The search for the perfect pepper chicken

A good paprika chicken is not exciting, but a subtly elegant dish: creamy, velvety, silky smooth, homely, comforting, a food that reassures you that all is well with the world and will still be all right tomorrow. It is the chicken à la crème, not the coq au vin of old Austrian cuisine. Its home is the porcelain bowl on the upper middle class table and not the puszta’s casserole; it comes from the upscale restaurant and not from the pub or even the tavern.