Chicken Paprikash

Ingredients

• 8 bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs
• 3 tbsp sweet Hungarian paprika
• 3 onions, finely chopped
• 1 red pepper, chopped
• 2 tomatoes, chopped
• 400 ml chicken stock
• 250 g soured cream
• 1 tbsp plain flour
• 40 g lard or butter

Method

1. Brown the chicken

   Season and brown the thighs skin-down in the fat until deep gold, then set aside.

   10 min

2. Onions, and plenty of them

   Cook the onions and pepper slowly in the same fat until completely soft and sweet. Paprikash is built on roughly equal weights of onion and meat, and the onions must collapse entirely.

   15 min

3. Paprika off the heat

   Take the pan off the heat before stirring in the paprika. Paprika scorches at frying temperature within seconds and turns irreversibly bitter — this single step is where most paprikash goes wrong.

4. Build and braise

   Add the tomatoes and stock, return the chicken skin-up, and simmer gently until the meat is tender and the sauce has thickened.

   35 min

5. Temper the soured cream

   Whisk the flour into the soured cream, then stir several spoonfuls of the hot sauce into it before adding the lot back to the pan off the heat. Tempering and the flour together are what stop it curdling — soured cream added cold and straight will split.

6. Serve

   Warm through without boiling and serve with buttered noodles or dumplings.