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Monday, December 6, 2010

Chicken Paprikash and Dumplings

At the request of my forever BFF and cousin(A.B.C), Kristen, I am posting this recipe for her. Yes, it's a day late, but better late than never I always say. :)

My son's class is having a multi-cultural luncheon at school in ten days. So I thought it would be wise to do a "trial run" on this recipe as I have not made this since I lived in my apartment on 115th Street over 10 years ago. As I was on the phone blabbing away and attempting to make this recipe, (mind scattered) I put in 1 stick of butter instead of the required 2 Tblsp of butter.

OOOPS.

I managed to scrape out the excess butter in time before it all had melted into the pan, and the results were pretty tasty.  My six-year old daughter, Kalaya, had never had Chicken Paprikash or a dumpling in her life. So when I bent down with dumpling and soup atop the spoon and gave her a taste, her little blue eyes opened wide and lit up as she exclaimed to me "MOMMY! THIS IS REALLY GOOD!"

Success....
She's my pickiest eater.

You can use a whole chicken, chicken fryers or chicken breasts even. Although I find that dark meat tastes much better in this recipe, so I used one package of six chicken thighs. That was more than enough meat and I probably could have doubled the recipe and had enough leftovers for a day or two.

CHICKEN PAPRIKASH

Ingredients for this recipe:

4-6 chicken thighs(or 4 pd chicken if you choose to use a whole chicken)
1/2 medium onion, diced
salt to taste(i use about a 1/2 tsp to start and add as I go if I need more)
Pepper to taste(sprinkled lightly to just cover the top of the butter more or less)
Paprika(sprinkled lightly to cover as well)
1-2 tblsp butter
1-2 tblsp jar garlic(or 1 clove garlic..more or less to your liking, I happen to love garlic...keeps the vampires and creepy men away LOL)
1 pint sour cream( a 1/2 pint if you like your paprikash a little more thinner and a little less thicker)
1-2 cans of Chicken Broth(or you can use chicken base, however,  I've never made this recipe with the base so I'm not sure of the exact measurements to water on that)

Two separate dutch ovens(or simliar sized pots)


Place chicken  with water and broth into dutch oven. Add a 1-2 tsp of Jar Garlic into water along with Salt and Pepper to flavor chicken. Bring to boil for about an hour or until chicken gently falls off the bone and is completely cooked through.*This recipe is based on 4-6 chicken pieces. Adjust cooking directions accordingly*

About 10-15 mins before chicken is done boiling begin to melt butter and add onion, garlic and season to your liking with Paprika, Pepper and Salt. It's best to under season and add to taste then to over season and regret it later. Stir in Sour Cream. Continue to simmer and stir for about 5-10 mins.

Gradually add (with a ladel or serving spoon) the water from the pot of chicken.

Next take chicken out of the pot and cut into whatever size you prefer. I chopped mine up in varying sizes. Some were shavings and some were cubed. Not exactly the way my grandma did it, but still tastes the same(sort of LOLL). I also added some(not all) of the Chicken skin to keep the flavor. Remove the skin, don't remove the skin...again, personal preference.

Add chicken to the paprikash pot and voila'! You're done! Simmer maybe another 15 mins and while it's simmering you can tend to preparing your dumplings.

ADDED NOTE: Because of the butter and drippings from the chicken, it will tend to settle on top of the pot. Be sure to always stir before serving.

DUMPLINGS:

I remember my grandmother's dumplings like it was yesterday. I use to love watching her make these tasty little buggers. She use to put them in a bowl for me and my siblings and cover them in butter. Mmmm....*has flashbacks to childhood at Grandma Strez's house and days of dumplings and butter and Strawberry Jello and Reddi Whip....*

So sorry, childhood flashback there! LOL

Okay, so the dumpling recipe is pretty darn easy.

Boil water, when the water is boiling add the dumpling dough. When it rises to the top of the water wait about a minute to two minutes and remove. (*NOTE: It may stick to the bottom of the pot so just take a spoon and gently stir to remove it from the bottom of the pot. I haven't uncovered the secret of "unsticking dumplings" from the bottom of the pot*grins*)

It's just One Egg, 1 Cup of Flour(I actually sprinkled a bit more in my recipe, but I can't give you an exact measurement so I just went with one cup here LOLL maybe 1-1/4 cup..let's go with that shall we??LOL), 3 tblsp water.

The dough should be the consistency of Paper Mache' paste more or less.(I do believe this is the recipe for paper mache' sans the egg LOL) it will be a tad bit sticky. Take a knife or spoon and scrape into pot of boiling water.

Place in plate or bowl. Lightly salt(if you desire) and serve(in a bowl, not on a plate, that's just disrespectful to this fine Slavic recipe and would make all Polish grandmas roll over in their graves I'm sure.)

Ta-Dah!!! Dinner is served!

One final note, it was brought to my attention by an un-named individual that it was "weird" to not add the dumplings to the soup mixture. I told this individual, "We're Polacks, we do things different".  LOL Truth be known, thanks to my beloved Mother, if you add the dumplings to the Paprikash(or any soup really) it will absorb the liquid causing you to have one giant "dumpling blob" overtaking your pot of soup. ;)

Happy Eating!

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