Göntér chicken with “csusza” pasta

Ingredients:

• 1 ready-to-cook farm chicken (about 1.2kg),
• salt,
• a medium-size onion,
• 100g smoked bacon,
• 1 tbsp fat or 2 tbsp oil,
• 2 tsp fine ground paprika,
• 1/2 tsp hot Piros Arany or Erős Pista,
• 250g champignons (or forest mushrooms, e.g. porcini),
• 1-1 fleshy Hungarian wax pepper and tomato, (when not in season, 2-3 tbsp lecso preserve),
• 1 small bunch of parsley,
• 200ml cooking cream or sour cream (or 100ml of each),
• 1 heaped tablespoon of wheat flour,
• 320-400g home-made “csusza” pasta (broken lasagne-like pasta sheets)

1. Cut the chicken into four parts: lay it on its back, cut the breast bone with poultry shears, stretch the ribs slightly then cut the chicken in half at the backbone with a smaller kitchen cleaver. Cut these halves in two, leaving slightly more breast meat on the wing parts. Rub salt into the meat all over, then let it rest until you prepare the rest.

2. Chop the cleaned onion finely and cut the bacon into 0.5 cm dices. Heat the fat (or oil) in a pan, then add the bacon and allow the fat content to melt out. When the bacon is crackling, add the onion and sauté it stirring until golden brown. Sprinkle with half of the paprika, and pour a little (150ml) water on it. Cook for a few minutes, and when the water has evaporated, add the salted chicken pieces. Shake and fry until the meat whitens everywhere, then add enough water (5-600ml) to cover a good half of the chicken. Bring it to a quick boil over high heat, add some salt and some twist with hot paprika paste, then put on the lid leaving a small opening and cook it until tender in 50 minutes. Replace the evaporated water as necessary.

3. Remove the soft chicken parts from the pot and keep them warm under cover. Add the remaining teaspoonful of red paprika to the fat collecting on top of the sauce in the pot. Clean and slice the mushrooms, dice the tomato and pepper and add them to the sauce in the pot, once it has absorbed the red paprika. (Chop and add the lecso pieces if you are using that.) Flavour it with finely chopped parsley then cook it for roughly 10 minutes. Stir the flour into the cream (sour cream) until smooth then dilute it with some of the hot mushroom sauce before you add it to the pot. Cook for 3-4 minutes to let the juice thicken like a sauce. Taste and, if necessary, add seasoning.

4. In the meantime cook the “csusza” pasta in slightly salted, boiling water, then strain it and allow the water to drip out. Then mix it into the mushroom-paprika sauce, spread it in a fireproof dish and place the chicken pieces on top. In case the chicken has cooled down, heat up the whole dish in a hot oven, then serve immediately to prevent the pasta from absorbing all of the sauce. Decorate it with Karikás Pista.

Good to know:

Göntér is the name of the mountain range between Pécs and Siklós.

Useful advice:

Add Univer stew seasoning and Univer mild or hot goulash paste for a fuller flavour of the mushroom chicken sauce.