Piernik – Page 2 – Journey From A Polish Kitchen

The original recipe is Belgian – if fact a recipe from Flandres or Flanders in English.

It is a recipe I adapted from a book I bought in Belgium many years ago.

The recipe is called Carbonnade flamande and uses pain d’ épices to thicken and flavour a beef casserole.

Belgian beer is used in the original recipe – I use Polish beer (piwo) – which is also a light coloured lager beer.

(When I went to my local Polish shop – they did not have the beers I normally use such as Żywiec or Tyskie, so I used the EB which was there & it was very good).

I use piernik – a Polish honey spice cake instead of the pain d’ épices.

Note

I often slice up part of a piernik I have made and freeze this so I have some ready for this recipe.

Ingredients

500g of braising steak – cubed

2 onions chopped

2 – 3 slices of piernik (depends on the size)

500ml Polish lager

300ml vegetable or chicken stock (NOT BEEF) – can be from cubes or powder

1 bay leaf

Dried Italian herbs

2-3 grains of pepper

Sprinkling of salt

Oil for frying

Method

Pre-heat the oven to GM4 – 180°C

You need an oven proof casserole dish with a tight fitting lid – I use an enamelled dish.

Fry the beef lightly and then put this into the casserole dish.

Add the chopped onions, herbs, bay leaf, peppercorns and salt.

Chop the piernik into cubes and add this to the dish

Pour the beer over to cover the ingredients – add some of the stock if necessary.

The rest of the stock is used to top up the dish as it is cooking (this is better than putting it all in at the start).

Cook at GM4 – 180°C, for 1 hour then turn the oven down to GM3 – 160°C and cook for another 2 hours.

More time many be needed or you can take it out and re-heat it at GM4 – 180°C for at least 1 hour the next day.

Serve here with steamed new potatoes.

To compliment the sweetness of this dish serve with something tangy such as

ogórki (gherkins) or a sauerkraut salad.

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Miód is the Polish word for honey and so Miodownik is a Honey Cake which usually contains spices. Pierna is an old Polish word for spices and so Piernik is also a Honey Spice Cake.

Some sources say the name is from pieprz – pepper or piorun – thunderbolt or devil – because of its spiciness.

These cakes have been known in Poland since the 12th century and the spices would have come from Turkey (originally brought back by the crusaders) or India.

Honey was the original sweetener, long before sugar and there are many traditional recipes that use honey not only in cakes, but also in meat dishes.

When you travel in Poland you will find many village ladies selling their own honey, the taste varies greatly depending on where the bees have found their flowers and the honey from a forest region is dark and very flavoursome.

Piernik can vary from a soft dense cake to a drier but soft biscuit.

The Polish town of Toruń is famous for its piernik and Chopin was very found of this.

Pierniki(plural) coated with chocolate are called Katarzynki – which means Katherine’s cakes – named after Katarzyna the daughter of one of the bakers.

Similar cakes are found throughout Europe including the French pain d’éspices, the Dutch peperkoek and the German lebkuchen.

Miodownik and piernik are often translated as Gingerbread but ginger is a spice rarely used in Polish cookery.

The main spices used are cinnamon and cloves with the addition according to different recipes of cardamon, black pepper, caraway, nutmeg, dried orange and/or lemon peel and then in later recipes allspice which is from the New World.

My older recipe book gives the proportions for mixing spices and there is one with black pepper which I intend to try out in the future.

Whilst looking through some of my more recent cookery books it would appear that it in Poland you can buy ready mixed spices for piernik so I would presume you can get these in Polish shops in England. I will try these out in the future as well.

I use the mixed spice mixture which is sold by Marks & Spencer which contains: dried orange peel, cassia (a variety of cinnamon), ginger, nutmeg, pimento (allspice) and caraway. I think it is the dried orange peel which makes it much nicer than other mixtures I have used.

Some recipes make a cake mixture and then leave it in a cool place for up to several weeks before baking it. I have tried one of these out many years ago and it was very good – I intend to try this again for a post in the early winter of next year.

Piernik in Poland is associated with the Christmas season and would be made for Christmas Eve and for Christmas Day, it would also be made for Święty Mikołaj – December 6th – St Nicholas Day. This a day for present giving in Poland to children and I would always get a piernik shaped and decorated to look like the bishop that was St Nicholas.

Mama’s Miodownik

This is of my mother’s recipes and it uses sunflower oil which is a more recent addition to recipes in Polish cookery. It is a dense cake which is lovely and moist and improves with keeping.

IMG_20151130_200822771 — Miodownik on Greenway Hostess designed by John Russell 1960 – 1979

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