On 2015-07-24 15:43:24 +0000, notbob said:

> On 2015-07-24, Dave Smith > wrote:
>
>
>> Paprikash is good stuff. Chicken seems to be the most common, but it
>> also works well with beef or pork.
>
> I've never understood the spice, paprika. It's OK, but nothing to
> write home about.

I suppose somebody feels that way about every spice. I've never had
much use for paprika before but when you whittle some onions, sautee in
butter and then drop a full tablespoon of that stuff in, magic seems to
happen.

> Of all the things (non-beer) from Hungary, I love "ajvar" the best.

It seems it's originally Serbian/Croatian. The brand I buy, Zergut
which comes out of Bulgaria. We running low on tomato-paste,
tomato-anythig when we were making a pizza. I used about half of a
pizza tomato sauce and half ajvar. I'll NEVER make it differently
again. It really makes a pizza a heck of a lot more fun.

We also put it out as a condiment for shmearing on sangak (big
middle-eastern bread) when we had a meal with kuku sabzi and some other
Persian food. No one had seen ajvar before and were tenuous. After the
meal was eaten I saw a couple of people continue to eat the break
larded with ajvar. They were converts! It's fun when that happens.
They got out a pen and wrote the name down.

> Wiki sez the main ingrediant is red bell peppers. The brand I
> preferred was primarily carrot based,

Are you sure it was actually called ajvar? Lutenika/Ljutenica? Some
configurations are similar to ajvar but carrots are also a major
ingredient. Also Bulgarian.

> but I do like the pepper based
> versions, also. No doubt ajvar contains a buncha paprika, but not
> "smoked" paprika. Thank goodness!

I can see the "ashtray" thing, in that all paprika has a burny thing
going on. It's said that the grinding of the peppers in the mill
builds up a little heat and that pops the oils a little bit in the
process. In any case I've always found the smoked paprika really
interesting to smell, and assume no difficulties with the taste, but
have yet to find a place to actually use it.