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POLISH CUISINE
Polish cuisine has elements taken from the cooking traditions of the many national groups that lived in the country side by side for centuries, notably the Jews, Ukrainians, Belarussians and Lithuanians. There are also some Russian, German, Czech and Austrian influences as well as dishes from more distant regions: Italy, France and the Middle East. One Polish speciality is a profusion of excellent smoked meats, especially sausage (kiełbasa), very popular throughout the world, made after traditional recipes and smoked over juniper or fruit-tree twigs. Try kiełbasa myśliwska with juniper berries and kiełbasa lisiecka with a number of spices including garlic. You'll be delighted by the cured and smoked hams, poultry, pork and beef fillets, and bacons. Equally delectable are Polish pâtés made from a variety of meats including game. Poland is renowned for its multifarious types of delicious bread: white, brown, wholemeal, with raisins, prunes, sesame seeds, poppyseed... An essential part of the main Polish meal of the day - which, incidentally, is eaten much earlier than in the West - is soup. One of the most popular soups in the country is barszcz (fermented beetroot soup), often served with beans or uszka, ravioli-type pastries stuffed with meat or mushrooms. Another tasty fermented soup is żurek - made of rye-flour and cooked with mushrooms, and served with potatoes, diced sausages and hard-boiled eggs. A true gourmet treat is wild mushroom soup thickened with sour cream and served with tiny uszka. Other popular soups are kapuśniak (made of brined cabbage), krupnik (barley soup on rich chicken stock with vegetables and chunks of meat), potato soup, and tomato soup. And there is also rosół - poultry or beef bouillon served with noodles and sprinkled liberally with parsley. Meat is prepared in a variety of ways: roasted, stewed, fried, grilled. It's served both hot, with savoury gravies, and cold, accompanied by mustard, grated horseradish, pickled mushrooms or cucumbers. Perhaps the best-known Polish culinary classic is kotlet schabowy - fried pork loin chop coated in breadcrumbs and served with potatoes and cabbage. Pieczony schab (roast pork loin) stuffed with prunes is simply mouthwatering. Other popular pork dishes include roasted or boiled golonka (pork knuckle) and kaszanka (a kind of black pudding), once staple peasant food, today served in the best restaurants. The same applies to smalec (dripping), melted with pork scratchings, chunks of meat and onion, seasoned with salt, pepper and often aromatic herbs.
One of the best beef dishes is zrazy zawijane - stewed rolls stuffed with a pickled cucumber, a piece of sausage and mushrooms, and served with buckwheat groats. Groats also go well with the stewed Cracow-style duck with mushrooms (kaczka po krakowsku). A relative rarity which you can try only on special occasions is a roast suckling pig stuffed with spicy buckwheat groats. The Polish cuisine is noted for superb dumplings, especially pierogi, which are made from noodle dough, stuffed with minced meat, chopped brined cabbage mixed with mushrooms, cottage cheese, or fruit, and boiled. One favourite variety is pierogi ruskie, with a stuffing of cheese, potatoes and fried onion. Other popular vegetarian dishes include naleśniki (pancakes), pyzy (steamed dumplings made from potato flour) and knedle (dumplings stuffed with fruit). The Polish national dish is bigos, made of brined cabbage with a variety of meats, smoked meats and mushrooms. Another speciality worth trying is gołąbki - cabbage leaves stuffed with minced meat and rice or groats, served with tomato or mushroom sauce.
Popular starters include herring prepared in a numbner of ways, for example with onions, apples and cream. Pastries and cakes are a traditional type of dessert in Poland. Most often they are made from yeast dough (baba, drożdżowe) but there are also Swiss-roll types with poppyseed (makowiec), dried fruit and nut fillings (rolada), mazurek, apple Charlottes (szarlotka), cheesecakes (sernik) and gingerbreads (piernik). Doughnuts (pączki) with rose conserve are another favourite.
As for drinks, the Polish speciality is clear vodka, but there are also many popular flavoured brands. These include Żubrówka ("bison vodka") with a grass blade from the Białowieża Forest, and Goldwasser from Gdańsk, which contains specks of 22-carat gold. Beer lovers won't be disappointed either: Polish beer is as good as German or Czech, and many breweries, notably in Żywiec, Warka and Elbląg, have been well-known for centuries. On cold days, a drink of mulled beer or wine with honey and spices makes a popular pick-me-up. Stronger spirits worth recommending include a stunning number of fruit and herbal drinks consumed for their medical or warming-up properties, or simply because of their excellent taste. Try some Polish liqueurs: meads or sweet cremes made from alcohol, egg yolks, vanilla or chocolate and often used in desserts. Regional delicacies The Silesian cuisine favours all kinds of potato dishes. The best-known are dark dumplings (pyzy śląskie) made from potato-flour and grated potatoes. Another popular ingredient is white and red cabbage (the latter often served with fried bacon). Desserts include makówki - ground poppy seeds mixed with honey, raisins and nuts and put on thin slices of sweet bread on which milk is poured. You serve it cold. Greater Poland has a cuisine similar to Silesia's. One dish particularly appreciated by gourmets is kartacze - dumplings stuffed with meat, mushrooms or cabbage mixed with mushrooms. The Beskid Mountains are best-known for knuckle of pork stewed in beer with plenty of vegetables. There are also two popular soups: the local variety of żur, rye-flour soup with whey, and kwaśnica, a soup of brined cabbage with plenty of pork meat (some of it smoked).
The kitchen of the Tatran and Podhalanian highlanders would be difficult to imagine without the famous ewe's-milk cheeses: bundz and oscypek. Another staple is roast lamb. Smoked meats from this region have a unique taste whose mystery lies in a special method of corning meat. The Podhale is another place where you can taste kwaśnica, made from a stock of pork snout and served with potatoes. The Galician cuisine shows strong influences of Austrian dishes, especially from Vienna. A good example is one cold starter: fatless pork brawn served with cold mustard sauce. A traditional Easter dish from Galicia is white barszcz with white sausage, made with smoked-bacon stock and thickened with sour cream. Popular desserts include cheesecake, topped with vanilla creme or chocolate and known as Viennese cheesecake (sernik wiedeński). The Masurian kitchen is a combination of German, Russian and Polish influences. A true delicacy is a soup made of several types of fish and crayfish, simmered with forest herbs on a slow fire, ideally in a cast iron cauldron. When it's almost ready, you should put burning birch logs inside, which is a great aroma enhancer.
The cuisine of Eastern Poland originated in Lwów. A typical dish is kulebiak made from yeast dough stuffed with cabbage, boiled rice, eggs and fish. It is served with Ukrainian-style borsch with plenty of vegetables and thickened with sour cream. RECIPES FOR SEVEN DAYS Barszcz with uszka
Soup: 1 1/2 l water, 0.4kg beetroot, 0.3kg boned meat, 0.2kg bones, 0.2kg mixed vegetables, 10g dried boletus mushrooms, 50g onions, a beetroot souring agent, 1 bay leaf, 1 clove of garlic, pepper, salt, sugar
Put the meat, bones and soaked mushrooms into a pot, add the water, salt and cook on a slow heat.
When the stock is almost ready, add the vegetables, lightly browned onions and spices. Bake or boil the beetroots separately, then peel them, grate and add to the drained stock. Add garlic mixed with salt and sugar, and beetroot souring agent. You can make your own fermented beetroot juice by standing slices of raw beets in a pot of boiled water in a warm, dark place for a few days, with a slice of rye bread to aid fermentation. The soup can also be made using ham, bacon or sausage stock, or with vegetable stock for a veggie variety. Uszka: filling: 0.1kg dried mushrooms, 30g stale roll, 20g breadcrumbs, 50g onion, 20g fat, pepper, salt; pastry: 0.15 kg flour, 1 egg, about 1/8 l water
Soak the mushrooms for a few hours and boil to evaporate most of the water. Fry diced onion to make it golden. Soak the roll and squeeze it dry. Drain and mince the mushrooms, adding breadcrumbs, salt and pepper; mix all the ingredients well. Make the pastry from the flour, egg, and water, knead and roll it out and cut into 3-4 cm squares. Put a spoonful of filling on every square, fold over diagonally and press edges firmly together. Stick the two longer corners to form a kind of rounded handle. Boil in plenty of water. Żur with bacon or sausage
0.25kg mixed vegetables, 0.15-0.20 kg bacon or sausage, 1 1/2 l water, 1/4-1/2 l żur, 0.80kg potatoes, 20-30g flour
Boil the vegetables and bacon to make stock. Drain it, add żur, mix in flour, bring the mixture to the boil and add salt. Put in diced bacon and crushed garlic. Serve with potatoes with bacon on top. Żur is a ferment of rye flour in water. Fermenting the żur: 0.10kg rye flour, 1/2l warm boiled water, a slice of stale rye bread
Mix flour with water, pour the mixture into a glass jar or stone pot and put away in a warm place for a few days. Polish bigos
0.40kg brined cabbage (sauerkraut), 0.40kg sweet cabbage, 0.20kg boneless pork, 0.20kg veal, 0.25kg sausage, 0.10kg smoked bacon, 30g fat, 50g pork fat, 50g onion, 10g dried boletus mushrooms, 50g tomato puree, 20g flour, salt, pepper, sugar, a few prunes, allspice, bay leaf
Finely chop the brined cabbage, add small quantity of boiling water and boil for an hour. Shred the fresh cabbage, add boiling water and boil with chopped mushrooms for about 40 minutes. Rub the meat with salt, brown it slightly in fat on every side and put in the brined cabbage. Add bacon and stew all the ingredients for about 50 minutes until softened. Dice the pork fat and melt it; add the scratchings to the bigos. Take out the meat, mix the brined and fresh cabbage and optionally thicken it with flour browned with fat and onion. Slice the sausage and dice the pork, veal and bacon; mix all the meats with the cabbage, add tomato puree and seasoning.
Bigos may be served with a variety of meats (game, roast poultry, smoked meats etc.). The more meats there are, the better it tastes. And you can enhance the taste by adding some red wine. Pierogi
Pastry: 0.35kg flour, 1 egg, salt, about 1/8 l water
Sieve the flour, mix it with salt, water and egg to make the pastry and knead it until firm. Divide the pastry into a few portions and roll them out until about 0.25 cm (0.1 inch) thin. Cut out circles using a 5 cm (2") diameter round cutter (or glass) and put a spoonful of filling in the centre of each circle. Fold over and press edges firmly together. Make sure the pierogi are well sealed and put them into a large pan of salted boiling water. Stir them carefully and cover the pot. When they go up to the surface, remove the cover and continue boiling for another 2-3 minutes. Lift out of water with a perforated spoon, drain, lay on a warm plate and pour over with melted butter. For pierogi with a fruit filling, use cream instead. Pierogi ruskie or pierogi with mushrooms may be served with pork scratchings. Filling for pierogi ruskie: 0.80kg potatoes, 0.20kg curd cheese, 50g onion, 30g fat, salt, pepper
Cook jacket potatoes, peel and mince them, add the cheese. Add diced and lightly browned onion and mix the ingredients thoroughly, adding salt and pepper to taste. Filling for pierogi with mushrooms: 0.80kg fresh mushrooms, 0.10kg onion, 40g fat, 40g stale roll, 30g breadcrumbs, salt, pepper
Cut the mushrooms into thin slices, add 2/3 tbsp water, cover the pan and boil until all the liquid has evaporated. Soak the roll in water or milk and stir-fry onion rings until light golden. Mince the mushrooms, roll and onion together. Add salt, pepper and breadcrumbs and work the mixture into a paste. Pour some fat with browned breadcrumbs over the pierogi when cooked. Do's and don'ts of pierogi-making Get the right texture for the pastry - firm enough to hold the filling without bursting, but soft enough for the edges to seal properly - roll out the pastry to an even thickness throughout. Get the right amount of filling on each pieróg to make a puffy, cushion-like pouch, not flat and not over-full. The cooking pan should be big enough for the pierogi to freely float up to the top when ready. Don't put in too many to boil at the same time. Drain the cooked pierogi well; don't lay undrained pierogi one on top of another, or they'll stick and tear. Any cooked pierogi left after the meal may be served fried as a delicious alternative way of using leftovers. Zrazy zawijane (stuffed beef rolls)
0.50-0.60 kg boneless beef, 30g fat, 50g pork fat, 0.10 kg pickled gherkins, 0.10 kg carrots, 0.10 kg celeriac or parsnip, 0.10 kg onion, 1/8 l cream, salt, pepper, mustard to taste
Cut the meat into wide strips and beat them thin with a tenderiser. Spread a thin layer of mustard over every piece and sprinkle with finely chopped onion. Julienne the pork fat, carrots, parsnips and gherkins, dust with pepper, place on the meat strips, wrap tightly and fix with wooden skewers or thread. Dust with salt and flour, brown in hot fat and put into a flat saucepan; pour in the frying fat and 1/8 l water. Stew slowly until soft. Then sprinkle the rest of the flour over the gravy, add pepper, bring to the boil and add cream. Place the rolls on a platter and pour over with the gravy. Serve with buckwheat or barley groats, or with potatoes, with a side-dish of mixed vegetables, or raw or cooked vegetable salad. Herring in sour cream
0.5 kg salted herring fillets , 1 onion, 80 g apples, 1/8 l sour cream, salt, sugar, lemon, 1 tsp parsley
Divide each fillet into 3 - 4 portions and place them in a salad bowl. Grate the apple coarsely and chop the onion; mix both with sour cream, add salt, sugar and lemon juice. Pour the sauce over the herring slices. Walnut and honey mazurek cake
0.3 kg walnuts, 0.4 kg powder sugar, 5 egg whites, 2 tbsp honey, 1 large cake wafer, vanilla, a bar of plain chocolate
Shell the nuts and chop finely. Prepare a pot with boiling water. Put the wafer in a square baking tray or a springform pan; whisk the egg whites, stirring in the sugar when almost done. Put over a bain-marie steam-bath and whisk again until hard, then take off and continue whisking until cold. Warm up the honey if it's crystallised. Mix the cold whisked egg-whites with the nuts, honey and vanilla. Spread evenly over the wafer. Garnish with nut halves, put into a medium-heat oven and bake for about 30 minutes. Take out, remove from the tray or pan with a sharp knife, put on a wooden tray and decorate with melted chocolate. Wait at least ten hours before cutting into pieces.
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