Chicken Paprikash

This recipe is from a small hotel and restaurant in Austria which Steve and Melanie stayed at as Phil and Sig Tiedtkies' guests in 2002.

• 2½ lbs whole chicken legs
• 2 lbs yellow onions (about 2-3 large onions)
• ½ cup sour cream
• 3 Tbs unsalted butter
• 1 cup chicken broth
• 1 tsp hot paprika or cayenne pepper
• 2 Tbs sweet Hungarian paprika
• ground black pepper
• salt

Salt chicken pieces and let them sit at room temperature while you cut the onions. Slice onions lengthwise (top to root). Melt the butter in a large sauté pan. Pat chicken dry with paper towel and place skin-side down in the pan. Cook chicken pieces 4-5 minutes on one side until well browned. Then turn over and let cook 2-3 minutes on the other side. Remove chicken and set aside.

Add sliced onions to the pan and cook, stirring occasionally, scraping up the browned bits from the chicken, until lightly browned. Add paprika and black pepper to taste to the onions. Add chicken broth, again scraping up the browned bits from the bottom of the pan, and place chicken pieces in pan on top of onions. Cover and cook on a low simmer for 20-25 minutes.

When chicken is cooked through, remove pan from the heat. (If you want, you can also keep cooking the chicken until it begins to fall off the bone, which may take another 30 minutes or so.)

Remove the chicken from pan. Allow pan to cool for a minute and then slowly stir in the sour cream and add salt to taste. If sour cream cools the sauce too much, turn the heat back on just enough to warm it. Add the chicken back to the pan and coat with the sauce. Serve with spätzle (See Jeff Rupert's Spätzle) or egg noodles.