Gundel's Hungarian Cookbook has been sitting among all my other rarely used cookbooks and it was time to rectify that massive culinary injustice. I chose to make a traditional Hungarian comfort food, chicken paprikas with galushka dumplings. Of course, after reading through the recipe, I realized it's like going with an old family recipe. Not everything is entirely spelled out like it would be on the Food Network website, instead you have "cook as if you were making porkolt but you should do this to A instead and add X instead of Y at the end. Enjoy!" Really?? However, this book is in its 29th edition, has been around since 1934, and was even translated into Japanese, so who am I to argue?
One last note before I jump into the show and tell portion of this week's main event...I went traditional with this traditional recipe. I did not try and cut calories so I did use lard for frying up the onions and dumplings. This is by no means an endorsement of using lard, you might actually get a richer flavor if you went the butter or olive oil route. Me? I simply chose not to argue with an 80 year old cookbook and decided I could play around once I did it the "right" way. Plus, I've never cooked with lard before so I could not resist the temptation.
Chicken Paprikas
Ingredients:
7 Tbsp. lard
1/2 c. onions - chopped
2 1/2 tsp. paprika
4 1/2 lbs. chicken - cubed
1 c. green pepper - chopped
1 medium tomato - diced
1/4 c. flour
1 1/4 c. sour cream
Directions:
In a large saute pan, melt lard over medium high heat. Saute onions until they brown to a light yellow color, approximately 10 minutes.
Reduce heat and add paprika, stir then add the chicken. Once the meat begins to brown on all sides, add the green peppers and tomatoes. Cook the chicken for about a total of 30 minutes. You want the cubes cooked through and tender. They should fall apart with just a press of a fork.
Once the chicken is cooked through, add the flour and sour cream.
This amazing pan of tasty Hungarian comfort food should be served over galushka dumplings.
Galushka Dumplings
Ingredients:
4 1/2 c. flour
1 lg egg
1 c. ice cold water (approximate, use more or less as necessary)
6 Tbsp lard
Directions:
Sift the flour into a large bowl. Make a hollow in the center, cracking the egg into it. Add water a little bit at a time as you mix ingredients together until it forms a semi-soft dough. It should easily come off a wooden spoon.
At this point, bring a large pot of water to a rolling boil. While you wait you can make the dumplings. If you have a spatzel press this should go fairly quickly. Place small amounts into press, press out spatzel. If you are like me and do not have a spatzel press you will do this the hard way. Roll out small amounts of dough into long thin pieces resembling skinny bread sticks. Cut into small pieces. Boil in small batches, they will be ready to remove once they float to the top of the water. If you so choose, melt lard in a pan and give the dumplings a quick fry.
In the picture above you will notice glistening bits of moisture on my stove. Here is my PSA for the day...lard gets REALLLLLLLY hot and will not smoke the way butter or oil will. This means you might not realize how hot the lard is until you put in some galushka dumplings and you end up with a volcanic eruption of lard out of the pot. If I only had a video camera going at that precise moment...oh my.
Thankfully, volcanic eruptions do not affect taste and so no matter what it took to get there, you will have an amazing meal in front of you, perfect for a cold day.
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