Chicken with Paprika Gravy

Paprika is a great taste to pair with chicken, especially when it’s in this creamy, gluten-free Hungarian sauce.

I like to serve this in a bowl because there is so much delicious sauce. You can garnish the chicken with fresh parsley if you’d like.

I make Hungarian paprika chicken at least a couple of times every winter. It’s one of those recipes that I never make exactly the same, because the recipe is basically putting big handfuls of chopped vegetables into a pot with stock, seasonings, and chicken—adjust to your own taste. My recipe may say 1 cup chopped onions, but I often get carried away with chopping onions, so it’s usually more like 1 ½ cups. The ideal green pepper may be an Anaheim pepper, but if I don’t have an Anaheim pepper handy, I’ll chop a big green bell pepper. And the traditional Hungarian seasoning may be sweet paprika, but I like the taste of half-sharp paprika (spicy), so I often use that, or a mix of sweet and half-sharp.

In fact, I was first shown how to make this recipe by an Australian woman from a Hungarian family, and I know we didn’t measure a thing. I doubt we even had Hungarian paprika, as we were in Tokyo at the time. (I also wasn’t yet cooking gluten free back then, so used regular flour; I now thicken the gravy with gluten-free flour).

Speaking of paprika, although the generic stuff most people have in their cabinet will work in a pinch, I encourage you to find a good Hungarian paprika with bold flavor—a lot of paprika available in supermarkets is fairly bland. (I’ve recently been buying spices from Spice House, but they are a bit pricey.)

Oh, and—calling all lard lovers—here’s a great opportunity for you to use lard for sautéing the onions and giving the dish an Old World taste. If lard’s not for you, I suggest using an organic sunflower oil or other neutral-tasting oil.

This recipe is enough for four people. My favorite sides to serve with paprika chicken are mashed potatoes or gnocchi (I’ll do a gluten-free recipe for this soon) and a green salad. If you have leftovers, the sauce and chicken will taste just as good (or better) the next day when you reheat it. Any excess gravy can also be frozen, and tastes great not just on chicken and mashed potatoes, but also over cooked penne (that’s how I used my extra gravy this time). Some day, I’m going to try cooking beef in the gravy, which I think would taste fantastic.

Ingredients:

• 1 to 2 tablespoons sunflower oil or lard

• 1 to 1 ½ cups yellow onions

• 1 to 1 ½ cups chopped sweet green peppers (Anaheim, Cubano, or green bell)

• 1 cup chopped fresh tomatoes or 1 to 2 tablespoons tomato paste

• 2 cloves garlic, chopped

• 6 cups chicken stock

• 1 1/2 tablespoons Hungarian sweet or half-sharp (spicy) paprika, depending on your taste

• 4 pounds chicken thighs

• 1 cup sour cream

• ¼ cup gluten-free flour and about ½ cup water (I used King Arthur Gluten Free Measure for Measure flour)

• Salt to taste

The main ingredients you’ll need: onions, green peppers, stock, chicken, paprika, tomatoes, garlic, and sour cream. You’ll also need gluten-free flour to thicken the gravy.

Directions:

• Sauté the onions in the oil or lard until clear (not brown)

• Add the peppers, tomatoes, garlic, chicken stock, paprika, chicken thighs, and about 2 teaspoons of salt (all ingredients except the sour cream and flour)

• Set the heat to a moderate simmer, cover, and cook the chicken until it is cooked through and tender (usually about 30 to 45 minutes)

• When the chicken pieces are cooked, remove them from the sauce

• To thicken the sauce, stir the flour into the ½ cup of water, then slowly pour it into the sauce while vigorously stirring to avoid lumps (a whisk is good for this); let the sauce simmer for a few minutes to fully incorporate the flour (gluten-free flour takes longer to absorb liquid) (see note¹ for the traditional, but I think messier, method for adding flour)

• Add the sour cream and make sure it fully dissolves in the gravy (again, a whisk helps)

• Taste for salt and adjust seasoning if needed

• Place the chicken in the pot with the gravy and heat until everything is warmed through, then serve

I like to use fresh tomatoes for this recipe when they’re in season. Otherwise, tomato paste works very well.

1. The more traditional way to add the flour to the sauce is to stir the flour into the sour cream, then bit by bit, add a cup of the hot gravy to the sour cream, stirring as you do. Then stir the mixture into the pot. I’ve done it this way several times, but it’s kind of messy ladling the sauce into the sour cream, and I’ve found the way I described above to be just as effective for thickening.