On Saturday, July 11, 2015 at 12:30:48 PM UTC-4, gtr wrote:
> So I'm working my way through "Culinaria: Hungary" and I see the
> constant description of sauteeing onions, sometimes preceded by bacon
> and other such stuff. Then I am instructed to "remove from heat and
> sprinkle over (usually a tbs of) the paprika". They always word it like
> that which is amusing enough.
>
> In any case we later add this and that and simmer this long and so
> forth with out mention of putting it back on the heat. But always we
> *remove from heat* and sprinkle in the paprika.
>
> Anyone have a guess as to why this is supposed to take place while
> removed from heat?
>
> Incidentally, I had no idea that a heaping helping of paprika had the
> potential to make simple dishes so tasty.

It's to bloom the spice. Rather like so many Indian recipes sautee freshly ground other spices just before adding them to the rest of the food.

For most of my life I never met anyone with a large amount of Hungarian blood. We're at most 1/32th in our family from the branch that came through Vienna a century ago (to dodge the draft as the region geared up for WWI). So I never met anyone who thought paprika is hot.

Then I included another friend in one of our group social dinners and he was 3/4ths Hungarian blood. He took one spoon of the stew and turned red reaching for his beer. He explained that people with 1/2 or more Hungarian blood often find paprika hot. Okay, I know reaction to avocados (I don't) and asparagus (I do) is genetic, so why not detecting the hotness in paprika? I react just fine to the chemical in other forms of peppers so I take it paprika produces some other chemical that I am not sensitive to.