The Polish for these is kotlety z jarzyn – cutlets from vegetables.
The word kotlety(plural) comes from the Italian word cotoletta(singular) for cutlet or chop.
These are made with boiled or steamed vegetables.
Root vegetables are good here as well as cooked cabbage – you can also add cooked pulses such as peas and beans – I am writing a post just about bean fritters which will be posted soon.
The following vegetable are ones I often use: cabbage, carrots, celeriac, cauliflower, parsnip and potato.
The cooked vegetables need to be chopped fine, minced or mashed – whichever is more suitable or easiest.
For this post I cooked the vegetables especially but this is a good way to use up any leftover cooked vegetables.
Ingredients
Around 500g of cooked vegetables – chopped, mashed or minced as appropriate.
2 onions – chopped fine
Butter to fry the onions
1 egg (can add another egg yolk as well)
2 – 3 tablespoons of potato flour – depends on how moist or starchy the vegetables are.
Here is a salad made with one of Poland’s favourite vegetables – cabbage – and is one I have been making for many, many years since it was given to me by one of my cousins (British born like me) who lives in Wembley.
However it is not a classic Polish salad because it contains oranges which would have been a luxury item in times gone by and certainly in communist times when nothing was imported that was not strictly necessary.
There are just 3 main ingredients & a couple of options for the dressing.
The amounts here are just a guide – for example – I just usually add a handfull of raisins – this time I weighed them.
Ingredients
Around half a small white cabbage
2 Oranges
80g Raisins
Dressing – mayonnaise or yoghurt or a mixture of the two
A pinch of salt & pepper to taste.
Method
Peel the oranges, cut them into slices, separate the segments and then chop these into small pieces.
Finely shred the cabbage
Mix the oranges, raisins & cabbage together.
Add the dressing (see below) and mix well together.
You can add salt and pepper here if desired – I find just a tiny amount is needed.
Served here in Royal Doulton, Carnation, 1982 – 1998
Dressing
Mayonnaise – I use Hellmann’s – original or light
Greek yoghurt
Mayonnaise & Greek Yoghurt
Any of the above with some extra orange juice.
I tend to make this salad a while before it is needed as with the magic of osmosis – raisins become plumped up with the juice from the oranges & the dressing becomes sweet from the sugars in the raisins.
This salad goes well with roast dinners, cold smoked meats and Polish style sausages.
A few years ago on one of my visits to The Netherlands to stay with my Dutch friend, we had a super meal which included a delicious dish of red cabbage that had been cooked with apples.
I thought then that I did not remember my mother ever cooking red cabbage. When I came home I found recipes in both my Polish and English cookery books and tried out many of these.
The following recipe has been refined and altered and this one with lots of apples and spices is the one I now use all the time.
As it takes a long time to cook in a low oven or in a slow cooker, I tend to make a lot at once. It freezes and reheats well, so once made I divide it into small portions to freeze.
I think it goes well with roast pork loin and I usually make some before Christmas and serve it with roast pork loin during the holiday period.
Tip 1
Have a lemon ready after handling the chopped red cabbage as you will find your hands become stained blue/purple. Lemon juice will clear the stains away. Another reason to make this dish in advance.
Tip 2 – Also Excellent as a Salad
I have discovered that this dish is also delicious when it is cold! I now also serve this with cold meats and Polish style sausage.
Ingredients
1 head of red cabbage
3 or 4 large cooking apples
1 onion – chopped fine
1 or 2 garlic cloves – chopped fine (optional)
6 tablespoons of soft brown sugar
1 level teaspoon of ground cinnamon
¼ level teaspoon of ground cloves
Salt & ground black pepper
3 tablespoons of cider or wine vinegar
3 tablespoons of water
Method
Pre heat the oven to GM 2 or get your slow cooker ready..
You need a large oven-proof dish with a lid to make this. I either use a very large oval enamel dish or I have now started to use a slow cooker.
I mix the ingredients in a large bowl first and then put them in the cooking dish.
Mix together the sugar, spices, salt and pepper, vinegar and water.
Remove the core from the cabbage head and cut the cabbage into fine shreds and add these to the spice mixture.
Peel, core and then coarse grate the apples and then add these to the cabbage mixture. Mix the ingredients with a wooden spoon.
Put the mixture into the cooking dish (or slow cooker) and put in the oven (or switch on the slow cooker).
It should take about 3-4 hours – it may take longer in the slow cooker.
Red Cabbage Ready to ServeServing Dish is Cadiz by Meakin from the 1970s
Fresh cabbage features in many salads in Poland, the following much loved version can be made throughout the year.
In English the word coleslaw is used for a cabbage salad – this word is from the Dutch koolsla – kool – cabbage, sla – salad.
Ingredients
I like to use Light or Original
1 or 2 carrots
Hard white cabbage – around a quarter or half a medium one
1 eating apple – red skinned is nice for colour
1 onion – I like to use a red one for colour
Mayonnaise
Lemon juice – optional
Salt & pepper to taste
Method
I always start by grating the carrot using a large grater and then cut the cabbage into fine strands so that I have equal quantities of orange and white. Put these into a large mixing bowl.
I find that 1 carrot is often enough for the amount I need. In the photo below 2 carrots were used to make a larger amount of salad.
Chop the onion into small pieces and add this to the bowl.
Grate the apple including the skin and add this to the bowl.
Add several tablespoons of mayonnaise and mix well to coat the mixture.
You might want to add a little lemon juice to make the mayonnaise a little thinner.
Add some salt and pepper to taste.
Serve with cold smoked Polish style meats or sausage or with a hot roast or casserole as a good contrast.
I have tried this out as a just vegetable variation.
In my Polish cookbooks there are many variations without meat and they use mushrooms or other vegetables and grains, but these tend to use just dried mushrooms and often rather than rice use buckwheat or pearl barley. Whilst these grains are maybe more traditionally Polish in style I wanted to do a recipe which would initially be more appealing to the English taste. Also I wanted to use mainly fresh mushrooms.
Ingredients for the filling
150 to 200g of rice
400g of mushroom caps – white and/or chestnut
Some butter to fry the mushrooms
5g of dried mushrooms (more if you desire)
A few tablespoons of boiling water
Salt & pepper to taste
Method
In a small bowl add the boiling water to the dried mushrooms , just enough to cover them, and leave overnight.
Stepped Dried Mushrooms and Chopped Fresh Mushrooms
Parboil the rice and leave to go cold. (You can use any already cooked rice you might have cooked already – it is not that critical – it will just have a softer texture).
Finely Slice up the mushroom caps (You can chop them into smaller pieces) and fry them in the butter until they are soft.
Making a Pulp of Dried Mushrooms
Using a knife make a pulp of the dried mushrooms or chop them into small pieces if they have not softened enough.
Add the mushroom pulp and the liquor in which they were steeped to the frying mushrooms and continue cooking the mixture evaporating of most of the liquid or about 10 minutes.
Leave the mushrooms to cool.
In a large bowl mix the parboiled rice and mushroom mix, add salt and pepper to taste.
Mushroom & Rice Mixture
Prepare the cabbage leaves
You need a large white cabbage or a savoy cabbage or I have now started using sweetheart cabbage – you might need 2 of these as they are not usually so large.
Patience is called for here to avoid getting scalded fingers. You have to heat or steam the cabbage to make the leaves pliable so you can remove them one by one and use them to encase the filling.
You need the largest pan you have into which you place the cabbage head.
I boil some water in a kettle and pour this over the cabbage in the pan. With some heat under the pan I let the cabbage cook a little. The temptation is to boil too quickly so making some of the leave too soft and runs the risk of getting scalded as you try to remove the leaves.
Another method is to place the cabbage into a metal colander and set this over the pan of water so that it is steamed rather than boiled – I think this method is the one I like best.
As the leaves become soft, you have to cut them off from the stalk and stack them up for to use later, you can cut out the thickest part of the stalk from the first few larger leaves. Pre heat the oven to GM3 – 160oC
Fill the leaves with the rice & mushroom mix and roll them up from the stalk end, tuck in the sides and secure with the outer edge of the leaf to make a small parcel.
Place the rolls into a large casserole dish, packing as many rolls as possible in rows in the dish. Depending on the depth of the dish repeat this for another layer.
If you have any extra cabbage leaves place these on the base of the dish and then to put extra leaves on the top of the rolls.
The rolls sometimes have a habit of getting slightly burnt on the top as they come out of the liquid and sometimes at the base if they have been in the oven a long time, these extra layers protect the rolls and can be discarded at the end.
Make a vegetable stock and pour this over the cabbage rolls.
Ingredients for Vegetable Stock
Vegetable stock – I like to use the Swiss Marigold Bouillon vegetable stock powder which is in a tub mixed with boiling water
1 tube of tomato purée
2 bay leaves
3 or 4 peppercorns or allspice or both.
salt & pepper ( note there might be enough salt in the stock cube)
Mix up the stock powder in a jug with boiling water, add the tomato purée and then the rest of the ingredients. You need a large amount to cover the cabbage rolls.
Pre heat the oven to GM3 – 160oC
Cover the rolls with this liquid. It is a good idea to have extra which you can use to top up as they are cooking.
Cover with a lid and place in the oven and cook for several hours. Check them occasionally and keep them covered with liquid as much as possible.
As mentioned earlier I make these a day beforehand and then put them back in the oven for an hour or so before serving.
They are a complete meal in themselves but you can give serve them with some bread to mop up all the liquid sauce.
Note
Wigilia – Christmas Eve
I will be writing a post all about the special meal on this day later when all the dishes are meatless.
Cabbage Rolls in the style of Dom Polonii in Kraków.
KrakówKrakówKrakówKrakówKraków
In Kraków, just off the main square (Rynek Główny), there is a building called Dom Polonii (The House of the Poles). It is a medieval tenement building and hosts Chopin concerts in a lovely room with a grand piano on the first floor. I have enjoyed listening to many concerts there. On the ground floor there is a small restaurant. On my trips to Kraków I have found that I eat there the most as it is very reasonably priced and the food is very much like home cooking.
They serve gołąbki there which are cooked without tomatoes and then served with a creamy mushroom sauce.
The following is my recreation of this recipe.
First I made the gołąbki as in my previous post but without tomato purée in the cooking stock but adding some lemon juice as this prevents the leaves from falling apart too quickly.
I will give a quick re-cap of this recipe at the end of this post.
Then I made a mushroom sauce and served the gołąbki with this poured on the top.
Mushroom Sauce
I looked through my Polish cookbooks and many of the mushroom sauces are made with just dried mushrooms. These are delicious and have a strong flavour however it works out very expensive and are not available everywhere.
I am going to give instructions for a sauce using fresh mushroom and just a small amount of dried mushroom.
I will give 2 versions of this mushroom sauce, the first using dried mushrooms, the second a mushroom stock cube.
The best dried mushrooms are Boletus edulis, in Poland they are called borowik or prawdzik, in Italy porcini.
Knorr – mushroom stock cubes
In Poland there are now mushroom stock cubes which are very useful especially for making sauces. Years ago I brought loads back to England, now you can find these in the many Polish food shops. The ones I use are made by Knorr and are shown on the photographs in this post. These stock cubes contain a small amount of dried mushroom extract.
The 2 sauces have the same starting points it is the addition of reconstituted mushrooms or stock cubes for the extra taste which is the difference.
Mushroom sauce 1 – using dried mushrooms
Ingredients
150g fresh button mushroom caps – white and/or chestnut
5g of dried mushroom (around 3 slices)
500ml hot boiling water
1 heaped tablespoon of cornflour
3 tablespoons of milk
2 large tablespoons of soured cream.
butter to cook the mushrooms in
salt & pepper to taste
Method
You have to start this sauce the night before or in the morning for use in the evening.
Cover the dried mushrooms with 500ml of boiling water and leave to soak.
Preparing Dried MushroomsDried Mushroom in Hot Water
The following day take out the reconstituted mushrooms and using a knife you can chop then up into tiny pieces or if the are soft enough you can spread out the pulp on a chopping board.
Reconstituted MushroomsMaking a Pulp of Mushrooms
Slice the mushroom caps into fine slices and fry them gently in some butter till they are soft.
Add the dried mushroom pulp and the liquor in which they were seeped.
Simmer gently for about 5 to 10 minutes.
In a little dish mix the cornflour with the milk.
Add the cornflour mixture to the cooked mushrooms and stir gently over the heat until the sauce thickens.
Add salt & pepper to taste.
Remove from the heat and add the 2 large spoonfuls of soured cream and mix well in.
Note
None of these amounts are exact – they are a rough guide depending on what you have – you can use more water, milk or soured cream and so on.
Mushroom sauce 2 – using a mushroom stock cube
Ingredients
150g fresh button mushroom caps – white and/or chestnut
500ml hot boiling water
1 heaped tablespoon of cornflour
3 tablespoons of milk
2 large tablespoons of soured cream.
butter to cook the mushrooms in.
note
I rarely have to add any more salt or pepper as the stock cube has enough seasoning in it.
Method
Dissolve the stock cube in the hot water.
Preparing a Mushroom Stock Cube
Slice the mushroom caps into fine slices and fry them gently in some butter till they are soft.
Simmer gently for about 5 to 10 minutes.
In a little dish mix the cornflour with the milk.
Add the cornflour mixture to the cooked mushrooms and stir gently over the heat until the sauce thickens.
Remove from the heat and add the 2 large spoonfuls of soured cream and mix well in.
If you can get the stock cubes then version 2 is the quickest.
Basic gołąbki recipe without tomatoes
Ingredients
1 large head of white cabbage or Savoy cabbage*
400g rice
500g of minced beef or pork
Chicken stock – a cube or concentrate will do
salt & pepper
2 bay leaves
3 or 4 peppercorns or allspice or both
juice of 1 or 2 lemons.
*As you need whole largish cabbage leaves I sometimes use 2 cabbages to get the bigger leaves. Recently I have started to use Sweetheart cabbage which has large leaves on the outside but you will most likely need 2 of these.
Instructions from my Polish cookbook “bible”
You need to parboil the rice in salted water so that it is about half way to being cooked and then strain the rice and let it go cold, but if you have some plain boiled rice left from another day you could use this, as this is not critical.
In a large bowl mix the rice and minced meat and add salt and pepper. The exact amounts do not matter. I like it to look about 50/50 white and pink but these can be made with much more rice to eke out the meat available.
Next comes the hardest part and patience is called for here to avoid getting scalded fingers. You have to heat or steam the cabbage to make the leaves pliable so you can remove them one by one and use them to encase the filling.
You need the largest pan you have into which you place the cabbage head. I boil some water in a kettle and pour this over the cabbage in the pan with some heat under the pan I let the cabbage cook a little. The temptation is to boil to quickly so making some of the leave too soft and runs the risk of getting scalded as you try to remove the leaves.
Another method is to place the cabbage into a metal colander and set this over the pan of water so that it is steamed rather than boiled.
As the leaves become soft, you have to cut them off from the stalk and stack them up for to use later, you can cut out the thickest part of the stalk from the first few larger leaves.
Pre heat the oven to GM3 – 160oC
Place a small handful of the rice & meat mixture onto a cabbage leaf and roll up from the stalk end, tuck in the sides and secure with the outer edge of the leaf to make a small parcel.
Place the rolls into a large casserole dish, packing as many rolls as possible in rows in the dish. Depending on the depth of the dish repeat this for another layer.
A tip I got from my late cousin, Krystyna, is to use extra cabbage leaves on the base of the dish and then to put extra leaves on the top of the rolls.
The rolls sometimes have a habit of getting slightly burnt on the top as they come out of the liquid and sometimes at the base if they have been in the oven a long time, these extra layers protect the rolls and can be discarded at the end.
Make a large amount of stock with hot water and lemon juice and add bay leaves, peppercorns and allspice.
Cover the rolls with this liquid. It is a good idea to have extra which you can use to top up as they are cooking.
Cover with the lid and place in the oven and cook for several hours. Check them occasionally and keep them covered with liquid as much as possible.
I always think these taste better when made a day before hand and left for the liquid to seep in more and then reheated in the oven as required.
In the style of Dom Polonii
Sprinkling some chopped dill or flat leaf parsley on the top will be even better (Sadly I did not have any on the day of this photograph).
Gołąbki are made using fresh cabbage and the name means little pigeon or dove. This name comes about from its size and shape and also from to the idea of this being a little delicacy.
The cabbage leaves are used to make a little parcel with a meat and rice filling and these are then cooked in a liquid stock or sauce.
I have read that this is a very old dish which originally came from the Byzantine Empire and was made with vine leaves, as it came north; cabbage leaves replaced the vine leaves.
The main 3 ingredients are: cabbage, rice and minced meat, and you also need a liquid to cook them in, which in my mother’s case was always a stock with tomatoes.
You can use white or Savoy cabbage. White cabbage has softer more pliable leaves and I think make the best gołąbki . Savoy cabbage has firmer leaves that are easier to work with but take longer to cook; these can be easier for a novice to use.
You need a large head of cabbage to get large leaves.
You can use any type of rice but the stickier types are the best.
The traditional Polish version uses pork. My mother used beef as this was more readily available in England. Now that minced pork is more available and you do not have to hand mince it, I use either or even mix the two.
There are many variations using, fresh or dried mushrooms, buckwheat instead of rice, and a stock without tomatoes. In fact buckwheat is a more older version as it grows in Poland and rice would have to be imported.
This recipe is my mother’s and for me this is just right!
Mama’s Classic Recipe
Ingredients
1 large head of white cabbage or Savoy cabbage
400g rice
500g of minced beef or pork
chicken stock – a cube or concentrate will do
1 tube of tomato purée
salt & pepper
2 bay leaves
3 or 4 peppercorns or allspice or both
Although the gołąbki take a while to put together, you then leave them to cook in a slow oven for hours which is easy.
You can reheat them on the next day and in fact I think they taste better the longer they have been steeped in the cooking liquid and I always make them a day in advance.
They also freeze very well, so I pack any left in portions of 2 or 4 for a later date. Because of this I like to make as big a batch as I can in one go.
I use a very large enamelled oval dish with a lid which is ideal for this.
As you need whole largish cabbage leaves I sometimes use 2 cabbages to get the bigger leaves.
You need to parboil the rice in salted water so that it is about half way to being cooked and then strain the rice and let it go cold, but if you have some plain boiled rice left from another day you could use this as this is not critical.
In a large bowl mix the rice and minced meat and add salt and pepper. The exact amounts do not matter. I like it to look about 50/50 white and pink but these can be made with much more rice to eke out the meat available.
Next comes the hardest part and patience is called for here to avoid getting scalded fingers. You have to heat or steam the cabbage to make the leaves pliable so you can remove them one by one and use them to encase the filling.
You need the largest pan you have into which you place the cabbage head. I boil some water in a kettle and pour this over the cabbage in the pan with some heat under the pan I let the cabbage cook a little. The temptation is to boil to quickly so making some of the leave too soft and runs the risk of getting scalded as you try to remove the leaves. Another method is to place the cabbage into a metal colander and set this over the pan of water so that it is steamed rather than boiled.
As the leaves become soft, you have to cut them off from the stalk and stack them up for to use later, you can cut out the thickest part of the stalk from the first few larger leaves.
Instructions from my Polish cookbook “bible”
Pre heat the oven to GM2 – 150oC
Place a small handful of the rice & meat mixture onto a cabbage leaf and roll up from the stalk end, tuck in the sides and secure with the outer edge of the leaf to make a small parcel.
Place the rolls into a large casserole dish, packing as many rolls as possible in rows in the dish. Depending on the depth of the dish repeat this for another layer.
A tip I got from my late cousin, Krystyna, is to use extra cabbage leaves on the base of the dish and then to put extra leaves on the top of the rolls.
The rolls sometimes have a habit of getting slightly burnt on the top as they come out of the liquid and sometimes at the base if they have been in the oven a long time, these extra layers protect the rolls and can be discarded at the end.
Make a large amount of liquid stock with hot water and tomato purée and add bay leaves, peppercorns and allspice.
Cover the rolls with this liquid. It is a good idea to have extra which you can use to top up as they are cooking.
Cover with the lid and place in the oven and cook for several hours. Check them occasionally and keep them covered with liquid as much as possible.
As mentioned earlier I make these a day beforehand and then put them back in the oven for an hour or so before serving.
They are a complete meal in themselves but you can give serve them with some bread to mop up all the liquid sauce.
Bigos is often called Poland’s national dish. It is Poland’s sweet and sour dish using sweet (fresh) cabbage and sour(fermented) cabbage (sauerkraut).
Quick Bigos
This is a smaller, quicker version than the traditional bigos recipe.
I often make it somewhere in between the traditional recipe and this quick recipe as all the amount are very flexible.
If you can only get large jars of sauerkraut then you can put half the contents into a plastic bag or box and freeze it for later use.
Getting Ready to Cook Bigos
BigosBigos
Ingredients
500g sauerkraut (1 small tin or jar or half a large jar)
300g fresh white cabbage – 1 small head or half a large head
100g of Frankfurters or Polish Ring
100g smoked bacon
1 large onion
100g tomato purée (1/2 tube)
20g plain flour
2 bay leaves
3 to 4 peppercorns
sugar or lemon juice to taste – optional
fat/oil to fry in
note – salt should not be needed as the sausage and bacon contain salt.
Finely chop the fresh cabbage into long strands and place in a large pan with the sauerkraut.
In a jug mix the tomato purée with some hot water and then add this to the pan. Add more boiling water to cover the cabbage mixture.
Add the bay leaves and peppercorns and then boil gently till the cabbage is becoming soft.
Slice up the various smoked sausages, chop the bacon into small squares and add to the cabbage mixture and boil gently till everything is soft.
Chop the onion into small pieces and fry till golden, add the flour and fry till the mixture is just about to burn and then add this mixture to the bigos.
Adjust the sourness to taste with sugar and or lemon juice.
Now you can either heat it all together gently over a low heat with a lid on the pan, stirring the mixture occasionally or put the mixture into a large oven proof dish (I use an enamelled dish) with a lid and put it in the oven at GM 4 – 180oC for about 2 hours.
Bigos tastes better if made one day, left overnight, and then reheated in a saucepan or in a dish in the oven.
Note
Bigos freezes well – I portion it up into manageable portions which will serve 2 or 3 – wrapping it in plastic bags within a plastic box to prevent the tomato staining the plastic.
Serving
Bigos is usually served with rye bread but I often serve it with boiled or mashed potatoes.
Bigos is often called Poland’s national dish. It is served at every large gathering: christenings, weddings, funerals and every other excuse for getting together for food and drink. It is best made in advance by at least a day and then reheated. My father used to talk about using a horse and cart to take large wooden barrels of bigos to where there was going to be a celebration.
It is Poland’s sweet and sour dish using sweet (fresh) cabbage and sour (sauerkraut) cabbage. How sweet and sour you make it depends on taste, I always use roughly equal amounts of fresh and sour cabbage – a large white cabbage to a large tin or jar of sauerkraut. You can add sugar or some lemon juice to alter the sweet/sour balance.
This was a Hunter’s stew with all the meat and game that was available in the long hard winters going into the pot with the cabbage. A variety of mixed fresh and smoked meats and sausages are used, the amount can vary with how much meat you have.
Served with rye bread with or without butter and a glass of beer or vodka, it is delicious.
The mixture of cabbage and tomato in bigos is very Polish, as a little girl I thought that cooked cabbage was always orange to red rather that pale to dark green as my mother always used the two together in all her cabbage recipes.
Tomatoes were brought to Poland in the 16th century by the Italian chefs who came with the Italian Princess Bona Sforza who married the Polish King, Zygmunt the Old. The Polish word for tomato – pomidor, shows its Italian origin.
Getting Ready to Cook BigosDried Mushrooms
Enamel PansEnamel Pans
I have many of these enamel pans they are good for slow cooking in the oven.
BigosBigosServing up Bigos
Traditional Bigos
There are lots of variations you can make to the following recipe and everyone seems to have their own version. I find the following proportions work out very well every time and the bigos is moist but not like a soup.
This makes a large amount which is good for a family gathering.
Often I make this in advance and then portion it up into 4 parts and then pack these into large plastic bags or tubs and freeze them – so I always have some on hand. Note – the tomato stains the plastic tubs so I often put a bag inside a tub. I also then wrap the tub in another bag as the aroma is strong even when frozen and this stops it affecting other food in the freezer.
Ingredients
900g sauerkraut (1large tin or jar)
500g fresh white cabbage (1 large head)
200g to 400g Pork (shoulder or spare rib)
150 to 300g mixed smoked sausage such as kabanos, Polish ring or Frankfurters
150g smoked bacon
1 large onion
10g dried mushrooms
100g tomato purée (1/2 tube)
20g plain flour
2 bay leaves
3 to 4 peppercorns
sugar or lemon juice to taste –optional
fat/oil to fry in.
note – salt should not be needed as the sausage and bacon contain salt.
Put the sauerkraut in a large pan and add boiling water until it is covered and boil gently for 1 hour till it is soft. Take care not to let it boil dry and push the sauerkraut down occasionally so it stays under the water.
Finely chop the fresh cabbage into long strands and place in another large pan with the dried mushrooms, add water to cover the cabbage and boil till soft and as with the sauerkraut take care it does not boil dry.
Pre heat the oven to GM3– 150o C
Chop the pork into small cubes and fry till brown on all sides.
Chop the bacon into small squares.
Add 100g of the bacon and all the pork to the sauerkraut and boil gently till everything is soft.
Make crisp skwarki* with the rest of the bacon and add to the sauerkraut.
Chop the onion into small pieces and fry till golden, add the flour and fry till the mixture is just about to burn.
Add the cooked fresh cabbage with all the liquid and the fried onion mixture to the sauerkraut.
Slice up the various smoked sausage and add to the bigos.
Add the tomato purée, bay leaves and peppercorns.
You can add some sugar or lemon juice at this stage; this depends on how sour you like the bigos and often depends on the sauerkraut used. I rarely do either of these.
Now you can heat it all together gently over a low heat with a lid on the pan or put the mixture into a large oven proof dish; I use a large oval enamelled dish, and put it in the oven for about 3 hours.
Bigos tastes better if made one day, left overnight, and then reheated in the pan or in the dish in the oven.
*skwarki – small squares of bacon fried till the fat comes out and you are left with little crisp bits.
Cabbage is a vegetable that plays a very large part in Polish cookery. It can be eaten raw in a variety of salads or cooked in many different ways.
Cabbages grow well in Poland and they can be stored for part of the winter so giving a supply for most of the year.
Cabbages For Sale in a Polish Market
Cabbages can also be preserved by allowing them to ferment using brine. This fermented cabbage is called sauerkraut in German which means sour cabbage.
My parents used to tell me about how their parents made barrels and barrels of fermented cabbage, shredding the cabbage finely, adding salt and packing it firmly into the barrels. This was standard work after harvesting cabbages and would provide a basic ingredient for many dishes throughout the coming year.
One of my aunties in Poland who lives in a block of flats makes her own sauerkraut in a bucket which stands on her balcony. She is not alone in this.
Street market in Krakow – Sauerkraut and SausageSauerkraut and Sausage
On a recent trip to Poland I bought a little book on cabbage cookery. The title, translates as “Falling in Love with Cabbage”; I think most Poles do this at a very early age as cabbage features, fresh or sour, in so many meals.
Falling In Love With Cabbage
In my next posts I am going to cover some classic Polish recipes for cabbage including bigos and gołąbki (cabbage rolls)-as seen on the book cover.
Journey From A Polish Kitchen 