How to cook without paprika?

Cafe Society
21

Now, now, there actually are a few Hungarian dishes made without paprika (I’ve seen them for myself!) but, yes, when I cook Hungarian food, I generally start with onions, lard/oil, paprika. That’s the Hungarian trinity.

Now, paprika shows up as a central ingredient in Hungarian cookbooks, so far as I have found, only fairly recently, like mid-to-late 1800s or so. I found a couple of old Hungarian cookbooks from c. 1820 and c.1850 on Google Books, and very little paprika use could be found. No goulash, no paprikash, nothing like that. There is a dish called “gulyás hús,” which is a precursor, I assume, to goulash, but not quite the same thing. That one did use paprika. Paprika was certainly in Hungary at the time – I believe it was introduced around the 1600s via the Turks, but didn’t gain great popularity until later. Part of it was, I believe, both breeding for less spicy varieties and automation in the seeding and removing of the inner membrane to allow for finer control of heat levels. Paprika is a chile, after all, and its original form was spicy. Now you have many varieties.

ETA: I just noticed I had typed that while eating a nice paprika-laden bowl of goulash(soup). :slight_smile:

22

The reason for not using paprika is psychological. They were with a person that used an assload of paprika in everything and coupled with their history I think it’s more about bad memories than taste. So if I can get close but not exact it may be successful.

23

You can get the same kind of kick by using dried mustard. It won’t really resemble the flavor of paprika as other peppers might, but it won’t give you the red color. I have made some beef and pork dishes using mustard instead of paprika. It is different, but it has it’s own good flavor. Annatto can be used for coloring but it will be more orange than deep red.

24

I was going to say people think paprika tastes like nothing because they just use it to dust deviled eggs, rather than using it in recipes where it gets cooked. IIRC the heat helps release the flavors in paprika.

25

So I get all of this wonderful talk about the glory of paprika, but any feedback on my idea of using sweet peppers to get close but not match the taste of paprika?

26

A lot of its flavor compounds are also oil-soluble. It’s not an uncommon technique to “bloom” various spices and herbs in oil in this way to release these flavors. But you should be able to taste it on its own if it’s good paprika. I just had a quick taste between my Hungarian paprika, and some cheap “emergency” 99 cent paprika I bought a few weeks back when I just needed some sweet paprika for a spice rub, and I was reminded why I buy my paprika at Penzey’s and Spice House. The cheap paprika is really devoid of that pleasant, sweet, red pepper smell and the taste is … first, it’s fairly faint, and second, it’s kind of got a “dirt” flavor to it. It’s odd. The Hungarian paprika had immediate flavor, nice balance of bright fruitiness and deeper darker dried fruit, and clean sweet red pepper. It’s not an overpowering spice, but my point is, if it’s good, you should be able to immediately get those sweet red pepper aromas and flavors. So get yourselves some good paprika, people!

27

If the guy gets triggered by paprika due to some psychological thing rather than an allergy, then substituting with something else that approximates paprika will likely trigger the same psychological response. There are plenty of other dishes that don’t use paprika; just cook those instead.

28

NO! DO NOT DO THAT!

Here’s how you cook without paprika: you make spanikopita for your friend. Or sushi. Or rosemary orange chicken or buttermilk waffles or bean burritos or lasagna or mushroom stroganoff or chickpea curry.

There are fifteen bajillion dishes that don’t need paprika. Make one of them. If your friend doesn’t like paprika, why are you trying to get paprika-adjacent?

29

Is there anything specific you’re looking to cook, a recipe you’re looking at? Pointing us to one will help us judge the best course of action but typically you can just drop the paprika. Your sweet pepper idea is just making your own homemade paprika.

30

Another vote for “just make dishes that don’t call for paprika, or if it is only a garnish just leave it off.”

I must say, I cooked for years using very little paprika. This changed when I started using a recipe from @Chefguy for chicken chili - he turned me on to the joys of smoked paprika and I have never looked back. Still, it’s not like my cooking before I found smoked paprika was no good.

31

Smoked paprika is great, and I put it in everything that I could get away with, until I ran out; and since my wife doesn’t like it as much as I do, I experimented with a bottle of Hungarian instead. Once that’s out, though, I’m going back to smoked. (We don’t use enough of it to justify having lots of extra kinds around).

32

Oddly enough, though I have smoked paprika around, it’s not really my favorite. I only use it for a couple of dishes, usually a little bit in chili and a sometimes a dusting of it on eggs. I just find it really overwhelming, for some reason. Which is weird, as I’m smoking meats throughout the summer and thoroughly enjoy going to barbecues.

33

Another option …

But yeah lots of choices that don’t require being paprika like for someone who don’t like paprika.

34

Here’s a good recipe that I grabbed from the NYT :

Huevos Rotos (broken eggs)

INGREDIENTS

  • ⅓ cup extra-virgin olive oil, plus more as needed
  • 2 teaspoons smoked paprika
  • ½ teaspoon red-pepper flakes or 1/4 teaspoon ground cayenne
  • Kosher salt and black pepper
  • 2 pounds new potatoes, cut into 1-inch pieces if necessary
  • 1 medium onion, finely chopped
  • 4 garlic cloves, finely chopped
  • 4 eggs
  • Lemon wedges, for serving
  • Flaky sea salt, for serving

PREPARATION

In a measuring cup, combine the olive oil, paprika, red-pepper flakes, 1 1/2 teaspoons salt, a generous grind of pepper and 1 cup water. Put the potatoes in a large skillet and pour the olive oil mixture over them. Bring to a boil, then cover and cook on high until the potatoes are fork-tender, 6 to 9 minutes.

Uncover and turn the heat to low. If the potatoes are sticking or dry, add more olive oil. Arrange the potatoes in an even layer, cut side down if halved, then add the onion and garlic surrounding the potatoes. Cover and cook until the potatoes are golden-brown and the onions are softened, 4 to 6 minutes.

Stir the potatoes (if they’re sticking, add more oil). Make 4 nests in the potatoes and crack an egg into each. Season with salt and pepper. Cover and cook until the whites are set and the yolks are still runny, 4 to 6 minutes.

To serve, break the yolks gently with a serving spoon, then scoop some potatoes and an egg onto plates or into shallow bowls. Serve with a squeeze of lemon and flaky salt.

35

In the US?

It depends on where your family is from. Nearly every country in Europe pronounces it either PAP-ri-ka, or PAP-ree-ka, but some say pap-REE-ka (this is how Czechs say it). Then, there are the ones that say some variety of PI-men-ton. The Russians have a completely different official word, but also sometimes say pap-REE-ka,

Most languages have rules regarding how to stress three syllable words, and this dictates how the word is stressed. This means that in English, it would be pa-PREE-ka, and people who encountered it here in cookbooks, or actually come from English backgrounds, say it that way. However, the majority of people in the US, in the aggregate, are from countries that says PAP-ri/ree-ka, and learned to cook at their grandmother’s knee, and thus retained that pronunciation.

My mother spoke both Czech and Slovak with native fluency, and mentioned this as a word that sometimes tripped her up (Slovaks say PAP-ree-ka). She also spoke Russian with near-native fluency-- she spoke it, apparently, with a Slovak accent-- she could also bluff her way through Polish pretty well, and studied Serbo-Croatian in an 8-week intensive course in her 40s, when it was her 5th Slavic language.

She cooked with a lot of paprika, and she tended not to make particularly spicy food. Her family was Ashkenazic Jew that had lived for many generations in Slovakia-- the bland leading the bland, basically. She had salt, pepper, paprika, and cinnamon on the spice rack, and the cinnamon was a New World interloper. I think my father sneaked in some basil and oregano at one point, since spaghetti was his go-to dish as a bachelor, and he still made it a few times a month. Spaghetti in meat sauce, Pillsbury garlic bread, and a Birdseye green vegetable, with fresh cucumber or carrot sticks.

36

I am pretty sure that a Hungarian would slap them with a carp or a catfish. Perhaps both since you recommend slapping them twice.

37

My mother was the child of Slovak immigrants. Born in the USA in 1924 three years after her parents landed at Ellis Island. (They had eight more kids after her.) But I don’t recall the subject of paprika ever coming up. :hot_pepper:

38

My thought exactly. I don’t know if I would notice the difference if there was paprika in a dish or not. I must use crappy paprika.

39

Yep. As was mentioned above, if it tastes like nothing you are using really old or really bad paprika. Spice House and Penzeys both carry several types of excellent paprika. Or just stop by your local megalomart and look for this stuff:

https://ii3.worldmarket.com/fcgi-bin/iipsrv.fcgi?FIF=/images/worldmarket/source/22648_XXX_v1.tif&wid=480&cvt=jpeg

40

Those would certainly be the more popular choices. My favorite freshwater fish there was the pike-perch/zander, fogas in Hungarian. You could find trout, pisztrang around, as well. Probably not as popular as the above fishes, but there are trout streams, and even a restaurant specializing in trout a bit north of Budapest.