Nudging May 28, 2007
Posted by charmingbutsingle in Being Southern, Cooking, Family, Random Musings on Life.trackback
I was eating my grandmother’s Hungarian chicken and dumplings – a dish I’ve loved since childhood and tried to cook with mixed results twice since rejoining the ranks of the meat-eaters. I’d been picking her brain about it, yet again. She’d just cooked two whole chicken’s worth of the stew and eight eggs worth of dumplings. (By contrast, two boneless thighs and a breast of chicken and two or three eggs are enough for me to eat several dinners and a lunch or two myself.)
I simply couldn’t fathom how she could make enough for an army and yet hers tasted so much better than mine, aside from the fact that she’s probably made this hundreds of times and I’ve eaten hers a hundred times and even though it is simple – chicken, paprika, oil, onions, dab of tomato paste on mounds of simple egg-and-flour dumplings.
She explained, yet again, while my younger cousin teased me about not being able to cook.
“I can cook,” I said, defensively. “But there’s just something that just isn’t the same when I make it.”
“I know you don’t believe it, but I couldn’t cook at all when I got married,” my Grandmother told me.
“Oh yeah?” I said.
“Not at all,” she said, shaking her head very solemnly.
“Well, that’s why I’m waiting to get hitched. I want to be able to know how to cook everything first,” I said, winking at her and patting her wrinkled hand.
She smiled.
And later she sent me home with a half-dozen small mason jars, handwritten notes based on three old recipes and a lengthy description of how to make her homemade bread-butter-pickles.
I can’t cook either - I just put things together until it tastes good…BUT, I am planning on improving those skills in the near future…when I have time…lol…
Wow, I really am impressed!
I’m Hungarian and glad to read that you like Hungarian chicken and dumplings 
I have never thought that people so far from here know that a country like mine exists at all, not to mention that they can cook some of our national dishes!! 
Sending lots of greetings to your granny (and of course to you too) from Hungary :))
My grandma was Hungarian, too and she was such an excellent cook. We called the chicken and dumplings “paprikash”. She also made excellent strudel, the best chicken noodle soup (with homemade noodles) and some kind of dish with noodles and cottage cheese. Boy, I miss her. Enjoyed reading this, thanks!
WHat pray tell are bread butter pickles? They sound intriguing.
That sounds delicious. Do post the recipe so we can have a bash. Though of course because we don’t know what it’s supposed to taste like, we shouldn’t be too disappointed!
Okay, that had me laughing out loud in front of my computer. Your grandma is big on subtelty, no?
The similarities between our families is scary to say the least. Except, with my mother, it’s gotten past the marriage thing and has turned into desperate, begging along the lines of: “When are you going to make me a grandma?!”
I wish you the best of luck :). Love your blog!!
The thing about time honored, family tradition, handed down for generations recipes is that yours will never taste like theirs. Yours won’t taste like grandma’s, hers didn’t didn’t taste like great grandma’s, etc..
It’s the same for me. Biscuits and gravy are my mom’s best recipe. I know the recipe, I can cook the recipe, but it’s still not the same, despite being quite tasty. It’s just one of those things. My mom’s lasagna > anyone else’s lasagna.
Not that that explains why, but it is a fundamental truth of life. Moms and grandmothers are the best cooks, no matter what.
Vera — Yay Hungarians! I’m actually a quarter Hungarian, but I grew up around my great grandmother and grandmother who are both full-bred Hungarian. I’ve been eating chicken and dumplings since I’ve had teeth — though I’ve mentioned before that we’ve Americanized it with some tomato paste instead of just all paprika.
shinejewelry — I think I have had variations on most of the things you mentioned, though the homemade noodle soup has beef in it instead of chicken. Did you eat it with broth and noodles in one bowl and potatoes, carrots and meat on the side with mustard? My family ate it like this until my Dad came over for dinner while my parents were dating and he put all of his meat and veggies in with his soup — everyone else was so confused as to why he did this, but we eat it like this now. And those noodles are great. My great grandmother used to make them up until she passed away — she had a special board she rolled them out on with a loooooonge rolling pin. They are so thin and perfect. And my grandmother has never made the cottage cheese and noodle dish, but apparently that’s what they ate every Friday during Lent. (We are Catholic.) I need to get her to explain it to me again. It sounds great. Does your family make the squeezed cucumber salad? That’s one of my favorites!
Jeremy — I have no idea why they are called bread and butter pickles. They’re homemade sweet pickles made from cucumber, bell pepper and a ton of onions, flavored with tumeric, mustard seeds, celery seed, ground cloves and about a million cups of sugar. They are fantastic. We used to eat them from a bowl like a salad. MMMMMmmmmm.
London Girl — Ok, it sounds simple, but I just can’t quite get it right. You take your chicken — whatever you like, I usually do one skinless breast and boneless thighs — my grandma cooks it with the bones, but I don’t like to include the bones. Heat oil in a big pot. Salt and pepper your chicken and then sprinkle paprika on it. I use a lot of paprika, because that’s how I like it. You cook the chicken enough to just brown the outside a little on each side and remove the chicken from the pot. Add a little more oil if you need it and saute chopped onions, bell pepper and celery. My grandmother adds what she has, so sometimes you might get a little carrot or not have the celery, but she always always adds the onions. You want to cook the veggies until they are soft and the onions start to get translucent, and then you add your chicken back. This is where we deviate from the Hungarian dish. I take a dab of tomato paste and mix it with some warm water and a little more paprika. Then I pour that in, cover it and let it cook until the chicken is falling apart (or off the bone, if you have bones). While this is cooking, boil water in another pot (I add a little salt, but my grandmother doesn’t). Then you mix flour with eggs with a fork until it is a “sticky” dough. Add a little milk to thin it out if it is too thick. You “cut” the dough into the boiling water — basically you cut little pieces off into the water with the side of a spoon and cook until they float. Drain the dumplings, scoop some on a plate and top with chicken and red gravy.
There are no amounts or times — I know how it tastes and looks and I cook it that way. My grandma has this special grater that fits on the top of her pot and she pours the batter into a funnel on the top and slides it across the grater and the batter slips down into the water, making perfect little dumplings. I have NO IDEA where this came from and I couldn’t find it online, but I so want one.
So, see why this is hard? My first batch had too much tomato. My second had too much oil. My grandmother’s puts me to shame!
Every other word i have read - i just keep thinking about the dumplings YUMMY!!!
As for the pickles good luck!
xXx
Homemade Bread and Butter pickles are amazing. You are so lucky you are able to get her recipe. I don’t think my Granny taught it to anyone and now she’s gone.
Cooking takes a lot of practice. I actually got really good at it when I had a lengthy relationship and cooked much more. ( easier said than done, right??) Just keep at it and I’ve no doubt you will catch on and learn your grandmother’s touch!
I honestly think it is easier to cook for an army than for one or two. I grew up in a family of 6 and can cook pretty well (some say better than my mom … shh don’t tell her) when I have to cook for large amounts of people but when it comes to cooking for myself I’m so-so.
Also alot of the flavor in chicken stews come from the bone so that may just be the difference in your recipe. Try it with the bone-in chicken and you may find that it may be closer (not exactly) to your grandma’s…
I love grandmothers!!!!
I had forgotten about the soup - yes, she always took everything out before adding the noodles. I miss those homemade noodle so much, she had a special tablecloth and broomstick that she used. And the bread and butter pickles…yum! Yes, we always had the squeezed cucumber salad, although I haven’t been able to convince my husband or kids to like it, so its all for me. It is a great summer side.
It’s not the same.. but I just had the nicest chat w/ my grandmother around mother’s day. She’s taught me how to embroider and make her homemade rolls (not that I can ever make them) and she asked if I was still dating ‘the guy’ I was raving about after I’d just met him when two weeks later, that was totally over (figures) and I said, ‘No Gram, serves me right for talking about him too quickly, but there’s got to be an old maid in every family, right?’ And she goes, ‘You are not going to be an old maid, sweetie. You are going to find someone who loves you just as much as you love them, so don’t you worry about a thing.’ And that is exactly what grandmas are for.. Maybe I’ll learn how to make the rolls in time to impress the right guy.. who knows.