The Slavic east and the Balkans · Volume 28, Grill, Pepper and the Ottoman-Habsburg Line

Fiš Paprikaš

Name: Fiš Paprikaš
Total time: 1 h
Yield: Serves 4
Cuisine: The Western Balkans
Ingredients: 1.5 kg river fish, carp if available, in large pieces, skin on; 1 onion, finely chopped; 2 tbsp sweet paprika; 1 tsp hot paprika; 2 tomatoes, chopped; to taste garlic, bay leaf; to serve sour cream and homemade noodles or bread, to serve

Vojvodina, Serbia

Fiš paprikaš, single-fish river stew: a wide, shallow dark pot filled with a thick, deep brick-red paprika broth, large pale pieces of river fish visible just beneath the glossy surface.

An illustration of the dish, not a photograph of it cooked.

Time: 1 hour

Researched: 10 sources cited
Reviewed: Not yet reviewed from inside the tradition
Cooked: Not yet cooked and reported

Distinguished from a generic mixed riblja čorba by using one fish only, almost always carp, valued for its fatty flesh, its gelatin-rich skin acting as a natural thickener, and fewer fine bones in large pieces than a mixed-fish pot carries.

As tradition built it

Serves 4. About 1 hour.

Ingredients

1.5 kg river fish, carp if available, in large pieces, skin on
1 onion, finely chopped
2 tbsp sweet paprika
1 tsp hot paprika
2 tomatoes, chopped
to taste garlic, bay leaf
to serve sour cream and homemade noodles or bread, to serve

Method

Soften the onion in a little oil, then stir in the sweet and hot paprika off the heat, so it does not scorch.
Add the tomatoes, garlic and bay leaf, and enough water to cover generously, then bring to a simmer.
Add the fish pieces, and cook gently, about 40 minutes, stirring as little as possible to keep the fish intact, until the sauce has thickened and reddened deeply.
Serve in the pot, with sour cream stirred through at the table and homemade noodles or bread alongside.

What a modern chef changes

The paprika protected from scorching, and the fish's own gelatin trusted to do its job

Aromatic discipline, not a numbered rung

Method

Take the pot off direct heat before adding the paprika, every time. Paprika scorches and turns bitter within seconds over direct flame; this single habit is the difference between a deep red, sweet sauce and a bitter one.
Do not stir once the fish goes in. Carp's skin holds the piece together and releases gelatin slowly into the broth; agitation breaks it apart and thins the finished sauce.
Reduce the sauce separately if it runs thin, lifting the fish out carefully first, rather than boiling hard with the fish still in it.

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