borrowing – a cooking tradition

When my family came to visit many moons ago, we took them to Casa Saltshaker, one of these new restaurants-in-the-home-of-a-chef deals. Dan and Henry are a wonderful pair, serving up delicious meals and pulling together some really interesting people sometimes. Despite the great beef, luxurious ice cream, and top-rate wine my parents consumed while they were here, this was the meal that they still talk about. It was was that good.

What’s even better is that Dan tells everyone afterwards what he made and roughly how he made it. While it may not have how many teaspoons of x you’re supposed to add or how many minutes to cook y, it’s generally enough to put together yourself (especially if you know what it’s supposed to taste like).

One of the best dishes we had on our night of Hungarian food was Chicken Paprikash, an excellent, creamy dish well-spiced with Hungary’s native taste, paprika. While I can’t give you a recipe for this (it’s been a pinch of this, a dash of that both times we’ve made it), I can give a hearty recommendation and point you to the particular entry about that meal. Everything was good that night, if you want to try anything else – the paprikash is halfway down the page. Definitely worth a try sometime (as is the restaurant).