Culinarty

Ingredients for the chicken and sauce

• • 1 boneless and skinless chicken breast
• • 2 medium onions
• • 2 cloves of garlic
• • 1 large orange bell pepper
• • 2 medium tomatoes
• • 100 ml / 3.4 floz sour cream
• • 5 Tbsp sunflower oil
• • 1 tsp sweet smoked paprika
• • 1/3 cup parsley leaves, finely chopped
• • 1 Tbsp cornstarch
• • Fresh ground pepper-mix (black, white, red and green) - to taste
• • Salt – to taste

Ingredients for the dumplings

• • 100 g / 3.5 oz plain / all-purpose flour
• • 1 medium egg
• • 50 g / 1.75 oz butter - room temperature
• • Salt –to taste (if you’re using salted butter, there’s no need to add salt)

Directions

Cut the chicken breast into small dice (of about 3 cm / 1.2 inches the side) and season with salt. Stir well to get the salt evenly distributed.

Heat the sunflower oil in a deep, heavy-bottomed pan. Sauté the finely minced onions (the onions are ready when they become translucent). Toss in the chicken chunks and stir every now and then until the chunks get white on all sides. Add a little bit of warm water (100 ml / 1/3 cup) and cover the pan. Cook covered for 15 min. over medium heat.

In the mean time, let’s get the other ingredients ready. First the garlic and the orange bell pepper. Slice the pepper and mince the garlic.

From time to time check if the pan has some liquid (at least 2,5-3 cm / 1 inch deep) on its bottom. Make sure is always does and add some more warm water (or even boiling water) if necessary.

My habit: Ever since I’ve discovered the flavour that the bell pepper gives to a chicken based meal, I use it pretty often. Its pulp will soften and will become an extremely flavoured purée (which I actually like eating as is when the meal is ready to be served )…..yummy!)

Right! Now before I diverge too much (and reveal just how many cravings I have…oops ), let me get back to this creamy dish.

Peel the tomatoes and slice them, then cut the slices into halves. Add the tomatoes and the parsley, cover the pan and cook for another 5 min.

Check for the liquid at the bottom of the pan. If it’s at least 2,5-3 cm / 1 inch deep, add the sour cream, the cornstarch and the sweet paprika (if you’re a fan of spicy food you can add a 50%-50% combination of sweet and hot smoked paprika, or just hot smoked paprika). Stir well and let it boil for another 3-5 min, while still stirring from time to time.

Remove the pan from the heat and re-cover to keep it warm.

Now, let’s make the dumplings.

Put water and a pinch of salt in a pot and bring to a boil.
Using a spoon (not a wooden spoon or spatula, just a usual eating spoon), mix all the ingredients on a plate until you get a smooth thick batter.

Start adding the dumplings in the boiling water. Use one of the spoon’s sides to take a small quantity of the batter. How small? Basically you use the spoon’s side to take about “a pinkie-thick” batter, then submerge the spoon with the batter into the boiling water until the dumpling is detached from the spoon.

Repeat until there’s no batter left.

Let them in the boiling water for 10 min.

Using a skimmer get the dumplings out of the water.

Make a bed of dumplings on a plate. With a ladle, pour the paprikash on the dumplings.

Serve immediately!