Csipos Paprika. The secret ingredient.

Hungarian food (and most central and eastern european food) is delicious, but eventually it weighs on you. Potato pancakes, cheese dumplings, sour cream in everything and some strange fascination of cottage cheese in everything sweet. All the potato and dairy is something we have learned to avoid. But when in Hungary ...

This time, we were going to do things a little different. Albeit with a microscopic kitchen undertooled and with no functioning oven. We would make sure we always had fruit and veggies on hand, and we would mostly cook our own breakfasts and dinners. Clean eating and low carb meals have become our new mantra, which makes cooking surprisingly easy.

Tiny kitchen with very little counterspace for food prep.

But I was determined to play with local ingredients, and found a super simple and clean alternative to the paprikash (a creamy and sometimes slightly spicy stew of pork or chicken). I quickly discovered the secret ingredient : Csipos Paprika. Its almost impossible to ruin a dish with this magic. Like pixie fairy dust.

Csipos Paprika: Pixie Fairy Dust!

Instead of thickening the stew with cream, I leveraged an old trick of ours and used root vegetables simmered slowly. So, the simple recipe is:
- Poultry or Pork (500g) ... or you could totally do this with tofu or chickpeas. 
- a few onions and gloves of garlic
- a bell pepper or two
- a few carrots and whatever other root vegetable is lying around
- broth (2 cups)
- liberal dusting of csipos paprika (2-3 tbsp)
- salt and pepper

Step 1: Start with a big pile of veggies.

As for the prep, it’s sauté the meat and onions, add the rest and simmer for an hour. Eat.

Step 2: Sauté meat and onions for 10 minutes while you prep the rest of vegetables. Add garlic for last minute.

Step 3: Sprinkle liberal amounts of Csipos Paprika (spicy Hungarian paprika), salt and pepper

Step 4: Add broth and set to simmer.

Step 5: Add the rest of the vegetables. Here, zucchini, sweet potato, carrot, green pepper.

Step 6: Simmer for 30-45 minutes then turn off until dinner is ready to be served. 

Another nice tip from Hungary. Add some pickles, and sliced raw vegetables. Especially almapaprikas pickles. Also called apple pepper or manzano peppers. I must find a North American source for these delightful spicy pickles. They are good with everything, even scrambled eggs and bacon. They are naturally sweet and spicy, look like a small golden apple and taste citrusy. The brine and their natural flavour make everything pop.

Almapaprika: Magic Pop!

Pure magic. If anyone can help me source these almapaprikas in Canada or the US, I will be eternally grateful. Oh, and csipos paprika too. I dont know how much I can stuff in my suitcase. I might have to leave some clothes and shoes behind.

Dinner is served!