♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ - Many years ago, I traveled back to Hungary-- this is after the Soviet Union collapsed-- and I ate chicken paprikash at a very famous restaurant that's still there called Gundel.

In fact, a guy called George Lang, a New York restaurateur, went back in the '90s to bring it back to life.

Now, I remember that dish so well that we decided to do it today here on Milk Street and figure out how to get all the different types of paprika into the dish for a fabulous rich sauce.

Then we also are going to do a Hungarian goulash.

This uses a great base of silky root vegetables.

And finally, we're going to investigate all the different kinds of paprika-- sweet, hot, and smoked-- to help you decide which ones to buy and how to cook with them.

So stay tuned as we take a great look at the cooking of Hungary.

- Funding for this series was provided by the following: - MOWI salmon comes ready to cook, ready to grill, ready to season, or pre-seasoned and ready to eat.

In an assortment of flavors for an assortment of people.

MOWI Salmon.

- We pass down traditions here.

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We enjoy special moments-- some simple, some grand.

The heart of your home is the kitchen.

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- I'm living in Budapest and welcome in my flat.

We will make a chicken paprikash, yeah?

- 24 hours ago, I happened to sit down next to one of Hungary's leading action movie stars at a bar.

- When I washing this meat, I always say thank you for the animals.

It has died for us.

- Tonight, he's making me chicken paprikash.

His recipe starts with a whole lot of paprika.

- This is friendly, this is angry, this is deadly-- you choose.

Okay.

- And a whole bag of onions, enough to make this action hero cry.

- I love you.

Please don't leave me.

- In fact, this impromptu dinner taught me something important about chicken paprikash.

This isn't a chicken dish flavored with paprika and onion.

It's a paprika and onion dish that just happens to have chicken.

♪ ♪ Paprika is the backbone of Hungarian cuisine, introduced by the Turks some 400 years ago.

First as a decorative flourish, then as medicine, only later for flavor.

(street performer singing) - Well, I mean, you can-- this is nice, it's a nice picture.

You know, we use lots of different peppers, lots of different colors.

These are the typical ones.

I think you call it banana pepper.

- Fresh peppers, dried peppers, the ground spice; in Hungary, paprika refers to just about anything and everything pepper.

- And I think if you think of Hungarian cooking, you know, the first picture which comes to your mind is a red dish.

So goulash or paprikash or whatever, it's always this holy trinity of fat, onions, and paprika.

- The origins of chicken paprikash can be traced to a dish based on that trinity, a one-pot stew called pörkölt.

But paprikash diverged to become its own thing here at the restaurant Gundel.

- 120 years ago, this family, the Gundel family, improved these dishes and they add some new ingredients, like the sour cream.

- As the story goes, a Gundel chef, seeking to mimic French cream sauces, doctored up a chicken pörkölt.

with sour cream.

Gundel's paprikash was great.

But perhaps the best version I had was cooked by Erika Hobotne.

- (speaking Hungarian) - Yet another form of paprika, a flavorful pepper purée that added some much appreciated brightness.

Once again, proving that more paprika and more paprika varieties is the secret to great paprikash.

♪ ♪ - So you've been in Hungary recently.

- Mm-hmm.

- The late '90s, early 2000s, I was there with my family and George Lang.

I don't know if you remember George Lang.

He used to run Cafe des Artistes in New York.

And when Hungary opened up in the early '90s, he went back.

He's Hungarian, obviously.

And Gundel, which was the most famous restaurant in Budapest at the time, he reconstituted-- he redid it.

So we went to dinner there.

I ordered chicken paprikash, and they came out with these huge silver domes on every plate, and everybody had the dome, you know, pulled off at the same moment.

And it was so old world, just like George Lang.

So I have very fond memories.

And the chicken paprikash was phenomenal.

- About 100 years ago, it was actually considered a salon of sorts for intellectuals.

When I was there, it's kind of, if you imagine paprikash being served at a Chuck E. Cheese.

- (laughs) No!

- There were literally people in fuzzy animal outfits running around.

- No.

- Yes-- and, it was, it was quite the, the experience, let's put it that way.

But actually, despite their... - I wish you hadn't told me that.

- Ah, yeah.

- That ruins my-- by the way, onions, tomato.

- Yes.

- Banana pepper.

- And banana peppers, yeah.

So the good news is Gundel's actually had a really important role in the creation of chicken paprikash.

As you know, paprika is something that is kind of the undercurrent of Hungarian cooking.

They use it in such volumes in practically everything.

I've had cocktails, they put it on desserts, they put it in cake, they put it in soups, stews, you name it.

So this is just some roasted red peppers, some hot paprika, a little bit of salt, a little bit of sugar, and a little bit of lemon juice.

But it's really fascinating because they use it in such copious amounts in so many different ways that you get all these layers of pepper flavor in every dish.

So we're going to make this purée.

I call that good.

Now, one of the times when I learned the most about kind of the ubiquity of paprika in all its many forms, I was in a bar-- I know that surprises you.

And the only seat available in the bar happened to be next to Hungary's leading action hero star.

And, you know, as the shots piled up, we ended up back at his place to make chicken paprikash because he promised to teach me his father's recipe.

And we ate it sitting on his living room floor.

- This story is getting stranger and stranger.

I don't want to know anymore.

- (laughs) - Why were you eating on the floor?

I don't... - Surrounded by posters of him in all his action movies.

It was wonderful.

- Good Lord.

Anyway, let's move on.

We have this sweated.

- Okay.

All right, so you're gonna add about half of this purée.

Save the other half for later.

Hungarians love to use many forms of paprika at many different stages of their cooking.

So that's some broth.

So we hold a little bit back to add at the end so that it's a different flavor from the same ingredient.

Now we have three teaspoons of more hot paprika and a full quarter-cup of sweet paprika.

The thing about chicken paprikash is you shouldn't think of the paprika, in any of its forms, as a seasoning.

It is the reason for the dish, is what a lot of people told me.

- Okay, this is coming up to a simmer now, and we're going to cover this and cook this about 30 minutes.

We want those flavors to really meld.

- I love chicken thighs-- boneless, skinless, it's the only thing I buy-- and how long do those cook?

30 minutes?

- Probably a little bit longer.

- While that cooks, we're going to start on the two dishes that chicken paprikash is always served with.

The first is a very simple sour cream and cucumber salad.

And we're going to start, though, by tossing our sliced cucumber with a little bit of kosher salt, and that's to pull out the excess moisture.

Now, nokedli.

In the U.S., we tend to do chicken paprikash on egg noodles, but in Hungary, it's with a dumpling.

And so it's got a little bit of chew to it.

- Spaetzle.

- Kind of, yes.

And it's made very much the same.

So we're gonna have some water and a couple eggs.

Would you like to add some pepper and nutmeg to the flour while I do the eggs?

- Any salt, too?

I would hope.

- A bit of salt.

So then we just add our egg and water.

This is a very loose dough, and they have a really cool gizmo for making the nokedli.

It looks like one side of a box grater with the large holes.

- Mm-hmm.

- And you just take this very loose batter and slop it on, and then you use almost like a painter's spatula to scrape it across, and then it drops down into the boiling water.

We let this rest for about 30 minutes because you want the dough to fully hydrate.

You also want any gluten that we've formed to relax a little bit.

- 40 minutes for the chicken, and let that rest.

- Mm-hm.

- Let's check the chicken.

- Check the chicken.

Looks good.

- Smells great.

- I don't know if it has enough paprika in it yet.

- Okay.

- All right.

Ready to make some nokedli dumplings?

- Yep.

- All right, so if you don't happen to have the fancy nokedli board that they use in Hungary and Austria.

Could you hold this for me, please?

You just take your batter and just put a little bit on the corner like that.

And... use a bench scraper.

You don't want them to be too big, and you just drop off little nodules of them, we'll call it, into the boiling water.

They're gonna cook for about a minute.

As soon as they float to the top like gnocchi, they're done.

And we can pull them out and then just keep making them.

- So the chicken is ready.

- Chicken's done.

- We need to finish the dish.

But first!

- But first.

The lovely counterpoint to all that paprika, which is finishing our cucumber salad.

So we have a little bit of white vinegar, and we have a little bit of white sugar.

We're going to whisk that together with this lovely, diminutive little whisk here until the sugar is dissolved.

I'm gonna call that dissolved, okay?

Then we're gonna put some sour cream.

As we know, Hungarians love their sour cream.

So we're gonna whisk this, and then we take our cucumbers, which sat for about an hour after we salted them so that they don't water down the dressing, and then we drain that and then pat them dry with paper towels.

Ah, there we go.

Enough.

Then toss this.

And it just creates this really lovely, lovely, creamy balance to all the richness going on in that pot.

- So we're gonna add the sour cream, what was left of that, fiery hot paprika... - I believe this is our fifth or perhaps sixth layer of "paprika" to this dish.

- Okay-- and move the chicken over.

And now, a word about adding fat, like heavy cream, half-and-half, sour cream.

What can happen, especially if it's lower fat, like milk, for example, there's not enough fat.

The proteins can get together and coagulate.

The more fat you have, the less likely it is for those proteins to get together.

That's why heavy cream added to a sauce is less likely to curdle.

- So what you're saying is America should load up on the fat.

- When it comes to adding fat to a sauce with heat, yes, that's true.

- Okay.

- And that's why adding milk to a sauce is not a good idea.

And finally, add a little bit of lemon juice.

- While you whisk that, I'm gonna put some of our nokedli on our plates.

- Okay, that's nice.

Didn't break.

- This only serves two, right?

Ladle it up.

And I'm going to add a wonderful cooling cucumber salad.

- And a few banana peppers on top.

- Oh, yes, a few banana peppers as a garnish.

Okay, so this is six or seven addition of paprika.

Nice and tender.

- Mm.

- Mm-hmm.

You know, the paprikash that we tend to experience, much heavier, much thicker, much fattier, to be honest.

And this is much lighter, and part of it, of course, is that balance of paprika, layers of flavor happening here.

And then the cooling cucumber also helps bring everything into balance.

- So there we have it, chicken paprikash with what, 500 layers of paprika?

Absolutely phenomenal, and really not that hard to make.

♪ ♪ - My name is Ágota Hódi.

I'm working our family business, Hódi Paprika.

We are a red pepper producer here in Hungary in Szeged.

I am the fourth generation who is planting and producing paprika.

♪ ♪ Paprika is the treasure of the Hungarian dishes.

(machinery whirring) Hungarian paprika is very famous because of the taste, the smell, and our color.

Our land and the climate and our technology makes these features all together.

You have to control all of these features.

♪ ♪ - Paprika is one of my favorite spices.

It's also confusing because there are different kinds.

You're never sure what you're gonna get.

So I'm gonna give you a little paprika primer, so you are confident making choices at the grocery store.

So first things first-- what is paprika?

Paprika is a pepper.

It's not any one particular kind of pepper.

I haven't made it any easier yet, but I promise we're getting there.

But just know that we're dealing with a red pepper that in the spice cabinet has been dried.

It's either dried mechanically in ovens slowly, or it's dried slowly over wood.

The wood is where you get smoked paprika.

Where does paprika come from?

Well, we have seen footage of it in Hungary, and it is absolutely a cornerstone of Hungarian cooking, but it's also commonly found and a cornerstone of Western Spanish cooking.

So when you see paprika, it may be Spanish, it may be Hungarian.

There's some cues to know what you're getting.

Straight paprika that is unlabeled with no country of origin is actually usually a mixture of paprika and cayenne.

And it's got this dusty, brick-red color.

That's not what you want.

It's what, when I returned to my house after 30 years, my mother still had in her spice cabinet-- you don't want it.

Paprika you want will have a beautiful red color.

Whether it's smoked or not smoked, whether it's hot or sweet, it will have a gorgeous red color.

In Hungary, they have eight kinds of paprika and probably more-- they have many more decisions to make.

But in the United States, what you want to look for is sweet or spicy.

And then sweet-smoked, sweet-plain, spicy-smoked, spicy-plain.

The simplest way to use it is to bloom it in some fat.

You wanna heat your butter until it melts, and then we're gonna add some paprika and that's it.

So here I have super simply prepared steamed cauliflower and carrots.

Not that exciting on their own, but once we drizzle paprika that's been bloomed in butter on top, this is ready for the holidays.

Okay, so our butter is nice and melted.

And we're gonna choose this electric red-orange paprika.

I chose smoked-sweet.

I really love the smoked flavor and a pinch of salt.

And this doesn't take long.

as in, we're done, and you've absolutely transformed in ten seconds the simplest plate of vegetables.

So this was your paprika primer.

Try it out in the two recipes in this episode or just have some fun.

♪ ♪ - Here at home, when we think of beef stew, we know there are a lot of different ways to approach it.

Each cook has their own version.

It's definitely not a one-size-fits-all thing.

Well, in Hungary, it's much the same for goulash.

And outside of beef and paprika, and we are talking a lot of paprika, there are a lot of different ways to make goulash, and every cook will tell you their way is the best.

But it was in Budapest that we met chef Tibor Rosenstein, and he showed us his method for making a goulash that inspired ours.

Instead of just adding everything to the pot and letting it simmer away for an hour or so, he adds the liquids and the seasonings in stages.

Each time he makes another addition, the flavors just concentrate further.

Now, in Hungary, a lot of their dishes start with a Hungarian red pepper paste.

It comes in a tube or a jar.

This is imported, actually, from Hungary.

They use this where we might use tomato paste.

It's a rich, concentrated paste.

Look at the color of this.

The base of it, obviously, is Hungarian red peppers.

And then there's a little bit of acetic acid and a lot of salt.

It's a beautifully flavored ingredient.

But it's kind of hard to find Hungarian red pepper paste here.

So we have made our own version of it very quickly in the blender-- it's very easy to do.

We're starting with roasted red peppers, which you buy already made in a jar.

To the red peppers, we'll add some hot paprika, because the Hungarian paste usually combines hot peppers and sweet peppers.

So we have our sweet peppers in here now.

We'll add a little bit of a spicy kick from the hot paprika.

And to replace the acetic acid, we will use some fresh lemon juice, little pinch of sugar just to round out flavors.

And a little salt, of course, about a half-teaspoon.

So we'll just blend this.

Good!

Smell is great, the color is fabulous.

You just want to let it go until it's completely smooth.

We'll set this aside, and now we'll start the stew.

We have a little bit of oil, about a tablespoon, and double the amount of some butter.

Now, this stew begins, as you'd expect, with a little bit of chopped onion, some chopped peppers.

What we're using for this is the traditional.

It's banana peppers.

At this point, we just want a pepper with a mild heat.

All right, we'll let those cook until they soften.

That'll take about six or seven minutes.

Let that go, and then meanwhile, we'll start prepping our veggies.

We'll be adding potatoes a little bit later, but the root vegetable of choice for a Hungarian goulash is either parsnips or something like celery root.

If you see this side where stuff is cut off, that's where the stalks of celery grow and the leafy stuff on top.

This is underground, therefore, root vegetable, right?

Working with celeriac looks like it's going to be tricky, because of all these bumps and craggy surfaces.

But you just need a good peeler and just keep going around.

Don't worry about any dark spots right now, because we can go back and get those in a little bit-- just get the thing peeled.

All right, so we got off most of the peeling.

Now I'm going to go back and get any of those little craggy, deep spots that might need a little further peeling.

Okay, that stuff on top, we'll just cut that off.

All right, now, this could certainly be cut into cubes and added to the stew, like, say, maybe you would carrots.

But something traditionally done in Eastern European recipes is they grate one of their vegetables.

Grating really changes the way the vegetable incorporates into the stew.

It becomes very soft and tender, almost melting into the stew, and it flavors it in a completely different way.

So we'll start with that flat end we cut off.

You want to be careful of your fingers, but we've got a lot of depth here to start with, so not a big deal.

Use the large holes of a box grater.

Okay, good-- you need about one cup of grated celery root.

So if you started with the whole celery root or celeriac, you're going to have some leftover.

Use it like you would celery.

We'll add this right to our stew.

And now we have some finely minced garlic and a little bit of salt and pepper.

Now, the celery root is going to give off a little bit of liquid, and this will continue to cook and sweat down for another five to seven minutes.

Oh, this is nice.

The onions and peppers are really soft.

The celery root is starting to melt into there.

Now we'll add that really bright red pepper paste we made already and let that get some good heat on it, and then we'll add the beef.

Now, the beef we're using is chuck roast.

It's great for stews.

It has a lot of sinewy fat in it, which you really want.

Now we have three pounds over here.

It's been trimmed and cut into, like, one-inch pieces, more or less.

Maybe three-quarters to one-inch.

And we're gonna add it directly to the pot, and we'll stir that all together.

Then we have two-and-a-half cups of water.

Now, that's not a lot of water for this much meat, but we're starting slow, remember?

We're going to add the liquid and seasonings in stages.

So we have the red pepper paste in here so far.

That's the seasoning of the moment.

Two-and-a-half cups of water go in.

Now we'll bring this up to a good, hearty simmer and keep it there for about 45 minutes to let this water reduce down, and it's going to become very flavorful and concentrated.

Note that there's no lid on the pot.

There will not be a lid on the pot throughout this whole process.

It stays uncovered-- that's what allows the liquids to evaporate and the flavor to concentrate.

Okay, we have had our first reduction happen, about 45 minutes.

I'm going to offer a visual cue here.

What you want to see is the liquid reduced, obviously, thickened, and when you pull the spatula through, it actually leaves a clean trail on the bottom of the pot.

And if you look at this, you don't even see the pieces of onion and pepper and celery root anymore.

They have really melded into the whole stew.

Okay, now we're going to add our next round of water and paprika-- see these three bowls here?

They all have paprika in them.

This is sweet paprika.

Now, for the next two stages, think in twos, all right?

Two cups water, two tablespoons paprika.

That's going to happen twice.

Okay, so that's two cups of water there.

Two tablespoons paprika-- this is sweet paprika.

We're gonna stir that in, bring it back up to a simmer, and let it go until it looks very much like the first time.

Thickened, enrichened, and it will leave a trail when you pull the spatula through it.

This really is a very cool method of making a stew that we learned in Budapest.

And I use this sometimes for other stews as well.

I really love it.

Okay, now we have two more cups of water and two more tablespoons of paprika.

And then that will get its simmer time, to reduce and thicken just like the first.

Whoo, okay.

Our third addition of water, second addition of paprika has reduced down now, rich and thick.

The only difference, really, that you can tell visually, other than the spatula here, is that the color is a deeper, more intense red.

And the meat is starting to get tender and little pieces are starting to pull away.

All right, now our last addition of water is three cups because we're going to add potatoes at this time, too.

And the potatoes need a little bit of extra water for them to cook.

Two final teaspoons of paprika.

And now we have a pound of Yukon gold potatoes.

They've been peeled and cut into a half-inch dice.

All right, we're gonna bring this back to that robust simmer and we will let this cook down until the potatoes are just tender.

And then we will give it a whirl.

♪ ♪ Hmm.

(chuckles) A side benefit of letting this simmer away on the stove without a lid on it is no one will be late for dinner.

The smell will have already enticed them to the table.

Okay, I'm going to turn this off.

I've already tested-- the potatoes are tender without falling apart.

The meat is extremely tender.

Okay, enough talking, I am ready to scoop some of this up, taste it.

Look how thick that is.

That is just thick and meaty.

We'll garnish with a little bit of chopped parsley.

It's optional to do this, but I mean, it's gorgeous.

But it's also a seasoning as well.

Parsley adds a little bit of a green, herbal flavor to it, and it's really nice.

Mm.

Oh, man, that meat is so tender.

Potatoes are perfect-- they're soft, but they hold their shape.

The flavors really come through.

I mean, you saw what went into this.

There really wasn't a lot of complicated seasonings, and the flavor from those stages of concentration is just really powerful.

So this is Milk Street's version of a Hungarian goulash, a rich, beefy stew.

You can get this recipe and all the recipes from this season of Milk Street at MilkStreetTV.com.

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Call 855-MILK-177 or order online.

- Funding for this series was provided by the following: - MOWI salmon comes ready to cook, ready to grill, ready to season, or pre-seasoned and ready to eat.

In an assortment of flavors for an assortment of people.

MOWI Salmon.

- We pass down traditions here.

We create and connect.

We enjoy special moments-- some simple, some grand.

The heart of your home is the kitchen.

The heart of your kitchen is The Galley.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪