We Be Cookin’

This is The Boyfriend’s absolute favorite meal. It’s a Hungarian recipe that his grandmother used to make for him and actually still does when he visits. She showed me how to make it a few years ago and I now use it as bait when I want something done. “I’ll make you chicken tarhonya if you do the laundry” “Guess who gets chicken tarhonya if he takes out the trash with a smile on his face!” It’s also one of the easiest things to make but of course I don’t let him know this, I sit in the kitchen and rub my head in frustration every few minutes so he can truly appreciate the whole thirty minutes I spend in the kitchen, half of which are spent text messaging about the newest Britney Spears saga.

Your ingredients:

Salt, Paprika (this is necessary! no substituting!), pepper, tarhonya noodles (more on this in a sec), butter, chicken broth, sour cream, half a yellow or white onion, two chicken breasts, a skillet, and a pot.

So of course one of the main ingredients in chicken tarhonya is, yeah, you guessed it: the tarhonya noodles. They are essentially itty bitty drops of egg pasta. The problem with tarhonya is that it’s nearly impossible to find in a regular grocery store. The only time I’ve ever had actual tarhonya noodles has been when The Boyfriend’s grandmother bought them at the Hungarian grocery store in Seattle and shipped them to us. At one point I had over ten bags of tarhonya noodles so I was never in need but then the day came that we ate all the tarhonya noodles and darkness fell upon us. We were really in the mood for chicken tarhonya but there were no tarhonya noodles. GOOD GOD, WHAT WERE WE GOING TO DO?!!! Improvise, of course I went to the grocery store and scoured the pasta section until I came upon these little beauties

Acini di pepe

Still itty bitty, still pasta. The texture is somewhat different from tarhonya but if you can’t get to a Hungarian grocer, these will work just as well. On to some cookin’!

You wanna heat up both your skillet and pot. I normally start slicing the onions while waiting for them to heat up because waiting for an iron skillet to heat up is like watching paint dry on a wall, minus the fun buzz from inhaling all the fumes, so yeah, boring. Then, when they’re all nice and hot, you want to throw in two tablespoons of butter into each.

This is your heart having a heart attack, kids. Trust me, it’s totally worth it.

You then want to put in a cup of the tarhonya/acini di pepe noodles in the skillet and your onion slices in the pot and saute them until they’re clear. Here’s the fun part and what’s so great about this recipe: it’s totally for the novice. See, in order to get the full flavor of chicken tarhonya you have to basically burn the noodles. You want to fry them until they are a good mixture of a deep gold, chestnut, and straight up chocolate color. If you happen to burn a few into black, you’re good, it just makes it so much more diverse. Make sure you keep checking them and stir (!) because, um, yeah, sometimes you get so distracted with, oh, I don’t know, air, and you forget you’re frying pasta and you look at your skillet and it’s black with a few specks of gold. I mean, it’s never happened to me, per se, but I’m just warning you so that it doesn’t happen to you. So check your noodles! They should look something like this after about ten minutes

Now you want to pour an entire can of chicken broth, lower the heat, and let it boil.

Your onions should be pretty clear by now so you want to add your pepper, salt, and paprika. The salt and pepper are really up to you and they don’t really make much of a difference because the fried noodles, paprika, and sour cream make the recipe so you can put as much or as little as you like. The paprika? Oh yeah, you want A LOT of that.

Next you want to put in about eight ounces of sour cream. If you want to feel better about yourself, use light sour cream. While you’re waiting for the sour cream to liquefy, you want to cut up your chicken breasts into six pieces.

You then want to add a can of chicken broth to your sour cream/onion mixture, stir that a bit, and then add your chicken. You’ve been watching your noodles, right?

Put a lid on the chicken and let it boil for a bit, maybe about ten minutes or so.

Make sure you keep checking your noodles. You want all of the chicken broth to be completely evaporated. So at this point you might be asking yourself, “Hmm, why did she have four cans of chicken broth in the ingredients picture but only use four?” Mostly because I’m an idiot but partially because sometimes the chicken broth evaporates before the noodles are done so you have to add more broth as needed. I’m like a Boy Scout, always prepared.

When your noodles are done, they should look like this

So pretty right? Ha, not pretty enough to not devour!

Your chicken should be done by now so now it’s a matter of putting some tarhonya/acini di pepe on a plate and then pouring the chicken/sour cream/onion mixture on top. Oh yeah, and don’t forget to eat it. I mean, I know it’s pretty to look at but if you don’t eat it, well, I’m pretty sure a little bunny will cry. Don’t make the bunny cry!