Oats

Oat & Rye Biscuits

I have been able to buy lots of second hand Polish cookery books in the past few weeks.
Inside one of them was a handwritten recipe for these biscuits.
It is written in the lovely handwriting people are taught in Poland.
I wish my writing was clear and neat as this.
I decided to try these biscuits and was very pleased with the result.
They only have a small amount of sugar so they go well with cheese.

Heathcote cake plate – Made in England

INGREDIENTS

120g butter – softened
70g soft brown sugar
1 egg
100g rolled oats
140g rye flour
½ teaspoon of baking powder.

METHOD

Pre-heat the oven to GM4 – 180°C.
Grease two baking sheets.
Beat the butter and sugar together
Add the egg and carry on beating.
Mix the oats, rye flour and baking powder together.
Add this dry mixture to the butter mix.
Mix together until everything is combined.
Make small balls of the mixture and place these on the sheets.
Bake for 15 – 20 minutes.
About half way through the baking – flatten the balls with a spatula.
Leave the trays to cool on a wire baking rack.

Kotlety mielone – in Lager with Caraway

This is another variation on the theme of kotlety mielone – Polish meatballs or as they are called in the USA – meat patties and now in England as burgers.

I got this idea from my fellow blogger – Lithuanian in the USA. In their recipe for Meatballs in barbecue sauce – instead of bread soaked in milk – oats are soaked in milk.

This sauce is one I made years ago and have just come across it in my recipe notes & cuttings – it is super – how could I have forgotten it?

Ingredients – meatballs

500g minced beef
1 beaten egg
50g rolled oats
125ml milk
1 onion
1 tablespoon of caraway seeds
1/4 teaspoon of ground allspice
Salt
Ground black pepper
Plain flour for dusting
Butter for frying the onions
Sunflower oil for frying

Method

In a small bowl soak the oats in the milk for around 15 minutes.
*
Chop the onion into small pieces and fry in some butter until golden.
Add the caraway seeds and ground allspice and mix well together.
Leave to cool completely.
*
In a large bowl mix all the ingredients together, it is best to do this using both hands, making sure that all the ingredients are thoroughly combined.
Pour some flour onto a large plate or board.
Take a handful of the mixture and press it between your hands to make a flattened circle, place this in the flour and turn it over to cover both sides and edges.
Once coated place them on a tray dusted with flour until you have used all the mixture up.
*
Preheat the oven to GM4 – 180°C
*
Shallow fry the kotlety in hot oil, depending on the frying pan size, you can do 4 to 5 at a time, turning them over so that both sides are done.
Place them in a large oven proof dish, which has a lid.
*
Pour the sauce over them, add the lid and put the dish into the oven.
Cook for at 75 to 90 minutes.
*
Super served with creamy mashed potatoes, pasta or boiled rice – sprinkle chopped chives or flat-leaved parsley over them before serving.

Ingredients – sauce

300ml – 500ml of lager
300ml of vegetable or chicken stock (can be from a cube or powder)
4 tablespoons of soft brown sugar
2 tablespoons of red wine vinegar
4 tablespoons of tomato purée
3 bay leaves

Method

Place all the ingredients into a sauce pan.
Heat gently, stirring until the sugar has dissolved.
Bring to the boil.
Remove from the heat and pour over the kotlety.

Mixed Grains Bread

I have been concentrating on a variety of rye breads and had gone to my local Polish shop to buy some more rye flour when I saw some mąka orkiszkowa which is spelt flour.

Spelt – Triticum spelta – is an older type of wheat known to have been used from around 5,000BC

Modern wheat is Triticum sativum.

Ingredients

250g spelt flour

250g strong wheat flour

150g oat flakes

50g sesame seeds

1 1/2 teaspoons of salt

20ml of sunflower oil

250ml milk

150ml water

1 tablespoon of fresh yeast

1 teaspoon of sugar

Method

Mix the milk and water and heat them slightly to hand heat.

Add the sugar and the yeast and wait for the yeast to froth up.

Mix all the other ingredients in a large bowl.

Make a well in the dry ingredients and pour in the yeast mixture.

Use a large wooden spoon to mix everything together and then use your hand to bring the dough into a soft ball, kneading it lightly for around 3 minutes.

Spelt flour

Leave to rise for at least 1 to 2 hours.

Grease a long Continental loaf tin (or a 2lb loaf tin).

Lightly press the dough into the tin.

Leave to rise – I found this took around 5 hours.

Pre-heat the oven to GM6 – 200°C.

Bake for 35-40 minutes , checking after 25 minutes and cover with foil or greaseproof paper if it has browned too quickly on the top.

The base of the loaf will sound hollow when it is cooked – put back for a few more minutes if not.

Once cool, I wrap the bread in a cloth.

I have found that the sliced bread, packed in a plastic box with a lid freezes very well.

Prune Placek

This recipe was given to me by one of my cousins (British born like me) who lives in Wembley.

Although this is not a traditional Polish recipe it does reminds me of a Polish placek (flat cake) and contains prunes which are very popular and used in many recipes in Poland.

There is a base of easy to make shortcrust type pastry, a layer of softened prunes and a cake topping which contains oats and sesame seeds.

Muscovado sugar is used – this is definitely not a Polish sugar as it is produced in the process of refining sugar cane whilst in Poland sugar is made from sugar beet.

Note

You can make the filling ahead of when you need it as it has to be cold. I often make the base and the filling in the evening and then finish the placek the next day.

Ingredients

Base

175g plain flour

125g butter or margarine

50g caster sugar

Filling

225g no-need-to-soak prunes

1 tablespoon dark muscovado sugar

1 tablespoon of cornflour

Water

Topping

120g butter or margarine

60g caster sugar

1 tabelspoon of honey

125g no-need-to-soak prunes

100g self-raising flour

1/2 teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda

100g rolled oats

50g sesame seeds (keeping back 2 tablespoons to sprinkle on the top)

Method

Base

Pre-heat the oven to GM 4 – 180°C

Grease and line a rectangular 20 x 27cm tin.

Rub the butter into the flour to made breadcrumbs.

Mix in the caster sugar.

Bring the mixture together to make a dough.

Press the dough into the tin.

Bake the base for around 25 minutes until it is golden on top.

Leave till it is cold.

Filling

Cover the prunes with water in a small pan and add the sugar.

Simmer the prunes, sugar and water for 10 minutes until you have a soft pulp – take care not to boil the mixture dry – add more water if needed.

Mix the cornflour with some water to form a paste and add this to the mixture and stir until it thickens.

Remove from the heat and leave it till it is cooled completely.

Spread the filling on top of the pastry base.

Topping

In a pan gently melt the butter, sugar and honey.

Leave to cool slighty.

Chop the prunes into small pieces.

Add the prunes to the butter mixture and mix .

In a bowl mix the flour, bi-carbonate of soda, oats and sesame seeds.

Add the butter mixture to the dry ingredients and mix well in.

Spread this mixture over the prune filling.

Sprinkle the reserved sesame seeds over the top.

Bake for 25 – 30 minutes until the top is golden.

Cut into squares or rectangles to serve.

Variations

Other dried fruits can be used for the filling – such as apricots, dates or figs.

The serving cake plate is a recent purchase from Leeds second hand market.

The design is Field Fare by James Cooper for Washington Pottery, Hanley, Staffordshire from around the 1950s.

The cups and saucers are another very recent purchase from a local car boot sale.

They are bone china by Colclough, pattern number 8266, from I think the 1970s.

The stoneware tea plate is Blue Mist, Burleigh Ware by Burges and Leigh Ltd from the 1930s.

Oats & Cranberry Biscuits

These biscuits are not at all Polish in origin – I like to think of them as a Scottish & Polish Alliance!

Cranberries & Lingonberries

Cranberries and lingonberries grow wild in acidic bogs around many forests in Poland and especially in the countryside where my father lived, in what was North East Poland before the war.

Cranberries & Lingonberries belong to the genus Vaccinium and the plants are small, low growing, evergreen shrubs.

Cranberries in central and northern Europe are Vaccinium oxycoccos , whilst Vaccinium microcarpum or Vaccinium macrocarpon are to be found in the USA.

Lingonberries are Vaccinium vitis-idaea .

The berries of the cranberry are larger and oval.

The berries of the lingonberry are round and much smaller than the cranberry, about a third or quarter of the size.

Image of lingonberries taken from Wikipedia

The Polish for cranberry is żurawina, the word comes from żuraw which means a crane – so the same as the English word, as parts of the plant reminded people of the bird.

The Polish for lingonberry is borówka or borowina, both these names contain the part bor which means (from) the forest.

Notes

1 -There are dozens of different names in English for lingonberry which in fact comes from the Swedish name.

2- The commercially grown dried cranberries used in this recipe were grown in the USA.

Oats (Avena sativa) – owies in Polish, are grown in Poland but for this recipe I have considered them Scottish!

Royal Scottish – Polish Alliance!

The mother of Bonnie Prince Charlie(1720-1788) was – Maria Klementyna Sobieska(1702-1735) – she was the granddaughter of the Polish King Jan III Sobieski(1629-1696) and she married James Stuart(1688-1766), The Pretender.

In March 2016, The Scotsman printed an article titled

Scotland and Poland a 500 year relationship.

Some of the facts & figures below are taken from this.

More Polish nationals now live in Scotland than any other group from outside the UK and the two countries share a rich history.

The links were forged back in the late 1400s when trade agreements were established between Aberdeen and the old Baltic seaport of Gdańsk.

Under King Stefan Batory(1533-1586), Scottish merchants became suppliers to the royal court in Kraków and grain and timber from Poland was traded with Scotland.

Many Scots moved to Poland to seize new business opportunities and buried in St John’s Archcathedral in Warsaw is Alexander Chalmers (written as Czamer) , from Dyce near Aberdeen, a judge and four times mayor of Warsaw between 1691 and 1703.

There are many surnames in Poland which are Scottish in origin such as: Machlejd (MacLeod), Makolroys(MacElroy) and Szynklers(Sinclaire).

Around 38,000 Polish soldiers were stationed in Scotland after the fall of Poland in WW2 and many of those who were unable to return to their homeland after the end of the war stayed and it is estimated that around 2,500 Polish-Scottish marriages took place around this period.

There was a wave of immigration in the 1980s with the declaration of Martial Law in Poland and then again after 2004 when Poland joined the European Union.

One of the most popular brands of tea sold in Poland is Yellow label which was created by Sir Thomas Lipton( 1848-1931) who was from Glasgow, Scotland.

Since 1995 Krakòw has been twinned with Edinburgh.

Ingredients

100g butter or block margarine
100g granulated sugar
5ml of golden syrup
5ml of boiling water
100g of self raising flour
100g of rolled oats
50g of dried cranberries

Method

Pre-heat the oven to GM 5 – 190°C.
Grease at least 2 baking trays – (you will have to take the biscuits off when they are cooked and re-grease these tins.)
Place the butter or margarine in a pan with the granulated sugar and heat slowly so that the butter is melted.

Add the teaspoon of golden syrup and then the teaspoon of boiling water and mix well together.
Take the pan off the heat, add the flour and oats and mix this together.
Then mix in the cranberries.
Using your hands, make small balls and place them on the trays, leaving space around them as they will spread.

Place in the oven and bake for around 8 – 10 minutes, watch them carefully as they suddenly seem to catch & burn.
I often look at them half way through and flatten them with a spatula.

Take them out of the oven and leave them to cool a little before you use a spatula to take them of the trays and leave them to fully cool on a wire cooling rack.