Paprika Chicken aka My Signature Dish

I would have to say that of all the meals I make paprika chicken is my favorite. My mom made it for the first time from a recipe she found in the newspaper years ago. I've been famous for it since my college days and it's by far the most requested meal I make among my family and friends. It's also very versatile. It can be served with pasta or rice, and although I haven't tried it yet I think it would work perfectly in a crock pot.

Now I do know of someone who is allergic to paprika. Horribly so. So if you aren't sure of your tolerance level you might wanna put a little on your skin or taste a bit of the spice straight before filling your home with paprika aromas and making a huge dish of something you can't eat. Same goes if you have little ones in the house and you aren't sure if they can handle it or not. :) Just a word to the wise!

So here's the very simple yet scrumptious cast of characters: (as always, feel free to click on the picture for an enlarged view)

4 chicken breasts (you can use any parts of the chicken you like, the original recipe I have calls for bone in, but I can't be bothered with bones)
2 T of butter
1 onion - chopped
2 cans of tomatoes
2 T of Paprika
1 T of flour (not shown)
3 t of salt
1/4 t of pepper
1 cup of sour cream
cooked rice or noodles, whichever you prefer



First I cut up the chicken into cubes. You don't have to do this, you can keep the breasts whole if you like. But I like to have my chicken in the sauce so it can all go on top of my pasta or rice. However, if I were cooking in the crock I'd leave it whole and allow it to become shredded as it cooked.



Then I set the chicken aside and chopped up my onion.



Then I melted the butter in the pan and started to sautee the onion on medium-high heat.



Cook it until the onion becomes soft, but no need to caramelize or anything like that.



Now for the exciting part! Add 1 T of flour...



And 2 T of paprika. And then stir stir stir like crazy for about 1 minute.



It'll look like this, and it'll start to make these beautiful crusties in the bottom of your pan. Trust me, you WANT those crusties!



Then add your tomatoes. By now, your house smells amazing! Like one of those Mom & Pop Hungarian deli's.



Ooooooh yeah baby....



Then add your salt. Three teaspoons of salt seems like a lot, but believe me, you'll want all of it in there. This is supposed to be a salty dish. Just don't invite your Aunt Bertie with the high blood pressure over when you serve this.



Then toss in that pepper.



And after you've stirred in the seasonings really well go ahead and add the chicken.



Stir it in really good.



And then put a lid on it and turn it down to low. You can then go and check your email, work on your kitting project, chat up your significant other, or stick your nose in a book for about 30 minutes.



When the timer dings it'll look like this! Ooooohhhh... soooooo goooooood...



And just when things couldn't get much better... here comes the sour cream.



grrrrlrlrllrlrlrlrlllllll.....



Now that's a fine lookin' sauce if ever I saw one.



Last night I had it on noodles, tonight I had it on basmati rice. I can't decide which way I like it better. Maybe you'll have to do some testing and get back to me on that. :)