Something a bit different for a Sunday.. this is a random dish I made a long time ago and for whatever reason has become my daughter's favorite dish for me to make for her.
Since I'm the weekend chef off we went.
Firs things first. Grab your favoritist (and largest) cast iron. Toss enough oil in to coat and heat it up pretty hot. Call it med-high if you like.
As your pan is heating up, set your oven to 400° so it can also preheat.
Heavily salt and pepper your desired amt of chicken parts. In my case it was 5 or so lbs of chicken thighs.
You could use legs, or quarters or boneless if you like. I would not recommend breasts though.
Give them about 6-8 mins on both sides, don't be afraid if they're a bit dark. You could probably even run a little longer if you like.
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When those are done, remove them from the pan and set aside, perhaps onto a red serving tray :-P
Pour off most of the oil/fat into a coffee mug. You'll probably end up using some or all of it later.
Cut up a mess of onions. Yellow work best. Like a good lb or two of onions, more is bettah. Toss them into the cast iron and give them a good ride, 8-10 mins. I also add mushrooms, please don't tell the folks in Hungary it's just the way I like it!
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Toss in a few cloves of chopped up garlic in the last few mins and when everything is all soft and good, remove from heat and add in 6tb of AP flour and a 1/2 cup of good paprika. That's something hard to find around me, but it's very important that you use good paprika for this.
This is the type I buy because it's the best available in my area.
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Now, I always by a fresh tin when I make this recipe. I will use the rest of this in various other things to use the remaining paprika up, but I always open a fresh tin so that it is as fresh as possible when I make this because it is the star of the dish.
Upon adding the flower the paprika stir very very well with the onions and whatever else you've thrown into your pan. what you're looking for here is sort of a mush kind of paste. if you find that it is too dry to make a mush or a paste slowly add bits of the remaining oil back in that you poured into the coffee mug. Put this back on a lower heat for 5 or 6 minutes so that you can toast the paprika a bit and knock down some of the flour flavor.
Next step is to add about 2 cups of chicken broth. I may add another quarter or half cup depending on how I feel about it. Just don't add any more than that otherwise your sauce will be a bit on the thin side. whisk well to incorporate all ingredients into a smooth sauce in the pan.
After that, we are going to put the chicken that we cooked back into the pan. I like to give the skin side a quick dip before resting the chicken meat side down in the sauce because I like the texture that you wind up with in the end. Here is our dipped and nestled chicken in the cast iron pan headed into the oven.
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Throw them into your 400° preheated oven for about 30 to 40 minutes. Depending on how done you like your chicken. I like to let it go a little bit farther so that it's easier to pull off the bones when you are eating.
Go ahead and grab a pan to boil 1 lb of extra wide egg noodles. You can use a good bit of salt and oil in your water to boil these.
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Boil these as you normally would. When they are done strain through a colander and add them back into the pan that you boil them in. Mix a whole mess of butter up with the now cooked noodles and re-cover and set aside. Think buttered noodles here.
after 30 or 40 minutes in your oven go ahead and yank those chickens out of there. Now they're looking like something good...
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Go ahead and remove the pieces of chicken from the pan again and set aside on the tray that you previously used unless you want to go ahead and dirty more dishes. That's up to you I suppose.
take 1 and 1/2 cups of sour cream and whisk it into your pan sauce making sure to take your spatula and get all the good bits off the sides and bottom. The resulting sauce will look like this.
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I simply serve this dish with a bed of noodles however much sauce ladled on top of the noodles that you prefer and a piece or two of chicken served on top.
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That's all folks :-)
This is really a quite simple one-pan dish to make and if you've never had it before I would highly recommend it. Because it's going to have a totally different taste than your other chicken dinner meals. Quite inexpensive and quick. What more can you ask!
Have a good day
