Paprikás csirke is the Sunday dish of countless Hungarian homes: chicken on the bone, cooked slowly with onions and plenty of sweet paprika until the sauce turns a deep coral, then enriched with sour cream. It is almost always served with nokedli, small soft dumplings made from a loose egg batter scraped into boiling water, which are close cousins of German spätzle.

It belongs on a Hungaroring weekend because it is generous, forgiving and built for a crowd. The sauce can be made ahead and the dumplings take ten minutes, which leaves plenty of time to argue about tire strategy.

The chicken

Ingredients

• 3 lb (1.4 kg) bone in chicken thighs and drumsticks
• 1 1/2 teaspoons fine salt
• 2 tablespoons lard or sunflower oil
• 2 large yellow onions
• 2 tablespoons Hungarian sweet paprika
• 1 Hungarian wax pepper
• 1 medium ripe tomato
• 1 cup (240 ml) water or low sodium chicken stock
• 1 cup (240 g) full fat sour cream
• 1 tablespoon all purpose flour

The dumplings (nokedli)

Ingredients

• 2 cups (250 g) all purpose flour
• 2 large eggs
• 2/3 cup (160 ml) water
• 1 teaspoon fine salt
• 1 tablespoon salt
• 1 tablespoon butter or sunflower oil

More from Hungary