Food can make you feel warm, comforted and even aroused, so why not call it a language of love? Well at least that’s how I feel. After I met my now husband and realized that he might just be the one, I wanted to make a meal that would seduce him, let him know that I loved him deeply, all while feeling empowered myself. I made him a dish that I now reserve for only very special occasions – Chicken Paprikas. And to let you know how much I loved him, I could not even eat part of the dish then, because there were no gluten-free noodles to serve with it. If that is not love, then I don’t know what is?
Fast forward to 2021, our 28th wedding anniversary and I am recreating that dish, flavour infused with all gf seasonings, homemade gf noodles, a healthier version and still the most requested meal in my house – which we now share with our adult daughter and my mother. Every time we eat it, I find something different in it that I really love – like the softness of the pasta, the lemon infused chicken, the richness of the sauce and that list just keeps going on.
Let me now introduce you to that masterful meal of true love – Chicken Paprikas and Noodles. It started as a recipe from my Hungarian brother-in-law who took it from a Hungarian cookbook his father cherished. It was written in Hungarian and my brother-in-law had already converted it to work with ingredients found in Canada. It was a one pot dish basically at this time, that started with cooking bacon, then onion, next with that mixture removed, the chicken then fried in the pan and then the sauce is built on adding layer upon layer of the ingredients back into the pan. Lastly, pasta dumplings were cooked in that pot to accompany and complete the dish.
My reinvented dish is still rich and contains some of the original ingredients but has been improved to be healthier, gluten-free, egg free and my own version of a dish of love. Here is the breakdown of my dish because my core belief is that not only good, healthy food should be shared, but that all meals can be inclusive and allow customization so that anyone with allergies, an intolerance or food related conditions, can enjoy real flavours too!
Chicken Paprikas and Noodles
Easy Pasta – Ingredients:
- 1 1/2 cup of GF flour
- 1 cup sour cream
- 1 tsp salt
Instructions:
- Add salt to flour & mix with sour cream, letting it clump
- Add a tsp more of sour cream if dough is still to dry & not clumping together well
- Roll into a ball & refrigerate for an hour
- Once dough is ready, start with a small ball & roll thin with a rolling pin (flour surface and pin)
- Use a straight edge tool & cut in strips, then cut the other way into smaller noodles.
- Let noodles dry so they won’t stick
- Boil 6-8 minutes in water with a little oil to stop from sticking together
- Drain water & pasta is ready to be sauced
Paprikas Sauce – Ingredients:
- 1 package of Bacon
- 2 Large Red Onions
- 1 1/2 Cup of Water
- 3 tbsp of Nourishment Broth
- 2 tbsp of Vegetable Broth
- 2 tbsp of Smoky Paprika
- 2 tbsp of GF Flour
- I container of Sour Cream
- 1 1/4 cup of Milk
- Dusting of Pepper at the end
Instructions:
- Chop bacon into small pieces & cook in your fry pan until done the way you like it
- Chop onions into small pieces & add to the fry pan with the bacon, once the bacon is cooked
- Stir mixture until onions are clear & cooked through
- Remove mixture from the fry pan to a bowl using a spoon with holes or your grip grabbers so the excess bacon fat falls back into the frying pan & set aside
- Mix water, broths & paprika together in a bowl & let site
- Mix milk & flour together in a tightly lidded bowl & shake to mix well
- Add broth & milk to pot & cook over medium heat until the mixture begins to really thicken
- Stir in bacon/onion mixture
- Add your sour cream & bring temperature back up
- Let simmer for 5 minutes & dust with pepper
- Ready to be served
Chicken – Ingredients:
- 4 pieces of boneless chicken breasts or substitute to chicken of choice
- 1/4 cup of gf Flour
- 2 lemons juiced
- 1 tbsp of Red Garlic Topper
Instructions:
- Squeeze 2 large lemons & set aside juice for later
- Chop breasts in half vertically so that you have a top & bottom
- Add flour & Red Garlic topper to a plastic bag
- Put chicken in the bag & coat with flour mixture
- Lightly cover a clean fry pan bottom with olive oil or oil of choice & add chicken one piece at a time
- Fry with lid on at highish temperature for 5-7 minutes
- Flip chicken & fry for another 5-7 minutes
- Flip chicken, reduce heat to medium & spoon half your lemon mixture on the pieces
- Let it simmer for a few more minutes & then flip & add lemon to the other side
- Simmer to let lemon cut the oil & seal in its flavour & serve
Serving Suggestions:
Our preferred method of serving for my family is to add pasta and chicken to our plates and spoon on sauce. That way you control the amount of sauce you want. We have also mixed the sauce with the pasta and added chicken alone. Or I have mixed sauce with pasta and left a little extra sauce and drizzled over the chicken in the fry pan. We let that mixture simmer and then serve it along with the sauced noodles.
I chose to do a quick noodle cut for my pasta. You can use a pasta of your choice to remove the home made pasta option if you wish.
Play with your food and enjoy!