The authentic Hungarian paprikash

The 150-year Turkish rule had lots of impacts on Hungarian cuisine. They brought paprika to Hungary, which became a symbol of Hungarian cooking. Actually they did try to keep it for themselves but some careless Turkish cook left seeds to be pinched by Hungarian kitchen helping staff.
First, only peasants cooked with paprika, the privileged grew it in their garden for decoration purposes.
Paprika became an alternative spice to pepper, when the price of the later started to increase. That's why Hungarians called paprika "török bors"=Turkish pepper at first. It eventually replaced pepper in Hungarian kitchens in the 19th century. They added paprika to meat stews, soups, creating today's paprikash (paprikás),gulyas and pörkölt.
Varieties of the paprika:
*. Special quality (Különleges) - this is the mildest of all paprikas and has the most vibrant red color
*. Delicate (csemege)-mild paprika with rich flavor,
*. Exquisite delicate (csemege paprika) -slightly more pungent than the Delicate,
*. Pungent Exquisite delicate (csipos csemege), even more pungent
*. Noble sweet (édesnemes) - the most common type, slightly pungent with bright red color,
*. Half-sweet (félédes) - a medium-pungent paprika
*. Rose (rózsa) - light red color, mildly pungent
*. Hot - the hottest of all paprikas, light brown-orange color

EZ List

In the days of my youth, the chicken in chicken paprikash (paprikás csirke) was a disjointed chicken, most often hacked into four or eight pieces. As the gourmets among you know well, this quite naturally included both white and dark meat, as well as the assorted bones of therein - which after the requisite stewing with onions and paprika culminate in a rich, deep Hungarian ensemble of flavor. The actual paprikash (its base made up of delectable fat-fried-to-oblivion-onions) itself tended to be on the more viscous side, securely coating the chicken and making sweet, clingy and not too irritatingly soupy, love to the nokedli or galuska. But no more.
Outsized and already congealing fat globules clinging to a brusquely dismembered chicken carcass indicate a quality paprikás csirke.
The Old School paprikás csirke usually resembled those in the picture to the right.. Note that the orangish-reddish paprikash sauce is not entirely homogenous in either color or consistency, due to the appearance of reddish pools of yet-to-be congealed fat, just as God intended it. By contrast, the New School paprikás csirke - the stuff that many a modern Hungarian child encounters today - severely lacks culinary tone and timbre. Nowadays, dark meat and - God forbid! - bones are routinely missing from the guest list, while frozen and packaged, and ultimately mono-tone csirkemell (chicken breast) is touted as the life of the party. The oft-ostracized fat joins his moping compatriots left stewing at home, having been replaced with douche-baggedly "healthy" sunflower oil. The paprikash is actually separated from the chicken during cooking and run through a food processor, resulting in a homogenized orange soggy fizzle that is nothing more than a vacuous imitation of the chiken paprikash blow-outs of years gone by.

Yeah, we feel deboned, too
Now for the Final Insult. paradoxically the shitty New School chicken paprikash can easily be portrayed as a sign of how much Hungary has progressed socio-economically in recent years. For while in the dark days before 1990 most Hungarians were obliged to "make do" with scrawny but flavorful whole chicken stewed in cheap (and more flavorful still) hog fat or some other angina-triggering animal fat, now they can easily opt for a more healthy and up-market concoction made from 100% boneless and antibiotic free chicken breast, conveniently found in any hypermarket. Which, of course, is just one step away from pre-packaged, ready-to-eat microwave chicken paprikash, a monstruosity so wilde that words fail to show it.

Originaly the paprikash is made with any meat, and more...pork, veal, beauf, lamb...even mushrooms and potato. Recipe is the same, only the quantity of the water added is less for the young meat.
The ready paprikash should be served with small dumplings (nokedli) , mash potatoes or rice.Lettuce with a sour sweet dressing joyfully complete the dish.
Apparently only the chicken paprikash should be served with sour cream on top.

If you want to serve it with homemade dumplings, I'll give you my recipe:
Mix 2 eggs, 200 gram white flour, 1 tsp oil, and water in a boll until the dough is like a double cream, still moving if you want to purr it. Above the boiling salted water in a pot, with a teaspoon throw small pieces in the water, using only the 1/4 part of the teaspoon. The dumplings will grow in the water, and the result should be no bigger than 2 cm long. They are ready when all of them rise on the top of the boiling water +2 min... stirr in the pot once... Rinse them up with cold water, and serve them with the hot paprikash.
Photo credit: PBase

Health Boost:
contains capsaicin, whose anti-inflammatory and antioxidant effects may lower the risk of cancer.The carotenoid contents of paprika may help guard the body from certain type of cancers. Paprika contains zeaxanthin,cryptocanthin and beta-carotene. Studies show that these carotenoids are very good at helping lower the risk of lung and cervical cancer.
Blood Purifier:
paprika is rich in iron and potassium, which are very helpful compounds in term of purifying the blood, helping hemoglobin production as well.
A Powerful Antioxidant:
paprika is well known for its high amount of vitamin C,more than nine times the content of tomatoes and seven times more than oranges. This in turn makes paprika good in strengthening the immune system. Also act like anti-ageing agent.

Other Heath Benefits of Paprika are: paprika is also known to speed up the body's metabolism. The thermogenic effect of capsaicin in paprika can cause your body to burn extra calories after 20 minutes of consumption.Clears mucus from the nose and lungs and aids in congestion. The antibacterial properties of paprika can kill bacteria in the stomach and therefore, prevent or treat stomach ulcers.

With so many paprika health benefits available such as: good for the blood, cholesterol and heart, powerful antioxidant, and so forth, one needs little encouragement to include paprika as a way to spice up our meals.

.I would add about the high E vitamin content of the paprika, and a saying about it , very enjoyed in my youth: "the paprika is very healthy for the women, if eaten by man". I hope no comment needed.

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