Poulet au Paprika

Poulet au Paprika (Paprika Chicken) is a very easy dish to make. I got my original recipe from the famous cookbook, The Joy of Cooking.

I’ve messed around with the recipe a little over the years, most recently adding in the fennel ingredient after watching Laura Calder’s “French Food at Home” on the Cooking Channel. In fact, I’ve also appropriated the dish’s fancy French name. Hey! Gotta at least sound good, right?

If you can’t find fennel, leave it out. I did okay without it for years. Laura Calder uses crème fraiche, but I can’t find that anywhere, so I use sour cream instead. Which is not so bad … it reminds me of stroganoff.

Ingredients

·         CHICKEN, 6 to 8 pieces, skin-on, bone-in

·         OLIVE OIL, 1 tablespoon

·         BUTTER, 2 tablespoons

·         ONION, 1 large, sliced

·         GARLIC, 1 clove, minced

·         RED PEPPER, 1, sliced

·         FENNEL (Optional), ½ bulb, sliced

·         PAPRIKA, 1 tablespoon

·         SOUR CREAM, ¼ to ½ cup

·         WHITE WINE, ½ cup

·         TOMATO, 1 large, seeded and cut into chunks

·         BAY LEAF, 1

·         SALT AND PEPPER to taste 

Directions

1.       Brown the chicken pieces, skin-side first, in olive oil and butter. Remove and set aside.

2.       Sauté the onion, red pepper and fennel until tender.

3.       Add the white wine to the pan; combine with the vegetables.

4.       Combine the paprika and sour cream, add into the pan and stir in.

5.       Return the chicken to the pan, add the bay leaf.

6.       Add salt and pepper to taste.

7.       Simmer covered on low heat for 20 minutes or until chicken is done.

8.       Take the pan off the heat and add the tomatoes. Stir, cover and let stand for 3 minutes.

9.       Serve with rice.

Diana’s Savory Flank Steak

This is a relatively easy dish to make, and will satisfy even the most particular person. It’s not called “savory” for no reason.

Flank steak used to be a very inexpensive cut of beef, but since more people have been utilizing it (guess they learned how to cook it and how delicious it is), the price has risen over the years.

Ingredients (Steak + Marinade)

·         FLANK STEAK, 1

·         RED WINE, Gallo burgundy, 1 cup

·         SOY SAUCE, 2 teaspoons

·         WORCESTERSHIRE SAUCE, 1 teaspoon

·         SEASONED SALT, 2 teaspoons

·         GARLIC POWDER, ¼ teaspoon

Ingredients (Sauce)

·         MUSHROOMS, ½ pound sliced

·         CORNSTARCH, 2 teaspoons

·         WATER, ½ cup

·         WINE VINEGAR, 1 tablespoon

·         BUTTER (or margarine), 3 tablespoons

Directions

1.       Combine all the steak marinade ingredients for the steak into a marinade.

2.       Marinate the steak, covered, overnight.

3.       Bring to room temperature and broil for 4 minutes or until medium rare.

4.       Let stand for at least 10 minutes, reserving the pan juices.

5.       Sauté the mushrooms.

6.       Combine the cornstarch, water, and wine vinegar into a slurry.

7.       Bring the pan juices to a boil and reduce by half.

8.       Add in the mushrooms and the wine slurry.

9.       Thicken the sauce with the butter.

10.   Slice the steak into thin strips on an angle, against the grain, arrange on a serving plate and dress with the sauce.