reviews

  1. I saw an episode on Hungarian cooking on an Australian TV channel (SBS) and decided to try a dish. I fluked on this - I must have been born lucky! I cooked the chicken as per the recipe for wife and son. Only change was to use thigh fillets rather than breast because we like the Chinese, think thigh meat has better taste and texture. Anyway the result was that we, were basically blown away - this is a real keeper! Wonderful stuff! Son likes very spicy food and wife likes milder so I mixed about a cup of sauce in a small saucepan with chili flakes so son could flavour his own. 'Fantastic' he said. This is a brilliant recipe and anyone who "had to remake the whole dish over to make it palatable" clearly has no appreciation of what good food is despite their claimed profession. Comments like those are the product of an inflated ego, a deplorable lack of manners, and no feeling for those who try to do something nice for them..
     
  2. I am also part Hungarian and a recipe much like this one was passed down in my family as well. In fact its the ONLY recipe passed down. Chicken Paprikash has been my favorite comfort dish since I was a child. this is the only recipe i know by heart but i wanted to see if there were any better ways to prepare it. (such as your mixing the sour cream separately was brilliant) We make our Dumplings slightly different though. Actually they are more like dumpling noodles. instead of making it dry ours calls for the mixture to be slightly runny (and I like to add a little paprika to the mixture as an extra kick!) then instead of a knife use a spoon to scoop the dough into the boiling water. And only use I/3 of the spoon (the side) and get the dough into the water by knocking the spoon on the edge of the pot and then continuing on to the next. (yes it can be time consuming but the efforts are worth it) make sure to have a straining spoon handy and a cassorole dish with a dab of butter to keep the dumpling noodles from sticking. As you continue one by one spooning the mixture in the pot, some of the dumplings should be rising to the surface so periodically scoup them out with the straining spoon and dump them in the cassirole dish. They should resemble slightly half-moon shaped pieces of chewed up gum (I know that sounds gross but that's the best description I've got). Continue scooping the dough untill its done. This takes a while and this is usually when my grandmother employed my help when I was young and how I learned to make this dish better than anyone in my family including her. I am happy to know there is someone else out there who was raised on this amazing and rare dish! Tonight for dinner I'm going to try it your way... :) Thank you!
     
  3. i I too already know how to make this dish as it was passed down from my grandmother but wanted to see if i had forgotten anything over the years. It is very close and anyone looking for true Hungarian chicken and dumplings as found the recipie.
     
  4. We thought this meal was very good. I wasn't overly enthused with the dumplings, preferring my normal spaetzle recipe but I felt the sauce and the chicken was very tasty. I made a couple changes: I used 2 small/medium onions, sliced top to bottom and one tablespoon of onion powder in place of the onion powder otherwise called for and I substituted 1 tbsp of smoked paprika in place of one of the tbsps of paprika. I'm not sure what Chefbs was talking about when he said it needed almost a total rewrite. I didn't think it was bland nor did I find the sauce "wall paper [glue] consistency". I
     
  5. My wife tried to surprise me with one of my favorite Hungarian dishes of all time. When I came home I had questioned this recipe big time and found this particular recipe a bit bland, pale and unexciting!!! I did not want to throw it away and the Chinese restaurant was closed due to the holiday. Thank God I am a chef and know how to fix recipes like this one. I had to start out by caramelizing onions and adding more Hungarian paprika paste. It took quite a bit of salt and fresh ground pepper to bring it to life. A bit more chicken stock and sour cream to thin it out a <br/>little so that it did not have that wall paper consistency. I am not trying to be mean or rude but I almost had to remake the whole dish over to make it palatable.
     
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Tweaks

  1. This is not authentic. Your Mom or Baba may have done it this way but it's way off. In the Old Country there was no boxed, canned or powdered booster. They used chicken stock only. You can find a recipe by Googling it. There was no onion powder. Use real onions. Next the pivotal ingredient is the chicken. Use only bone in and skin on breasts. To the oil add breast turning frequently until you can pull skin and bones away. CAUTION: The chicken is raw! Toss bones and skin into your stock pot. Remove chicken onto plate and pour off oil. Add onion, stir until translucent. Make your rue very light but flour must be cooked. Add chicken stock and pan will deglaze. Cut chicken into good size cubes and add to pan. Look at cubes to see no pink. More finish recipe with sour cream and paprika. Salt and pepper to taste. Lid the pan and prepare dumplings. Serve piping hot. Enjoy! PS: If no sweet paprika shred a carrot during cooking. That's how they got around it in Hungary.
     
  2. I used a whole Costco package of rotisserie chicken, which made it a much faster recipe. I also chopped a large onion, sauteed it in olive oil, added paprika then stock, before adding the chicken. I had to add more flour and a bit more salt to the dumpling recipe, but for the first time, my dumplings came out beautifully- just like my Grandma's. I didn't have sour cream so I used Greek Yogurt (O fat) and a bit of butter. Was careful it didn't boil at the end but flour was cooked and it came out wonderful! My husband wanted to have it again for breakfast!
     
  3. We thought this meal was very good. I wasn't overly enthused with the dumplings, preferring my normal spaetzle recipe but I felt the sauce and the chicken was very tasty. I made a couple changes: I used 2 small/medium onions, sliced top to bottom and one tablespoon of onion powder in place of the onion powder otherwise called for and I substituted 1 tbsp of smoked paprika in place of one of the tbsps of paprika. I'm not sure what Chefbs was talking about when he said it needed almost a total rewrite. I didn't think it was bland nor did I find the sauce "wall paper [glue] consistency". I
     

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