Minestrone in Poland is called włoska zupa which means Italian soup.
It is a mixed vegetable soup (sometimes made with a meat base stock) and often has pasta or rice added to it. Some versions have grated Parmesan cheese sprinkled on before serving.
The name comes from – ministrare – to serve or to administer (some think this links to serving or administering it for health reasons).
My memories of this soup is that it had always had some shredded Savoy cabbage in it.
Savoy cabbage was introduced into England in the 18th century from The Netherlands and it is named after the Savoy Region in France.
In Poland it was introduced in the 16th century along with other vegetables by the Italian chefs that came with the Italian Princess Bona Sforza who married the Polish King, Zygmunt the Old. In Polish it is called włoska kapusta which means Italian cabbage.
I have found dozens of recipes and all use many different vegetables – I could not really get a consensus so have tried out a couple of variations.
Here is an alphabetic list of suggested vegetables:
Beans – Borlotti or Cannellini
Beans – whole green
Broccoli
Cauliflower
Carrots
Celery
Celeriac
Courgettes
Kohlrabi
Leeks
Onions
Peas
Peppers – red, orange or yellow
Savoy cabbage
Spinach
Tomatoes (or tomato purée)
You need around 600g of mixed vegetables to make 2 litres of soup with 100 – 150g being Savoy Cabbage.
As a minimum, I would always have: carrots, onions (or leeks), Savoy cabbage and tomatoes.
You can use whatever is in season as well as frozen or tinned vegetables.
Marjoram (Origanum majorana) or Oregano (Origanum vulgare) are two of the herbs used to flavour Minestrone as well as Flat-leaved Parsley and maybe Basil.
Marjoram & Oregano are both in the Lamiaceae (Mint) family with Marjoram having a milder, floral and woody flavour and Oregano being stronger, more pungent and spicy. (Marjoram is more readily available in Poland – especially in dried form).
I often just use dried Italian Herbs.
Minestrone Version 1
Ingredients
3 – 4 tomatoes
100g of Savoy cabbage
2 – 3 carrots
2 -3 sticks of celery
50g green beans
1 large onion
Olive oil for frying
Marjoram or Italian herbs – fresh or dried
Salt & ground black pepper
Method
Skin the tomatoes using boiling water and chop them up.
Chop the onion into small pieces and fry in hot olive oil.
Chop the carrots, celery and green beans and add them to onion.
Continue frying gently to soften them.
Place these and the tomatoes into a large pan and add 1.5 – 2 litres of boiling water.
Shred the cabbage into fine strands and add these to the pot.
Add the herbs and salt and ground black pepper.
Bring to the boil and then simmer for around 45 minutes.
Season to taste.
Option
If you like more of a tomato taste add a couple of tablespoons of tomato purée before simmering.
Served in Royal Doulton – Carnation – 1982 to 1998.
Minestrone Version 2
Ingredients
3-4 tomatoes
1 red pepper
100 -150g Savoy cabbage
2 – 3 carrots
2 – 3 leeks
Spinach – can be 50g of frozen
1 -2 tins of Borlotti or Cannellini beans
1.5 litres of chicken stock – can be from cubes
Olive oil for frying
Marjoram or Italian herbs – fresh or dried
Salt & ground black pepper
Cooked pasta – a small handful per serving
Method
Skin the tomatoes using boiling water and chop them up.
Chop the leeks into rounds and fry in hot olive oil.
Chop the carrots and pepper and add them to leeks.
Continue frying gently to soften them.
Place these and the tomatoes into a large pan and add 1.5 – 2 litres of chicken stock.
Shred the cabbage into fine strands and add these to the pot.
Add the herbs and salt and ground black pepper.
Bring to the boil and then simmer for around 20 minutes.
Drain the beans from the tin and add these to the soup.
Add the spinach.
Bring to the boil again and then simmer for around 20 minutes
Season to taste.
Add some cooked pasta (chopped if necessary) to each soup plate and cover with hot soup and serve.
Served in Royal Doulton – Burgundy – 1959 to 1981.
The lentil is Lens culinaris, an edible legume – which means its seeds grow in pods.
The seeds are lens-shaped from whence it gets its name – meaning little lens.
The Polish is soczewica and is also from a word meaning a small lens.
It belongs to the bean family and these seeds are classed as pulses – dry seeds for consumption.
Lentils originated in the Near East and Central Asia and are the oldest pulses and among the earliest crops domesticated in the Old World.
The first evidence of pulses comes from 11,000 years ago in the Fertile Crescent, a region in the Middle East which was home to some of the earliest human civilizations.
They are mentioned in the Bible – Genesis 25:29-34 – when Esau gives up his birthright to Jacob for a mess of pottage.
” …let me eat the red soup … then Jacob gave him bread and lentil soup …“
Figures for 2016 show the top four countries for lentil production as:
Canada
India
Turkey
United States of America
I bought a packet of whole allspice (ziele angielskie) and this recipe was on the back.
I think it is related to Breton beans – a popular Polish recipe.
Ingredients
200g – 250g dried lentils
100g smoked bacon – chopped into small squares.
200g Polish sausage (I used Toruńska) – sliced
2 onions – chopped
3 cloves of garlic – sliced
1 tin of chopped tomatoes
200 ml of chicken stock (can be from a cube or concentrate)
5 grains of allspice
2 bay leaves
1 teaspoon of sweet paprika (not smoked)
1 teaspoon of Italian herbs
Sunflower oil for frying
Ground black pepper
(salt might not be needed because of the bacon and sausage)
Yoghurt and chopped flat-leaved parsley to serve
Method
Pre-heat the oven to GM3 – 160°C
Cook the lentils in water until they are soft.
Use a sieve to remove some of the excess water – if any.
Fry up the bacon and the onions and garlic.
In a jug or bowl mix the stock, paprika, herbs and pepper.
Get an oven proof dish with a lid and add the lentils, fried bacon, onions and garlic.
Add the tomatoes and the stock mixture.
Add the sliced sausage, the bay leaves and allspice and mix all together thouroughly.
Put the lid on the dish and place into the oven.
Cook for 45 -60 minutes.
Serve garnished with flat – leafed parsley or this and a dollop of plain yoghurt or soured cream as well.
Here served in Royal Doulton – Carnation (1982 – 1998) dishes.
The tomato is botanically the fruit of Solanum lycopersicum, although from a culinary point of view it is a vegetable.
It belongs to the deadly nightshade family as does the potato.
The tomato plant originated in the Andes in South America and tomatl was the name in the Nahuatl language give to it by the Aztec people, which then became tomate and then tomato in English.
The tomato was brought over to Europe by the Conquistadors in the late 15th Century.
The original fruits were yellow hence the Italian name pomodoro (pomo d’oro – apple of gold).
When the Italian princess, who became Queen Bona of Poland on her marriage to King Zygmunt the Old, came to Poland with her chefs in the 16th Century , the tomato was introduced to the Polish diet.
Tomato in Polish is pomidor – so you can see or rather hear its Italian root.
Home grown tomatoes are of course the best, however here in the North of England I have not had much success in growing them outdoors.
To get the best flavour from tomatoes it is best NOT to keep them in the refrigerator.
Keep your tomatoes at room temperature
A simple tomato salad is served in Poland, always it seemed to me with the addition of onions, chives or the green part of spring onion. For many it is standard fare for breakfast with cold meats or Polish curd cheese.
Ingredients
Tomatoes – thinly sliced into whole rounds if small or halved if large.
Half an onion – finely chopped or
Chives or the green part of spring onions – finely chopped
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
Bigos
Bigos
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 Bigos
Dried Mushrooms
Enamel Pans
Enamel Pans
I have many of these enamel pans they are good for slow cooking in the oven.
Bigos
Bigos
Serving 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.
Journey From A Polish Kitchen 