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Paprika Chicken

A chicken stew cooked with onions, paprika, peppercorns, and cream, served with dumplings, rice, or mashed potatoes.

From the Wikibooks Cookbook · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and carrot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and 8,053 recipes mention both. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Paprika Chicken

6–8 as main course

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the chicken into eight pieces.

  2. Add the oil to a medium sauté pan and sauté the onions for about 3–4 minutes until they turn yellow.

Simmer the chicken

  1. Add the chicken, peppercorns, salt, and paprika, and stir rapidly.

  2. Add water immediately to cover the meat.

  3. Simmer over low heat.

  4. If using, add peppers and carrots after 10 minutes of simmering.

  5. Stir occasionally until the chicken is tender.

  6. If necessary, add more water sparingly.

  7. Do not boil the chicken; it should be almost fried in the end.

Reduce and serve

  1. During the last 15 minutes, stop adding water and wait until the liquid is almost boiled off, keeping about a half finger's width of gravy on the bottom of the pan.

  2. Add the sour cream and heavy cream to the gravy and stir.

  3. Add fresh chopped parsley on top.

  4. Serve with dumplings, rice, or mashed potatoes and salad.

Recipe from the Wikibooks Cookbook.

Steps grouped into stages for easier reading; the method is the source's own.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Parsley + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together8,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Pepper + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together14,555 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Olive + parsleytop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together9,649 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together21,601 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Chicken
Provides the main protein, which becomes tender through slow, gentle simmering in liquid.
Onions
Soften and turn sweet when sautéed, forming the flavor base of the gravy.
Paprika
Gives the dish its characteristic red color and warm, sweet-savory flavor.
Olive oil
Carries heat for sautéing the onions and helps them brown lightly without sticking.
Sour cream
Adds tang and richness, and thickens the gravy slightly as it is stirred in.
Heavy cream
Adds richness and a smooth, velvety body to the finished gravy.

The step that matters

Keep the chicken at a gentle simmer, never a boil. Boiling tightens and toughens meat proteins, while gentle simmering lets connective tissue soften so the chicken stays tender. Boiling can also make the dairy in the gravy separate or curdle later on.

Flavor stand-ins for the onion

The recipe marks onion as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, olive, cream, parsley, pepper, carrot):

  1. Capsicumbetter flavor fit
  2. Potatobetter flavor fit
  3. Spinachbetter flavor fit
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, olive, cream, parsley, pepper, carrot. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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