I like to think of myself as a foodie, but my greatest culinary achievement is improving on Hungarian mother-in-law’s Chicken Paprikash.

So here we go:

2 pounds of chicken (I prefer thighs, bone-in, but you can substitute boneless breasts), cubed
1 clove garlic
1 stick of butter (or equivalent in margarine or canola oil)
1 green pepper
1 medium onion
1 tomato
sour cream
Hungarian (Szeged) paprika
salt
pepper

It’s all prepared in one pot, almost like a gulash. I use a 7 qt Creuset dutch oven.

1. melt the butter in the pot
2. finely chop the onion, mince the garlic and add to the pot, simmer until the onions are translucent
3. chop the green pepper, add to the pot, simmer another 3-4 minutes
4. add paprika. I’ve never measured this, as it’s done mostly to taste, but if I had to hazard a guess I’d say 1.5 tablespoons; simmer another 2-3 minutes
5. stir in the chicken, allow it start browning
6. coursely chop the tomato, throw it in, and cover.

Simmer over medium/low heat for about 40 minutes or so. Add about a quarter-cup of sour cream five minutes prior to taking it off the heat.

Serve over dumplings or rice. I’ve found that jasmine rice works best.

I can see I’m gonna be copying and pasting quite a bit.

Like now.

Here’s a really easy one, the recipe I use for Super Bowls and as feed while we await the results of our own version of Iron Chef (next one on Mar. 8) ...

2 to 21/2 pound pork roast. Bottle of Bubbies sauerkraut. Onion.

Take pork roast from package and trim all or nearly all the fat off. Season with favorite seasoning—me, local mix made by butcher down the street.

Chop up onion.

Open jar of kraut, pull out a good handful and place in bottom of deep roasting pan (the cheapo-aluminum ones work great). Place half of onion on the kraut bed, place roast on kraut-onion bed, cover roast with rest of kraut (and liquid) and cover pan with foil. turn oven to 200, place pan in oven and leave it the fuck alone for a few hours.

After leaving it the fuck alone for a few hours, carefully remove eye glasses then carefully remove foil cover. Place freshly-made sausage and frankfurters into and around roast preferably under kraut. Cover back up and leave it the fuck alone while you drive to wherever you’re going.

Get there. Mash potatoes. Remove eye glasses then remove cover from pork, grab hot dog buns and enjoy kraut and sausages or dogs like you’re a normal human being, or, take a big heap of potatoes and place on plate. Cover with copious amounts of kraut and pork. Then fucking eat it and like it. Fucking fuckers.

This concludes another chapter of Cooking With Blago.

Fucking priceless.

Lileks has been doing food porn for years:

Too bad he [Lileks] is a ginormous douchenozzle.

Get there. Mash potatoes. Remove eye glasses then remove cover from pork, grab hot dog buns and enjoy kraut and sausages or dogs like you’re a normal human being, or, take a big heap of potatoes and place on plate. Cover with copious amounts of kraut and pork. Then fucking eat it and like it. Fucking fuckers.

SImilar comfort food. Whenever I go home to Chicago I grab some fresh kielbasa from a Polish deli. It’s a fresh pork sausage that comes in big spirals

-drop the sausage in a pot and get some brown on it
-add a metric assload of onion
-add quartered potatoes and just enough water to cover
-let it cook until the spuds are mushy and it has a rich gravy

Then eat the entire thing while the Wife looks on in horror.

Pretty much anything pork cooked on my smoker for 8 hours while I drink beer is comfort food too.

Too bad he [Lileks] is a ginormous douchenozzle.

Comment by Betty Cracker on 02/26/09 at 04:38 PM

I sure won’t argue that, but I have a weakness for hideous food photography and collect books like that.

Pretty much anything pork cooked on my smoker for 8 hours while I drink beer is comfort food too.

Now you’re talking. I wouldn’t touch sauerkraut with radioactivity-proof tongs. But slow-cooked piggy? Mmmmmmm!

I’ve got a 1972 Better Homes & Garden Junior Cookbook you might like. I’ll scan in some of the cheesier photos at some point.

But slow-cooked piggy? Mmmmmmm!

Comment by Betty Cracker on 02/26/09 at 04:44 PM

I’d have sex with my Traeger smoker if I could.

bow chikka bow bow. Cue the 50’s porn music:

I was a Lileks fan for a couple of years before I realized that he was a total pants-pissing wingnut.

Its a shame, too, because he is pretty good at the pithy snark.

I’ll make some veggie food and take pictures so y’all can make fun of my hippieness.

Why doesn’t anyone picnic in suits and pearls any more?

Ummm maybe because of the advent of anti-psychotic medications?

Just for you JustLen ...

Just for you JustLen ...

I’ll be in my bunk…

Ohhhhh man o manischewitz ....

Piggy smoking trick:

While it’s smoking spray it with Dr Pepper once an hour.

While it’s smoking spray it with Dr Pepper once an hour.

I use some of the apple juice and have even been known to use Pepsi.

Another one for you Len, talk about food P0rn ...

mmm mmm mmmm

Humbolt, that’s smoked kielbasa. This is fresh:

I took a friend to the Jolly Inn polish buffet in Chicago once. He was snarfing down the awesome black bread and said to the waitress “this is the best butter I have ever had.”

She replied in very broken English “it’s lard.”

I’ve got a 1972 Better Homes & Garden Junior Cookbook you might like. I’ll scan in some of the cheesier photos at some point.

I have a 1962 Betty Crocker cookbook (good and easy).  I will do the same at some point.  It’s not just the photographs, but the deliciously non-pc graphics.

Here’s the ingredients for one of the “recipes”—

California Cream Soup

1 can cream of celery soup
1 can cream of chicken soup
2/3 cup cream
2 cups milk
3/4 tsp salt
1/8 tsp pepper
3/4 cup choped avocado
1/4 cup ripe olives
1/4 cup chopped pimiento

Now doesn’t that sound delicious?  Seriously, I love this cookbook (and there are some actually decent recipes, this just doesn’t happen to be one).

Crumble crispy bacon on the California Cream Soup just before serving.  Crumble…with extreme prejudice.

Ah man, what a rip off. California Cream Soup contains absolutely NO California.

Damn you all!  I want pierogies!

The lady holding the vaginas made from sausages on a bed of Capt Crunch Casserole in the photograph looks like Natalie Portman.

“California Cream Soup contains absolutely NO California.”

Hilarious!!!!!!

ummmmmm, is there any vegetarian food porn?

oh my…wow…molto, wicked grazie