From Bubbe’s Kitchen: Chicken Paprikash
Image by Liza Schoenfein
By Liza Schoenfein January 17, 2018
I had a beautiful Hungarian grandmother, born Erzsébet Weisz and redubbed Elizabeth Weiss when she and her parents and brother and sister moved to New York from Miskolcz in the 1920s. I called her Nana and she called me darling. (It sounded like dahhrrlink, as if spoken by a brainiac Zsa Zsa Gabor.) Nana said her Ws like Vs and her Vs like Ws, so as she told it, proudly, I vent to Wassar. She had gone to another of the seven sisters, Barnard, where she graduated Phi Beta Kappa in 1926, a brand new immigrant who had enrolled only two years earlier, no less. She went on to get a Master’s at Columbia; then taught at Hunter College and later — after being denied tenure for marrying my grandfather — at Horace Mann. She spoke five languages, had perfect skin, and made splendid baby lamb chops and a mean chicken-in-the-pot.
Related
One day, when I was in my early 20s, she taught me how to make palacsinten, the Hungarian version of crêpes, which she filled with either apricot jam or a cottage cheese and raisin mixture, both delicious.
I don’t remember her making paprikash, though I do recall eating it one night at a family dinner — maybe it was her birthday — at a Hungarian restaurant, Mocca, which used to be on the Upper East Side.
When I came across the recipe for roasted chicken paprikash in JCC Manhattan’s “The Community Table: Recipes & Stories From the Jewish Community Center & Beyond,” I was compelled to try it. It tapped a deep well of nostalgia, obviously, but at the same time the dish seemed modern and fresh. I liked that the chicken was roasted, and that I had all the ingredients on hand — the whole thing is really very straightforward. (I happened to have leeks in the fridge, but if I hadn’t I would have substituted onions or shallots rather than running out for them.)
The dish turned out to be more than just a blast from the past — it was deeply flavorful, smoky, earthy and satisfying. The paprika flavor is very strong, but both my kids devoured everything on their plates.
What I like so much about “The Community Table” is that it manages — like Leah Koenig’s “Modern Jewish Cooking” — to maintain clear ties to the classics while feeling firmly placed here in the present. Hungarian though I may (at least partially) be, I didn’t have a go-to paprikash recipe before. I’m pleased to say that I have one now.
Related Recipe:
Liza Schoenfein is food editor of the Forward. Contact her at [email protected]. Her personal blog is Life, Death & Dinner
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning journalism this Passover.
In this age of misinformation, our work is needed like never before. We report on the news that matters most to American Jews, driven by truth, not ideology.
At a time when newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall. That means for the first time in our 126-year history, Forward journalism is free to everyone, everywhere. With an ongoing war, rising antisemitism, and a flood of disinformation that may affect the upcoming election, we believe that free and open access to Jewish journalism is imperative.
Readers like you make it all possible. Right now, we’re in the middle of our Passover Pledge Drive and we still need 300 people to step up and make a gift to sustain our trustworthy, independent journalism.
Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Only 300 more gifts needed by April 30
