Pasta and cheese casseroles were recorded in the 14th century in Italian cookbook.
This recipe would be described as makaron z serem in Polish.
In 1802, Thomas Jefferson, the American President, served “a pie called macaroni” at a state dinner.
In 1824, an American cookbook, The Virginia Housewife by Mary Randolph (Jefferson’s daughter) included a dish of macaroni, cheese, and butter, layered together and baked in a hot oven.
This was the start of the American classic – Mac & Cheese.
Most recipes use a thick cheese sauce with boiled pasta.
Here the pasta is boiled in milk and water and a cheese sauce is not used.
Cheddar or Gouda cheese has been used rather than Parmesan.
Ingredients
225g macaroni (or other small pasta shapes)
130g butter
230g of Cheddar or Gouda cheese
600ml milk
1 litre of water
50g of fine white breadcrumbs
Salt and pepper to taste
Method
Grate the cheese.
Divide the cheese into 2 portions – 60g and 170g
Use a large pan and bring the milk, water and some salt to the boil.
Drop in the macaroni and boil till tender stirring occasionally.
Watch carefully so the liquid does not froth and boil over.
Melt 30g of the butter in a small saucepan.
Drain the macaroni and put it back in the warm saucepan.
Mix in the 100g of butter and the 170g of cheese with the macaroni.
Stir in the pepper.
Place in an oven proof dish.
Mix the 60g of cheese with the breadcrumbs and sprinkle on top.
Pasta and cheese casseroles were recorded in the 14th century in an Italian cookbook.
In 1802, Thomas Jefferson, the American President served “a pie called macaroni” at a state dinner.
In 1824, an American cookbook, The Virginia Housewife by Mary Randolph (Jefferson’s daughter) included a dish of macaroni, cheese, and butter, layered together and baked in a hot oven.
This was the start of the American classic – Mac & Cheese.
This is an old English Victorian recipe.
Here the pasta is boiled in milk and water, and a cheese sauce is not used.
Ingredients
225g macaroni
130g butter
230g of Cheddar cheese
600ml milk
1 litre of water
50g of fine white breadcrumbs
Salt and pepper to taste
Method
Grate the cheese.
Divide the cheese into 2 portions – 60g and 170g.
Use a large pan and bring the milk, water and some salt to the boil.
Drop in the macaroni and boil till tender stirring occasionally.
Watch carefully so the liquid does not froth and boil over.
Melt 30g of the butter in a small saucepan.
Drain the macaroni and put it back in the warm saucepan.
Mix in the 100g of butter and the 170g of cheese with the macaroni.
Stir in the pepper.
Place in an oven proof dish.
Mix the 60g of cheese with the breadcrumbs and sprinkle on top.
I came across this version of pulpety (Polish meatballs) recently and thought I would give these a try as I always have lots of yoghurt cheese.
Both beef and pork are used in this recipe and I often do mix these two meat minces together.
Dried breadcrumbs are not used in this recipe.
The bread is not moistened with milk.
The following amounts made 30 pulpety.
Ingredients
200g minced beef
200g minced pork
200g twaróg(curd cheese) or yoghurt cheese (well drained)
2 small onions diced (I might wiz them up in a mini-chopper next time)
2 teaspoons of Italian herbs
Fresh white breadcrumbs from a slice of white bread or a roll.
1 egg
Salt & pepper
*
500ml of chicken stock – can be from a cube or concentrate
*
500ml of a sauce of your choice – I used a simple tomato sauce
Method
Mix all the ingredients together to a uniform mixture.
Hands are best at the end – the mixture is quite sticky.
Pinch off small bits of the meat mixture and roll the piece between your hands to make small round balls and place these onto a floured board or tray whilst you make them all.
Leave these to chill in a cool place or in the fridge for an hour or so.
Pre-heat the oven to GM4-180°C.
Heat the chicken stock in a deep wide frying pan.
Add some of the pulpety and simmer with a lid for around 5 minutes.
Have a large ovenproof dish ready with your sauce.
Remove the pulpety with a slotted spoon and add to the sauce.
Repeat with the rest of the pulpety.
Put a lid on the dish.
Cook in the oven for at least 1 hour.
You can lower the heat and cook for longer.
Sauces
The varieties here are endless – make one of your favourite sauces for example mushroom or tomato.
You can then serve them with potatoes, pasta, rice or to be very Polish – buckwheat or pearl barley.
Pierogi leniwe – means lazy pierogi or lazy dumplings.
I wrote about kopytka – Polish potato dumplings a good while back and these have the same shape.
Traditional recipes use twaróg – Polish curd cheese – I use my own yoghurt cheese. I have found that you can use crumbly, white, mild, English cheeses such as: Cheshire, Lancashire or Wensleydale.
They can be served savoury or sweet – with melted butter, à la Polonaise(buttered breadcrumbs) or skwarki (crisp, fried, small squares of bacon) or sweet with a cinnamon sugar mixture.
Ingredients
400g of twaróg (curd cheese), yoghurt cheese or a white, crumbly cheese.
3 egg yolks
160 – 200g of plain flour
½ teaspoon of salt
Method
Mix the yolks with the cheese.
Add the salt
Weigh out the flour to give an idea of how much is needed – this will depend on the cheese and the size of the eggs.
Add the flour and mix first with a wooden spoon and then by hand, you might not need all the flour or you may need more.
Mix until you have a soft dough.
Divide the dough into quarters and using a floured board shape the dough and roll it with you hands until you have a long sausage about 3cm in diameter. If the dough sticks to the board then you need to add more flour.
Use a sharp knife to cut the dough into pieces, make the first cut at a diagonal and make the thickness about 1 to 1.5cm. You will get a sort of oval shape.
Repeat this with the rest of the dough.
Fill a large pan with water, add some salt and bring this to the boil.
When the water is boiling, add the dumplings one by one, do not over fill the pan or they will stick together. I tend to do around 8 at a time.
As they cook they will float to the surface, give them about another minute and then remove them with a slotted or a perforated spoon and put them in a colander.
I have a colander sitting in an empty pan by the side of the large pan in which I am boiling the dumplings.
I find that the maximum from putting them into the water to taking them out will be 3 minutes, if you cook these too long they will start to fall apart.
Here served as suggested above with melted butter and with skwarki (crisp, fried, small squares of bacon).
Served on –
J & G Meakin – Topic – around 1967
Wedgwood – Chelsea garden – early 21st century.
Here served à la Polonaise(buttered breadcrumbs) in a handled dish by
Rörstrand Sweden Granada Ovenware from the 1960s
They can be also be served sweet with a cinnamon sugar mixture.
I wrote about kopytka – Polish potato dumplings a good while back.
Since then I have tried another version which uses cheese as well as potatoes.
Traditional recipes use twaróg – Polish curd cheese – I have found that crumbly, white, mild, English cheeses such as: Cheshire, Lancashire or Wensleydale are also good.
Whilst looking at many recipes, I saw that the proportions of boiled potatoes to cheese varied greatly.
I have gone for roughly equal weights of boiled starchy potatoes to cheese.
The exact amounts are not critical but you must use starchy potatoes such as King Edward or Maris Piper.
Serve with either melted butter, à la Polonaise(buttered breadcrumbs) or skwarki (crisp, fried, small squares of bacon) or a hot sauce such as mushroom.
Ingredients
300g of boiled starchy potatoes
300g of twaróg (curd cheese) or white, crumbly cheese such as Lancashire
2 egg yolks
160 – 200g of plain flour
Salt
Oil to add to water for boiling
Method
Use a large bowl and put the cold boiled potatoes into the bowl.
Crumble the cheese and add it to the potatoes and mash them both together.
Add the yolks to the mixture.
Add a little salt.
Weigh out the flour to give an idea of how much is needed; this will depend on the type of potato and the size of the eggs. Add the flour and mix first with a wooden spoon and then by hand, you might not need all the flour or you may need more. Mix until you have a soft dough.
Divide the dough into quarters and using a floured board shape the dough and roll it with you hands until you have a long sausage about 3cm in diameter. If the dough sticks to the board then you need to add more flour.
Use a sharp knife to cut the dough into pieces, make the first cut at a diagonal and make the thickness about 1 to 1.5cm. You will get a sort of oval shape.
Repeat this with the rest of the dough.
Fill a large pan with water, add some salt and bring this to the boil.
When the water is boiling, add the dumplings one by one, do not over fill the pan or they will stick together. I tend to do this in 4 batches.
As they cook they will float to the surface, give them about another minute and then remove them with a slotted or a perforated spoon and put them in a colander. I have a colander sitting in an empty pan by the side of the large pan in which I am boiling the dumplings.
I find that the maximum from putting them into the water to taking them out will be 3 minutes, if you cook these too long they will start to fall apart.
Served on –
Royal Douton – Carnation – 1982 – 1998
J & G Meakin – Topic – around 1967
Wedgwood – Chelsea garden – early 21st century.
Here served as suggested above with melted butter, with skwarki (crisp, fried, small squares of bacon) and a gulasz.
I came across this recipe recently which uses Gouda cheese with soured cream to thicken the sauce – it works really well and I will be trying this in other recipes.
Ingredients
400g – 500g braising steak – cubed
200g – 250g of mushrooms (chestnut type are good) – sliced
2 large onions – chopped
300ml of chicken stock (can be from a cube or concentrate)
3 tablespoons of caraway seeds
1 -2 tablespoons of plain flour
50g of Gouda cheese – chopped into small cubes.
3 tablespoons of soured cream
Sunflower oil for frying
Salt & pepper to taste.
Flat-leafed parsley to garnish – chopped
Method
Pre heat the oven to Gas Mark 3 – 1600C
On a large plate mix together the flour, salt and pepper.
Coat the meat cubes lightly in the flour mixture and brown these in the oil in a hot frying pan.
Place the beef into a casserole dish.
Lightly fry the onions and mushrooms in the frying pan and then add them to the beef.
Caraway Seeds
Add the stock and caraway seeds to the pan.
Put on the lid and cook in the oven for around 3 hours until the beef is tender.
Before serving stir in the cubes of cheese and the soured cream and mix well into the sauce.
Garnish with flat-leafed parsley.
Served here with mashed potatoes on Royal Doulton – Carnation – 1982 – 1998.
This sweet fresh curd cheese mixture is one that is used as a filling for pancakes in Poland.
You can make this mixture with twaróg – curd cheese, cream cheese or yoghurt cheese.
Use 1 packet of cheese, usually 200g – 300g , to this add 2 to 3 tablespoons of soured cream and 2 to 3 tablespoons of icing sugar and mix this together till you get a smooth mixture. You can add 2 to 3 drops of vanilla essence. Do not add too much sugar – you want the contrast of sweetness & sour.
Sweet Curd Cheese Mixture
Pancake Spread With Sweet Curd Cheese Mixture
Pancakes Folded Polish Style with Sweet Curd Mixture Dusted with Icing Sugar
Twaróg – Polish Curd Cheese is used extensively in cooking and finds its way in many guises onto the Polish menu, especially at home, both in sweet and savoury dishes.
The following are what I consider to be popular classic savoury fresh cheese mixtures and are often served for breakfast with bread and salad.
Here in England I think they could be served at lunchtime. As well as with bread and rolls they can be served with crisp-breads, oatcakes or crackers.
3 Classic Curd Cheese Mixtures
You can make these with Twaróg – Curd Cheese or with Cream Cheese.
You can also use yoghurt cheese – (Look out for a post on how to make this later).
The amounts used are just approximate, using one packet of cheese, which is normally around 200g – 300g, for each mixture and can be varied to taste.
If using curd cheese, add a pinch or two of salt and a couple of spoonfuls of soured cream, mix together until smooth.
If using cream cheese just take it out of the packet and mix it in a bowl – you can add a spoonful or two of soured cream to make it a softer consistency if you wish.
Mixture 1
To the cheese add a few tablespoons of finely chopped chives or the green parts of spring onions.
In Poland szczypiorek (which in dictionaries is given as chives) would be used – however I think it is slightly different and is much larger than the chives I grow here in England.
Chives Growing in a Pot
Spring Onions and Chives
Curd Cheese and Chives
Mixture 2
To the cheese add a couple of teaspoons of caraway seeds
Curd Cheese and Caraway Seeds
Mixture 3
To the cheese add some chopped gherkins
I find these are the best gherkins to use as they are not vinegary.
Chopped Gherkins
Curd Cheese and Gherkins
Typical Polish Breakfast Fare
These cheese mixtures can also be served with bliny -little buckwheat pancakes. (Look out for a a post on how to make these later).
The origins of cheese pre-dates recorded history but one of the earliest archaeological evidence of cheese production in 5,500 BC is from Kujawy in Poland.
Seris the Polish word for cheese.
Unlike in France, Poland does not have dozens of varieties of cheese.
There are basically three types of cheese in Poland – white, yellow and smoked.
White cheese is made from curd cheese.
Twaróg is the name for curd cheese and is the most important cheese for cooking in Poland both for savoury and sweet dishes.
It is often known as ser wiejski – village cheese.
This is the cheese that both sets of my grandparents would make on a very regular basis.
Twaróg
Twaróg is made from soured milk and can be classified as a fresh acid-set cheese or as a fermented milk product. The soured milk is poured into muslin clothes and then hung up to separate the solid curds from the whey. This results in the traditional wedge shape.
Rennet is not used in its production.
In German it is called Qwark, in Dutch it is called Kwark and is similar to the French Fromage frais.
It is similar to yoghurt cheese which is made from strained yoghurt.
Science note
Soured milk and yoghurt are both produced by the action of bacteria in milk.
However it is mesophile (moderate temperature loving) bacteria which produce soured milk and thermophile(higher temperature loving) bacteria which produce yoghurt. What that means is that soured milk is naturally prevalent in cooler climates than yoghurt.
Historical note
There is evidence of soured milk production in 10,000BC and yoghurt production in 6,000BC.
Twaróg is used extensively in Polish cookery both savoury & sweet.
Recipes using Twaróg will feature in many of my future posts.
Yellow cheese is hard cheese and although there are several varieties they are very much like the Dutch cheeses such as Edam and Gouda.
Smoked cheese – the most famous is from the Tatra Mountains and it is made from sheep’s milk – it is called Oscypek.
This cheese has been made from the 15th Century.
The curds are pressed into wooden decorative shapes.
It has a protected trade name under the EU’s Protected Designation of Origin.
Some scenes of the Tatra Mountains
Zakopane is a much visited town in the Tatra mountains. Its name means dug in and it is in at the bottom of a valley surrounded by mountains.
Wooden houses typical of Zakopane
Oscypek – smoked cheese – from the Tatra Mountains – is often served grilled with cranberry or lingonberry jam.
Oscypek for sale in the streets of Zakopane
Lady selling Smoked Cheese
Smoked Cheese made with Sheep’s Milk
Some cheeses are made with Goat’s Milk
Górale – Highlanders – Shepherds from the Tatra Mountains
Folk Dancing
Folk Dancing
World Cheese Production
Some Very surprising Statistics
If anyone had asked me about world cheese production before I started this post, I would have guessed that the biggest producer in Europe was France or maybe The Netherlands. I would have been very wrong!
Looking at the figures for 2011 & 2013 for World Cheese Production in metric tonnes I found that –
The top 6 in both these years are as follows:
United States of America
Germany
France
Italy
Netherlands
Poland.
Also the United Kingdom does not feature in the top 10 at all.
Thinking about this, I of course realised that here in The United Kingdom many of the cheeses for sale are imported many from France and The Netherlands.
In recent years Polish cheeses are appearing not only in the many Polish shops in the United Kingdom but also in some of the regular supermarkets.
Journey From A Polish Kitchen 