Kvrguša – chicken in soft batter with sour cream

Preheat the oven to 220°C with top and bottom heat. Prepare a metal baking pan measuring approximately 30 × 22 cm, with higher sides. After removing tough tendons and membranes, weigh out 600 g chicken. Cut it into 10–12 similar pieces up to 2.5 cm thick; slice thicker sections horizontally. Mix the meat with 5 g oil, 6 g salt, all the sweet paprika and black pepper. Grease the pan with the remaining 20 g oil and arrange the chicken in a single layer. Wash your hands and utensils after handling raw meat.

Place the pan on the middle rack of the preheated oven and roast the chicken for 8–10 minutes at 220°C. This is a brief initial stage; the meat is not yet ready to eat. Meanwhile, prepare the batter in the next step. After this initial roast, move straight on to combining the ingredients, keeping all the oil and juices in the pan.

Beat the eggs with 400 ml milk and the 4 g salt set aside for the batter. Gradually add all the flour, whisking until you have smooth, pourable batter without lumps. It should be a little thicker than ordinary pancake batter but still flow freely from the whisk. Reserve the remaining 100 ml milk and the sour cream for finishing; do not add them to the batter now.

Reduce the oven setting to 200°C. Remove the hot pan with oven mitts and place it on a heatproof trivet. Use tongs to transfer the chicken to a plate just while you pour in the batter; leave all the fat and liquid in the pan. Immediately pour in all the batter and spread it across the bottom, taking care around the hot oil. Return all the chicken pieces on top, spacing them evenly, and add the juices from the plate. The tops of the meat should rise above the batter; do not push the pieces completely below its surface.

Immediately return the pan to the middle oven rack and bake for 20–25 minutes at 200°C with top and bottom heat. The batter should rise around the chicken pieces, brown at the edges and set in the center, and the meat should cook fully. If the batter is still clearly liquid in the center, bake for a few minutes longer before adding the finishing ingredients. The dish remains a low, soft bake with chicken sticking out, not a fluffy cake.

Remove the pan with oven mitts. Slowly pour the remaining 100 ml milk mainly around the edges of the batter. Stir the sour cream with a spoon and spread all of it over the top, between the chicken pieces and on the meat. Return to the oven for 5–7 minutes at 200°C, until the finishing layer heats through and combines with the surface of the dish. The edges should soften and the top should stay creamy.

After removing the pan, let it rest for 5 minutes. Divide the baked batter among 4 plates, distributing all the chicken pieces and the sour cream topping evenly. Keep all the edible sauce, oil and juices left in the pan with the servings; do not drain anything away. Serve hot. The baked batter should be soft and moist, with a lightly browned edge.