Chicken Goulash - Not Really

I received an email from Marisa who said she has “made a lot of dishes that are good but not great” and “know they could be improved by adding some of this or doing a little of that” so I invited her to send me a recipe to “fix”.

So what recipe did she send me  - her Hungarian mother-in-law’s recipe for Chicken Goulash? And we all know what a great idea it is to muddle with one’s mother-in-law’s recipes! Marisa even said, “It’s always a dangerous proposition to mess with a mother-in-law’s recipe, but I’m willing to take the risk in the name of culinary advancement.”
The problem with her recipe she said is the “sauce is always very watery, even if I barely cover the chicken (as directed).  Also, the flavor is nice, but it lacks a certain something. “

As part of my brand new Ask a Chef feature, I sent her recipe to Chef Ricco to get his opinion knowing he’s always ready to talk about a recipe and how to make it better along with adding a few interesting comments. The first thing Ricco said to me was “there is no such thing as Chicken Goulash, goulash is made from beef.”

Marisa’s husband’s Hungarian mother’s recipe is called Paprikas Csirke pronounced (PAH-pree_kash CHEER-kah). Chef Ricco also questioned the recipe only calling for 2 chicken thighs and wanted to know if this recipe was for one person? Actually he said a child but we don’t need to go there.

So first I’ll post Marisa mother-in-law’s recipe and then Chef Ricco’s. You will see a big difference in the list of ingredients in addition to the cooking technique.

And to see Chef Ricco’s classic Beef Goulash recipe….

Marisa’s Recipe

Ingredients:

2 chicken thighs (remove skin and the fat), cut into two pieces each
2-3 onions, chopped
1 red pepper, chopped
1-2 cloves of garlic
1 tablespoon sweet paprika
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 tablespoon tomato paste
2 chicken bouillon cubes 

Preparation:

Warm the oil in a cooking pot and add to it the onions, garlic and red pepper. From time to time mix them up till they turn to golden. Add the thighs, paprika and tomato paste, mix every thing. Cook the thighs till the flesh becomes white (three to five minutes)

Only then add water (not much - just enough to cover the thighs) plus the chicken cubes. Cover the pot, reduce the flame (after the water boiled) and cook for 1 hour.

Chef Ricco’s Recipe for Paprika Csirke

Ingredients

3 tablespoons oil
2 large sweet Spanish onions (course chopped)
2 green peppers (course chopped)
3-4 cloves garlic (fine chopped)
3 fresh plum tomatoes (course chopped)
3 Tab sweet Hungarian paprika (very important)
Salt and Pepper to taste
6 chicken thighs (skinless)
3 cups chicken stock
 
Heat oil in a heavy bottom pot, over low heat. Add onion, cook over low heat until golden brown.
Add green peppers and garlic, cook for 5 minutes. Add paprika and cook for 3-4 minutes.
 
Add the chicken and cook for 5-7 minutes. Add fresh tomatoes, salt and pepper cook for 5 minutes.
 
Add chicken stock and bring to boil. When it comes to a boil, turn down heat to simmer. Simmer until done, about 45 minutes.
 
Ricco revealed if Marisa feels the sauce is to watery, she should remove the chicken and “crank up the heat and reduce the sauce.”

He also explained this dish normally starts by cooking cured fatty bacon in the oil and finishes by folding sour cream into the braising liquid right before serving. Two great options to give this recipe even more flavor.

Chef Ricco likes to serve this with Spaetzle and would be more than happy to provide a recipe if anyone is interested.

The other day I talked about roasting a couple of chickens, one for that night’s meal and the other for something else later in the week. The first night we ate part of one chicken as our main meal with a few side dishes, the next night I used the leftovers from that chicken to make my Penne with Chicken & Peas in Cream Sauce.

The day after that I needed to do something with the other roasted chicken so while looking through my February 2007 edition of Bon Appetit, I found a Chicken and Hominy Soup recipe in their “Fast Easy Fresh” section and it was fast, easy and delicious.

A couple of changes I made to the recipe were substituting crushed tomatoes for the canned petite tomatoes and using regular paprika instead of smoked paprika. If I had those other ingredients on hand, I would have used them and they may have given the soup a different flavor but my version came out just fine.

This is one of those meals that can be made into a shortcut meal by purchasing a store-bought roasted chicken. I use them all the time if I’m not in the mood to cook and they really aren’t too costly especially if you can get two meals out of one chicken and use the bones to make chicken soup.

One of the keys to this recipe is once the meat is removed from the chicken, take your time and shred the chicken meat by hand. It will be tempting to quickly cut the chicken up with a knife and I’m sure the taste will be the same but you’ll loose something in texture and mouth feel. This is a much better recipe if you take the time to shred the chicken by hand.

The recipe also suggests serving with tortilla chips, avocado and/or sour cream as toppings. All great suggestions but trying to loose a few holiday pounds I opted not to. If I were serving this to guests as a starter or even main course with a salad, I would definitely serve the side toppings.

Chicken and Hominy Soup

Ingredients

3 tablespoons olive oil
3 bunches green onions, sliced
4 teaspoons ground cumin
2 ½ teaspoons paprika
10 cups chicken stock
1 – 14 ½ ounce can crushed tomatoes
1 roasted chicken, meat removed and shredded
Hot pepper sauce, to taste
3 – 15 ounce cans hominy in juice, white or golden
1 cup FRESH cilantro chopped
Salt, to taste

How to Make Chicken and Hominy Soup at Home

10 cups of chicken stock is a lot so be sure to use a big soup pot to make this recipe. I actually started out with too small a pot and had to transfer everything over to my soup pot.

Heat your soup pot over medium-high heat, add oil and when hot, add the green onions, cumin and paprika. Sauté for about 5 minutes and then add the chicken stock, tomatoes WITH juice, chicken meat and a teaspoon or two of hot pepper sauce. You can add more of the hot pepper sauce toward the end if you want it spicier but it’s easier to add less now than suffer from adding too much.

Using a food processor or blender, puree the hominy with juice until smooth. Add the hominy to the soup and bring it all to a boil. As soon as it comes to a boil, lower heat and simmer for 15 minutes.

Add the cilantro, taste and adjust with salt and hot pepper sauce. One thing you might not realize is it is very difficult to adjust seasonings when the soup is as hot as it is at this point. Over a certain temperature, you taste buds are not that effective.

 I recommend you either wait until the soup cools down a little before adjusting the seasonings or have salt and pepper or hot pepper sauce on the table and let the individual eating the soup make the adjustment. Just be sure to tell them it may need salt.

This recipe is very similar to my Tortilla Soup with Shredded Chicken that you can find on my web site. In fact, I think that one has a little more interesting flavor that this one although it does take just a little longer to prepare.

What to do with leftover roasted chicken breasts?

I roasted a couple of chickens the other night and will write about roasting chickens another time.  I thought as long as I was roasting one whole chicken; I might as well roast two and use the meat from the second chicken for something else. And as long as I was going to roast chicken, I might as well roast a bunch of vegetables too.

We ate part of the first chicken one night with the vegetables and wanted to use the leftovers for another meal so I looked to see what I had in my refrigerator and pantry and decided to make a Penne with Chicken & Peas in a Cream Sauce. I basically had everything I needed in stock thus avoiding another trip to the supermarket.  Not that I don’t enjoy hanging out in the supermarket but two or three times a week is enough.

I put together a recipe and it was good but thought it needed a little more flavor help so I wrote to my friend Chef Ricco, who happens to be working in India right now starting a restaurant, and asked what I could have done to make this recipe better. The recipe below is a combination of what I came up with and Chef Ricco’s suggestions.

Roast Chicken Alternatives

If you don’t feel like roasting whole chickens, you can either buy already roasted chickens at the supermarket or use uncooked chicken breasts that you cook in the pan yourself. The advantage of cooking raw chicken is extra flavor you’ll get from sautéing the chicken (see fond on my Pan Sauces page).

I hope you enjoy it and please write and make your own suggestions or comments.

Penne with Chicken & Peas in a Cream Sauce
Serves 2

1/2 lb. penne pasta, cooked to al dente
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 tablespoons butter
2 thin slices from a large red onion, diced
1/2 red bell pepper, finely diced (Ricco suggested using roasted red peppers for more flavor and adding them toward the end of the recipe)
¼ cup white wine or brandy
1 chicken breast, cut up into pieces (cooked or uncooked)
1 cup half and half
1 pinch nutmeg
1 tablespoons fresh chopped parsley
1 cup frozen peas
Grated cheese like Parmigiano or Romano or you could even try some crumbled Roquefort cheese.
Freshly ground pepper, to taste
Salt, to taste

How to Prepare at Home

Heat a large saucepan over medium heat until hot. Add the oil and butter. When hot but not smoking, add the onion and diced pepper. Sauté until the onion is translucent.

Deglaze the pan with the white wine or brandy and continue cooking until most of the wine has cooked off. This will add another layer of flavor.

Season the already cut up cooked chicken with some freshly ground pepper and add it to the pan to reheat for about one minute.

Add the half and half, nutmeg, parsley and peas being sure to mix together with a wooden spoon. Raise the heat to medium-high but as soon as the half and half comes to a boil, lower the heat to medium or medium-low and reduce the sauce to desired consistency (thickness).

When the sauce is just the way you like it, add some freshly grated cheese or try the crumbled up Roquefort. Taste and adjust the seasoning with salt and pepper.

Drain the pasta but reserve a few tablespoons of the pasta water to add to the sauce if the sauce appears to be too thick. This thins out the sauce while giving it a little flavor from the cooked pasta.

Add the pasta to the saucepan; toss well and serve.

Uncooked Chicken Method

If you are using uncooked chicken, you’ll start by sautéing the chicken first, before the onions and peppers. So cut up the chicken into bite sized pieces and sauté them in butter and olive oil.  Cook until almost done but not all the way. You can finish cooking the chicken when you return it to the pan otherwise you risk overcooking it.

Remove the chicken from the pan, add the onion and pepper and follow the rest of the recipe above.

An alternative would be to sauté the chicken breast whole, let it rest while you are making the sauce and cut it up just before adding it back to the pan. I don’t think it makes much difference but if you try it both ways, please let us know which you like better.