I returned exactly a month ago from Hungary, specifically from Budapest, a beautiful trip to a beautiful city. I knew it was beautiful, but I never thought it would be this much. And if you’ve been following me for a while, you know I love traveling, and on this blog, I share many recipes I’ve tried during my travels. And so it is with paprika chicken, a recipe you can recreate at home with few ingredients and very easy to make. Of course, in Budapest, I bought sweet paprika and paprika-tomato paste to season this dish and, naturally, also the typical dumplings (Nokedli) with which this dish is served, which I will certainly try to replicate at home. But if you don’t have these ingredients, you can substitute with regular dumplings or spätzle and tomato paste and sweet paprika.
But now let’s see how to prepare paprika chicken in the following recipe.
- Difficulty: Easy
- Cost: Affordable
- Preparation time: 20 Minutes
- Portions: 4
- Cooking methods: Stove
- Cuisine: Hungarian
- Seasonality: All Seasons
Ingredients
- 8 chicken drumsticks
- 10.5 oz red and yellow bell peppers (I used the long ones)
- 1 onion
- 2 teaspoons sweet paprika
- as needed extra virgin olive oil
- 1 teaspoon butter
- 1 teaspoon tomato paste (I used paprika-tomato paste)
- 3.5 oz sour cream
- 17.6 oz Nokledi (Hungarian dumplings) (or spätzle or dumplings of your choice)
- as needed parsley
Tools
- 1 Immersion Blender
Steps
Start preparing your paprika chicken by placing oil and butter in a large pan, let them heat/melt, and add the chicken drumsticks, browning them well on all sides. Then season with some salt and add half a glass of water. If you wish, you can also deglaze with some wine. Then lower the heat, cover, and let it cook for about 7-8 minutes.
Meanwhile, boil water for the Nokledi, which, if you buy the original ones, will need at least 20 minutes of cooking.
In the meantime, wash, clean, and cut the bell peppers into cubes, do the same with the onion. Then add both to the pan with the chicken. Season with sweet paprika and paprika paste or tomato paste, salt, and half a glass of water and let cook for at least 15 minutes, stirring occasionally.
When the peppers are well cooked, turn off the heat, remove the drumsticks from the pan, and pour the rest into a tall, narrow container, like the one for the immersion blender. Then blend everything until you have a thick sauce. At this point, you can add the sour cream and mix everything again or serve the sour cream directly on the plate.
Now pour the sauce back into the pan, adjust with salt and sweet paprika if needed, and add the drumsticks, letting them flavor over very low heat for about 10 minutes.
In the meantime, your dumplings will be cooked, drain them and prepare the plates with dumplings, 2 drumsticks per person, a nice ladle of paprika sauce, and some parsley for garnish. Enjoy your meal.
and above are my photos at the New York Café where I first tried paprika chicken, a spectacular location not to be missed if you go to Budapest.
Another dish I recommend from Hungarian cuisine is LANGOS find the recipe HERE.
Saby suggests…
Besides chicken drumsticks, you can also use chicken breast cut into pieces for this dish, and the result is delicious.
For a vegan version, you can substitute the chicken with smoked tofu, the result is delicious.
