Turkey Paprikash

Last year, I finally took a trip to eastern Europe - a two week trip to be exact. I traveled to Berlin, then on to Dresden, Vienna, Prague, Krakow, Warsaw and, one of my now favorite cities, Budapest. While in Budapest, I took a dinner cruise down the River Danube. After walking around all day, hopping off-and-on their version of the subway, and drinking in the city, I was pretty excited for this dinner cruise (read: eat and drink until you can't eat and drink no more). I was HUNGRY (no pun intended.) The cruise itself was nice, but unfortunately, it was raining out, so our view of the River Danube and its banks were a little obscured to say the least. But never mind, because the food and drink was plentiful, and at that time, that was all that mattered.

Amongst the stuffed cabbage and other items spread on the table was chicken paprikash, a traditional Hungarian stew. Now I must admit, before Budapest and this river cruise, I didn't even know what paprikash was. The only time I had ever heard of it was while watching "When Harry Met Sally" ("Waiter, there is too much pepper on my paprikash"), and my attempts at searching for it on the Internet were unsuccessful, as I mistakenly left out the "r," spelling it how it sounds when Billy Crystal says the aforementioned line. Whoops.

So imagine my excitement when while flipping through the February edition of Everyday Food, I came across a recipe for turkey paprikash (and noticed that it is spelled with an "r," because the word paprika is in there - duh).

The recipe is very easy to make, as I put it together in no time on a Sunday evening. Given that I am eating for one, I also had plenty of leftovers for lunch the next couple of days. And did I mention it is a healthy version? I didn't use turkey - try finding turkey, or any variety of meat for that matter, in Key Food - and instead used chicken. I also didn't use the full amount of meat the recipe calls for, because the price of chicken was just way to high. And like I said, I am cooking for one.


Turkey Paprikash
Yield: 4 Servings

Course salt and ground pepper
8 ounces whole-wheat egg noodles
1 small boneless, skinless turkey breast half (about 2 pounds), cut into 1 1/2 inch pieces
2 tbsps. sweet paprika
1 tbsp. olive oil
1 medium onion, chopped
1 can (14.5 oz) whole peeled tomatoes in juice
1/2 cup reduced-fat sour cream

1. Cook noodles in a large pot of boiling salted water until al dente. Then drain. In a bowl, toss turkey with 1 tbsp. paprika and season with salt and pepper. In a large nonstick skillet, heat the oil over medium. Working in batches, brown the turkey (about 3 to 5 minutes). Transfer turkey to a plate. Then add the onion to the skillet and cook, stirring, until tender (about 4 to 6 minutes).

2. Return turkey to skillet (along with any juices) and add tomatoes with their juices, 1 tbsp. paprika, and 1/2 cup of water. Bring to a boil and then reduce to a simmer. Cook, breaking up tomatoes with a wooden spoon, until turkey is opaque throughout (about 2 to 4 minutes).

3. Remove from heat, and stir in sour cream; season with salt and pepper. Serve paprikash over noodles.