Café de Nuit

Never cooked it before, but...

Paprika hendl (Chicken in paprika sauce)

1 3-4lb chicken, cut into serving pieces (I had 2lbs of boneless chicken breast)
2 T. butter or other fat (I used olive oil)
2 large onions chopped (I only used one, but it was VERY large)
2 T. paprika
1/2 cup tomato juice
2 T. flour
1/2 cup sour cream

Lightly brown onions in butter. Blend in half the paprika. Add tomato juice and chicken; simmer, covered, for 1 hour or until tender. Remove chicken. Add remaining paprika to sauce, then add the flour beaten into sour cream. Simmer, stirring, 5 min or until well blended. Puree sauce in blender or food processor. Heat chicken and sauce together over low flame.

Serves 6 (mine may serve less).

And you may ask yourself what the SFA this has to do with horror?

Well, I pulled this recipe out of an annotated copy of Dracula...

Yeah, Brandi now THIS is a literary reference!

Brandi wrote:And you may ask yourself what the SFA this has to do with horror?

*lol* You got me there. I was reading it think why on earth someone be posting a recipe on an horror board

That would be a good trivia: where is this dish mentionned in the book and who eats it?

Was it good? It seem typical of eastern Europe / Russia cuisine.

Joël

I pulled it out of The Essential Dracula: The Definitive Annotated Edition of Bram Stoker's Classic Novel, edited by Leonard Wolf.

Very early in Chapter 1, Jonathan Harker notes in his journal that he stays for the night at a place called the Hotel Royale: "I had for dinner, or rather supper, a chicken done up some way with red pepper, which was very good but thirsty. (Mem., get recipe for Mina.)"

The footnoting of this book, which is downright anal-retentive (such as noting that Harker might have stayed in the Konigen von England [King of England] hotel, being a good patriotic Englishman), then furnished said chicken recipe.

A couple pages following, Harker notes "I had for breakfast more paprika, and a sort of porridge of maize flour which they said was 'mamaliga,' and egg-plant stuffed with forcemeat, a very excellent dish, which they call 'impletata.' (Mem., get recipe for this also.)" and the recipes are also duly given in the footnotes, including that Stoker probably mixed up the name of the stuffed eggplant, which would be patlagele impulute.

I haven't tried cooking those-- yet.

Actually, this is a pretty good edition of Dracula; some of the footnotes are actually enlightening, pointing out literary references a casual reader might miss, noting where various locations and landmarks are, pointing out symbolism here and there (like why the Count might have hair in the palms of his hands). For aesthetics I still prefer my copy with the Edward Gorey illustrations based on Dracula: A Toy Theatre but I do recommend this edition to anyone who's looking to add the book to their library-- and maybe if they even have a copy already.

Oh, and the dish itself? Came out pretty well, though my husband, coming home from a long day's work and feeling quite hungry, wasn't sure he wanted to wait 45 minutes for the dish to finish cooking its long slow simmer and offered to get us some sandwiches. I said oh why not-- and the sad irony is, wherever he went to get them had such a line that by the time he came back the hendl was about 10 minutes from finishing anyway! He can take some to work today for lunch if he likes.

Also, since the recipe ends up producing quite a lot of sauce even with just two pounds of meat overall, you may want to cook up some rice or dumplings or mashed potatoes or such to help soak it up.

Paprika hendl (Chicken in paprika sauce)

Yap, something I made several times.

I even made it for gaming night (perfect to prepare; about an hour befor you want to eat, just shove it into the oven. Ten minutes before eating, re-heat rice) - although only once; one of my players can't tolerate boiled paprika (what he did not know at that time) - and spend some time - err - emptying his stomach afterwards.

But it is a fantastic dish - ironically, the poor player thought so, too.

Brandi wrote:"I had for breakfast more paprika, and a sort of porridge of maize flour which they said was 'mamaliga,'

Yeah, 'S' mentions mamliga, a common (and fairly unpleasant, or at least bland, given her 'god help them' comment) Barovian cornmeal mush. makes one wonder how much the K had to go through regional cookbooks looking for culturally close recipes.

Well, mamaliga, at least in my book's recipe, basically is cornmeal porridge, though this recipe also tops it with some sour cream and sharp cheese (they recommend feta). It's probable that the poorer Barovians eat it plain as a staple more often than not, with the cheese and sour cream being a special-event or at least infrequent addition. The day-to-day stuff might be more likely to be just salted, or maybe topped with a few dried herbs on a good day, in which case we might find it just as dull as S did.

It would probably pair up okay with the paprika hendl, as the extra sauce could be mixed into it for flavor.

Tried it last Wed., and it worked out great. We used a light sour cream my mother had, and it was diluted more than I thought it would be, so none of those stomach problems I was worried about. It's definitely one we'll be using again. Thanks for posting the recipe!

I'd make it, but I don't like Chicken. Most meats, in fact.

Drinnik Shoehorn wrote:I'd make it, but I don't like Chicken. Most meats, in fact.

Perhaps you'd prefer potatoes paprikash? (Alas, no direct reference to Dracula or any horrors there.)

Brandi wrote:

Drinnik Shoehorn wrote:I'd make it, but I don't like Chicken. Most meats, in fact.

Perhaps you'd prefer potatoes paprikash? (Alas, no direct reference to Dracula or any horrors there.)

Would it work without the onion? I don't like onion either.

I'd say so.

Yeah, it probably would, though I find well-sauteed onions much less urpy than raw ones.

Should I post the recipe? Mods, is this wandering too far afield?