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.