plate 2: hungary

plate 2: hungary

The second stop of Destination Degustation was a little daunting. My dad, and my mum paying homage to my dad’s heritage, have been making this ripper of a dish for decades. And in case you're wondering, no, it's not goulash. Chicken paprika is what the Hungarians adore.

I adore it, too, not only for its rich paprika and tomatoey deliciousness, but also because when you only need four ingredients – chicken, onion, paprika and tomato puree – it’s easy to cook, too. Or so I thought when I set to work on it.

If you know me well, you'll be well aware that at the Jacqui Fisher school of cooking, the method is pure  pedanticism: ingredients are measured to the exact gram and instructions are followed to the letter – some have said this is potentially hazardous to my culinary creativity, but bugger you all, I'm doing it it my way. So, when my dad handed over his prized family recipe I was aghast to see there were not many ingredient measures and, perhaps even worse, no instructions on what heat I needed to cook the dish. Gulp. I would have to feel my way through it.

Let's just say this caused a few tiny tantrums and almost led to a phone call to the fire brigade. When making the chicken, nowhere did it say "cover the saucepan" during cooking, so my sauce became a little burned, nothing a little water and extra tomato puree couldn't fix. When it was time to start the side of creamed spinach, I was too busy draining the spinach to notice that the kitchen was filled with smoke: oil was burning in the saucepan. I also overcooked my nokedli - tiny flour dumplings - so they became a tad sticky, but were fine after I tossed them in a little hot oil - thank God I didn't burn it this time round.

Profanities and problems aside however, the dishes turned out not fantastically, but fairly well: the chicken had a delightfully delicious sauce that didn't taste burned; the nokedli was not as sticky as first feared; and although the creamed spinach was a gluggy green ball rather than being the desired consistency (thick but runny), the flavour was pretty good - must have been the mass of garlic.

Lessons learned after plate two: don't be so hard on myself and when friends give me the thumbs up, the doubts of my cooking ability are dissolved - for the short-term anyway.

Here are the recipes - have fun x

Chicken paprika
Heat 50g (1/3-1/2 cup) oil in a saucepan over high heat. Cook 1 onion, chopped, until browned and soft. Stir in 1 tbs paprika. Add 1kg chicken thigh fillets (or 1 chicken, cut into pieces) and stir to coat. Stir in 2 tbs tomato puree. Add a little salt and water or chicken stock. Reduce heat to medium-low and cook, covered, until tender.

Nokedli
Put 250g plain flour in a large bowl. Add enough water to form a dough that can be worked with a spoon. Stir until smooth. Cover and place in the fridge overnight. The next day, add 1 egg per 250g flour, a little salt and keep working the dough with a wooden spoon until smooth and bubbly. Force the dough through a spatzle into salted boiling water. When they rise to the surface, remove with a strainer, rinse with cold water and throw into hot oil.
NB: Don’t overcook or they’ll become sticky and gluggy. Also, keep adding more water if the flour mixture is too thick, but make sure it’s not too runny – it should resemble really thick pancake batter.

Creamed spinach
NB: I used 2 x 250g packets of frozen spinach, but needed to add more cream and even then it wasn't as runny as I wanted, so I reckon you should use less flour - maybe half the amount.