One of my favorite books is Dracula by Bram Stoker. For the uninitiated, Dracula is told from the perspective of its characters through journal entries and letters.

Early on, as Jonathan Harker–the book’s main protagonist–is traveling across Romania on his way to Count Dracula’s castle. Along the way, he describes a classic Romanian recipe he enjoys very much: Paprika Hendl.

The book doesn’t give us much to go on as to what this recipe consists of. Fortunately, after combing the Internet extensively, I have developed a recipe that should closely resemble the dish Jonathan Harker describes–both in its composition and in its taste.

Ingredients:

• 1 lb. chicken
• 2 Tablespoons of olive oil
• 2 Chopped onions
• 1-2 cloves of garlic (optional)
• 2 Tablespoons paprika (sweet Hungarian Paprika
  is best, but much more difficult to come by in parts of the U.S.)
• 1/2 Cup of tomato juice
• 2 Tablespoons of flour
• 1/2 Cup of sour cream

The Process:

1. Defrost and cut chicken into serving-size pieces.
2. In a large pot, lightly saute chopped onions in oil until brown.
3. Blend half of your paprika with your onions.
4. Add tomato juice, garlic, and raw chicken to the mix.
5. Cover the pot, and let it simmer on low heat for 1 hour.
6. Now at this point, some people like to remove the chicken from the stew so that they can spend the next step or two working specifically on thickening the sauce a little; I don’t do this, because it takes extra time (and we just spent an hour waiting on this thing to simmer); if you want to be a traditionalist, however, carefully remove the cooked chicken from the stew, and perform the next step on just the sauce.
7. Thoroughly blend in remaining paprika, flour and sour cream; use a mixer of some kind, if necessary.
8. Simmer for a few minutes, stirring constantly.
9. Ladle sauce over chicken, and enjoy.

This recipe goes great with rice or noodles.

This recipe is rather generic, and also goes by the names Chicken Hendl and Chicken Paprikash.  Experiment with it a little to determine what you like and do not like about it.

Tip: If you brown your chicken ahead of time, you can cut down on the length of time your hendl will need to simmer, although the taste may be slightly affected (but maybe you’ll like the way it’s affected–who knows?).

Here are some other websites you can visit to get an idea for how other chefs are preparing their paprika hendl recipes:

• http://www.grouprecipes.com/80756/paprika-hendl.html
• http://archaeofacts.com/food-fun/chicken-dracula/
• http://www.flickr.com/photos/connella/144077542/

Filed under: Recipes

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