When Harry Fed Sally (#103)

Our June film was When Harry Met Sally. This is a long time favorite romcom of mine featuring Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan. There are a few different food scenes in this film, including the infamous deli scene where she is eating an unidentified deli sandwich, so I could have done deli foods for our theme. There are also a couple restaurant scenes and a couple salad references, so really there is no shortage of food inspiration in this film.

Ultimately, I decided to base our dinner meal on some playful banter between the characters where they talk in silly voices saying that there is "too much pepper on my paprikash." I have never had paprikash, so I decided to look it up. Turns out it's a Hungarian dish featuring chicken, paprika and noodles. Honestly, it looked pretty good and unlike anything I have made before so I decided to give it a go.

For dessert, once again, I had no shortage of options. The same "paprikash" scene includes them playfully ordering "pecan pie" in their silly voice. There is also a scene where we discover that Harry is dating a baker who makes delicious cakes and cupcakes. Ultimately, I decided to rewind to an earlier scene where we first discover that Sally is a picky orderer. She orders an apple pie, heated, with strawberry ice cream on the side. It was such an odd concept to me, so of course I had to recreate it.

I have never really been great at making pies, so to save myself the time and effort, I decided on getting a frozen pie and ice cream. I cooked the pie while making dinner and then let it cool during our meal and the first half of the movie.

Harry's Peppered Paprikash

For this Hungarian dish, I wanted to stay mostly authenticate, but I did take a couple shortcuts to save myself time. I used recipes from the Daring Gormet and All Recipes as the basis of my recipe. The biggest difference is that this dish is traditionally made with whole bone-in legs and thighs and served over spaetzle, a German egg noodle. I substituted the spaetzle with basic egg noodles from the grocery store. I also decided to use boneless thighs for the chicken so that my guests wouldn't have to cut the meat off the bone. Below is my recipe. Keep in mind that I like to make big batches, so you may want to cut this in half if you aren't making it for a group.

Ingredients:

olive oil

3-4 lbs of boneless chicken thighs

salt

4 tbsp onion powder

1 1/2 tsp garlic powder

4-5 tbsp tomato paste

8 tsp all-purpose flour

2 tsp smoked paprika

1/2 cup sweet Hungarian paprika

cayenne pepper, black pepper, or other spices

4 cups chicken broth

1/2 cup heavy whipping cream

1 1/3 cup sour cream

2 lbs of medium size dry egg noodles

Directions:

1. Heat tbsp of olive oil in a deep sauté pan on medium-high.
2. Add chicken and salt generously. Flip and cook both sides of the chicken thighs before continuing,
3. Add onion powder, garlic powder, tomato paste, and flour. Stir until combined.
4. Stir in smoked paprika and Hungarian paprika. Add additional spices to preferred spice level. Hungarian paprika is not very spicy, so a few pinches of cayenne pepper will add a little heat to the dish. I also added a tsp or two of ground pepper.
5. Increase heat and stir in chicken broth. Bring to boil.
6. Reduce heat to a low simmer, cover with lid, and allow to simmer for about an hour or until chicken is cooked through and soft. Stir on occasion. This would be a good time to take the sour cream and whipping cream out so it's not refrigerator cold when you use it.
7. While chicken is cooking, make the pasta following package instructions. After pasta is cooked and drained, move to a large bowl and stir in a generous amount of salt and olive oil to taste. Olive oil also helps the noodles not stick together while cooling. Stir thoroughly.
8. Once chicken is cooked, reduce temperature to low and slowly stir in whipping cream and sour cream. You don't want to quickly add dairy products to a hot dish or they can turn. Having the sour cream and heavy cream sit out a little while and come to at or near room temperature helps prevent. So does turning down the temperature on the dish and only stirring in a little at a time.
9. Bring temperature back up, and let simmer uncovered for 10 minutes or so until sauce starts to thicken. Taste and season as appropriate.
10. Remove from heat and serve chicken with sauce over noodles.

Honestly, this was not a hard dish to make and the flavors were amazing. I had never had Hungarian paprika before, but I am a fan. This dish was not nearly as spicy as I thought it would be. The Hungarian paprika kept its promise of being a sweet spice. There was a lingering heat in the back of the dish, but that might have come from the cayenne. The spice was good and not overwhelming. Overall, I really liked this dish and would definitely consider making it again.

The party as a whole was a hit. The movie was great as I knew it would be and the food was on point. I will say that the combination of strawberry ice cream with apple pie was an odd one for me. Strawberry ice cream is sweeter than vanilla and combining sweet ice cream with a sweet pie seemed like too much to me. It reminded me of something a child would eat. Not bad, but definitely not balanced. If I was to redo this party, I might go with the cupcakes or pecan pie instead.