Chicken Paprikas with Meinklang Hárslevelü

Chicken Paprikas paired with Meinklang H17

December 17, 2020 Posted by Robin Renken 12 Days of Wine Holiday Edition, Recipes and Wine Pairings, Wine and Food Pairings, Wine and Wine Pairings, Wine Tasting No Comments

Chicken Paprikas

This recipe is based on my Mother’s. She made her dumplings to drop by the spoonful, although many prefer the smaller Nokedli.

What to Pair?

Meinklang h17

This wine is from the grape Hárslevelü (harsh-level-oo). It is a white grape whose name means “linden leaf”. This is an aromatic grape although less so when from the tiny Somló region where it has mineral qualities.

This wine is made in an orange style with 2 days of skin contact. It is fermented with wild yeasts, and bottled unfiltered and unfined with no sulfites added.

Time: 1 hour

Yield: 4 people

Chicken Paprikas

Ingredients

1 onion chopped

4 tbs butter + 1 tbs olive oil

1 tbs paprika

¼ tsp pepper (I used ground white pepper)

2 tbs salt

4 chicken thighs

1 ½ cups of chicken stock

½ pint of sour crème

Directions

Melt the butter in a dutch oven with the olive oil (I add the olive oil to keep the butter from burning)
Cook the onion in the butter, until soft
Pull the pot off of the heat and add the seasoning (paprika, pepper, salt). This is done off the heat to prevent the paprika heating too quickly which gives it a bitter taste.
Add the add the chicken and put this back on the heat to cook for 10 minutes to brown the chicken.
Add the chicken stock (this should almost cover the chicken)
Cover and simmer for 40 minutes over low heat
While that is simmering, make the dumplings

Ingredients for the dumplings

2 eggs

2 cups of flour

1 tsp salt

1/3 cup of water

Directions

Mix the eggs and flour together with a pinch of salt.
Add water to get to the correct consistency.
Drop by spoonfuls into boiling salted water. Cook 10 minutes and drain.

*alternatively, you can put the dough on a cutting board and cut it into thinner slices to drop right into the pot. (I find this much easier than using a grater)

Assembling

Remove the chicken from the pot
Add the sour creme to the sauce in the pot and whisk. (If it needs additional thickening you can add sifted flour, just be sure to cook it through)
Add the dumplings and toss them to coat.
You can choose how to plate this. I put it into individual gratin dishes with the chicken on the bottom, then covered it with my sauce and dumpling mixture.
Finish it off with a sprinkle of paprika.

Watch our quick video for the highlights.

Hungarian Chicken Paprikas and the Meinklang h17 Wine

We paired this dish with a Hungarian wine of Hárslevelü from Somló, Hungary. From the Meinklang farm, this was wine in the Orange style (white wine that is left on the skins like a red wine).

The wine was rich and delicious and paired well with this dish. The spices elevated by the wine.