Ingredient

Paprika

Paprika is dried, ground sweet pepper, and the three main kinds — sweet, hot and smoked — are different enough that swapping one for another changes a dish completely. It is also the spice that most reliably turns bitter if you put it in a pan that is too hot.

The kinds

Sweet paprika

Mild, fruity, slightly sweet, brilliantly red. The default, and the one Hungarian cooking is built on. Used in quantity — tablespoons, not pinches.

Hot paprika

The same pepper with more of the heat-bearing parts included. Still fruity, with a genuine chilli warmth behind it.

Smoked paprika (pimentón)

Spanish, from peppers dried over oak smoke. Intensely smoky and dominant. It comes sweet (dulce), bittersweet (agridulce) and hot (picante).

Hungarian grades

Különleges through to erős — a scale from delicate and sweet to sharp and hot. Worth knowing if you buy from a Hungarian shop.

The mistake to avoid

Using smoked paprika where sweet is meant. Smoked paprika takes over everything it is in; it is not a general-purpose red spice.

Why it burns

Paprika is ground dried fruit, so it contains a good deal of sugar and very little to protect it. In a hot pan those sugars scorch in seconds, and scorched paprika is sharply, unmistakably bitter — it will ruin a goulash and there is no recovering it.

The traditional Hungarian technique exists precisely to avoid this: take the pan off the heat, stir the paprika into the warm fat and onions, and add the liquid almost immediately. The fat still carries the flavour out of the powder — paprika's colour and aroma are fat-soluble, which is why a paprika dish goes brilliantly red — but nothing gets hot enough to burn.

The general rule is: paprika goes in late in the frying stage, off the heat if possible, and liquid follows quickly.

Where each one belongs

• Sweet paprika — goulash, chicken paprikash, Hungarian and Balkan cooking generally, dusted on deviled eggs and potato salad, and in any spice rub as the bulk red component.
• Hot paprika — the same dishes when you want heat that is fruity rather than sharp.
• Smoked sweet — chorizo-style flavour without chorizo, patatas bravas, romesco, roasted vegetables, bean stews, and anything you wish had been near a fire.
• Smoked hot — the same, with chilli behind it.
• With paprika of any kind, buy small and buy often. It fades and dulls in the cupboard faster than most spices and goes from red to brownish as it does.

Getting more out of it

• Store it in the dark. Light degrades the pigments that give it colour, and colour is a fair proxy for how much flavour is left.
• Use much more than a recipe from a non-paprika-using tradition suggests. Hungarian cooking uses paprika by the tablespoon.
• Pair it with fat — soured cream, lard, olive oil — which carries the flavour and softens the edge.
• Add acid at the end. Vinegar or a squeeze of lemon lifts a paprika dish considerably.
• Smoked paprika and a pinch of sugar together get you most of the way to a barbecue rub.

The types, and the one rule

Sweet (dulce)

Mild, fruity, mostly colour and gentle sweetness. The default.

Smoked (pimentón)

Dried over oak. Intensely smoky and dominant — use less than you think. What makes chorizo taste as it does.

Hot (picante)

Made from hotter varieties. Genuinely spicy.

Hungarian grades

From delicate to hot, and generally fresher and more aromatic than supermarket paprika.

The one rule

Paprika burns readily and turns bitter and muddy within seconds in a hot dry pan. Add it off the heat, or with a splash of liquid, or right at the end of frying the aromatics. This is the single commonest way a goulash or a stew is ruined.

It fades

Paprika loses colour and aroma faster than most spices. Buy small tins and replace them yearly.

Common questions