Polish Food | Finding Feasts

Bigos | Hunter’s Stew

Bigos or Hunter’s Stew… I am not afraid of letting the world know that I would love to go on one of those cooking shows and wow the judging panel with the national dish of Poland! What frightens the heck out of me is presenting this dish on a plate!I can see the comments now…”Bella you have created a warm and hearty stew, full of flavour and intensity, however what has really let you down is your presentation”.
The Italian’s have Pasta, the English have Fish & Chips (as I have just recently learned from Blondie!) the Hungarian’s have Goulash and the Poles have, Hunter’s Stew a.k.a Bigos.

Let’s face it, this isn’t the most appealing dish to photograph. I have countless hours this week surfing the net for presentation ideas to ensure that it does not look like slop on a plate, however where presentation fails somewhat, taste sensation sets in! And let me tell you that this dish will warm the heart on a cold winter’s day!

Bigos has been eaten by the Poles for many centuries, it is approximately 700 years old. When speaking to dad about its meaning he said the word bigos signified a combination or mixture of ingredients similar to a mess… success! I have created a mess.
As a child I have fond memories of family gatherings where bigos was one of the feature dishes. I would eagerly await for my bowl and dip mum’s rye bread into the rich and flavoursome sauce.

Whilst there are basic components like sauerkraut, onion, mushrooms and meat, there is no right way of making bigos and you will see that it varies from family to family. My mum’s bigos has evolved over the last 30 years from adding tomato paste to not adding it, from making it a runny stew to making it a dry stew and the changes go on.

When I got mum’s new recipe I thought to myself…I will just make enough for the blog / photos… mission impossible! The dish is best made to a large consistency, after all it taste so much better with time. Yes you can eat it within 3 hours of cooking it however the taste develops as it stands. I would normally give it 1-2 days, although it never lasts that long!

chochla-miesiaca-wiosna-400 — This recipe got Ladle of the month!!

My tips for making this dish:
1) use good quality sauerkraut and to me nothing beats Krakus Sauerkraut! I tried making my own a few months back – failed miserably but that is a story for another day!
2) don’t over liquid the cooking process. Remember that this is a dry stew so its not meant to be covered in water.
3) best eaten on the 2nd day!
4) eat it over rye or sourdough bread with a bottle of Zywiec!
Smacznego!

Smacznego! Bella

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Gołąbki – Polish cabbage rolls

Gołąbki or Polish cabbage rolls is definitely an autumn comfort food dish and although autumn has just started here in Australia and it is still relatively warm I do crave a good hearty dish every few nights.

Mum mostly made gołąbki on a Sunday for obiad (lunch). I still remember how beautiful the kitchen would smell with the rich tomato sauce bubbling away slowly and warming up the whole house. My favourite bit would be soaking up the tomato sauce at the bottom of the bowl with a piece of rye bread, ensuring that I scraped every last bit!

Gołąbki, pronounced ‘go-wump-kie’ translates to little pigeons. I’ve absolutely no idea why this dish is called that. I have heard stories that back in the day the Poles would actually make the dish from real pigeons so maybe it’s because the rolled cabbage leaf resembles a pigeons body? Regardless of the story behind the name they are delicious and very versatile.

There are plenty of other Eastern European nations that have a variation of this dish and they all look equally yummy! The Finns for example call it kaalikääryleet, now try pronouncing that!

Gołąbki is a humble dish which is traditionally made from mince meat such as pork, beef or veal but you can alter the ingredients to suit your own taste. Last mother’s day I made two versions of this, one with meat and the other with rice, grains and mushrooms. I also made a miso stock to go with the veggie option! Both were equally good however nothing beats an original gołąbki recipe!

A scrumptious dish that will hit the spot on a cool autumn evening that is best enjoyed with a good Polish beer! Would love to know if you have ever tasted these?

Smacznego!

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Polish Jam Doughnuts

1Paczki - Main Shot — Click on image for full recipe

Polish Paczki,in my opinion are the most divine Polish dessert ever made!

Attend any Polish cultural event and I guarantee you that these will be on the dessert menu! Light and fluffy, filled with jam and coated in sugar or icing, they literally walk off the plate.

Having already made Makowiec, Babka and Szarlotka, it was time to roll up the sleeves and try to make paczki, after all how hard could it be? It’s just sugar, butter, milk, yeast, plain flour, vanilla essence AND a small amount of the most potent vodka you can find, in Poland we call it Spirytus – which is 95% alcohol by volume…ekkk!

Adding the Spirytus to the dough prior to cooking assists in preventing the oil being absorbed into the dough. I had none of this and although I am sure that if I had called one of my Polish family friends that they would be able to tell me in an instance where I could get some but on this occasion I was happy to go without.

My attempt No. 1 = total utter failure! Although I used a new packet of dried yeast, my dough didn’t rise. I still attempted to deep fry the paczki but they were flat as a pancake and rock hard so into the bin they went.

A valuable lesson learnt: Always proof the yeast before baking. This will tell you if the yeast is still active. To proof your yeast you need to warm up the exact amount of liquid as the recipe asks for. Add the required amount of yeast, a pinch of salt, stir to combine, cover with a tea towel and set aside for a couple of minutes. If foam develops you have proof that your yeast is alive!

Attempt No.2, well the picture speaks for itself. And although these paczki were nothing near as yummy as the ones you can buy from a decent Polish deli, Blondie’s son loved them!

The second attempt ones were still a little dense and slightly on the dry side, so I can’t help but wonder if adding the Spirytis would have made them light and fluffy because less of the oil would have been absorbed during the deep frying process. I guess I will find out on attempt No.3!

If you would love to give these a try but prefer not to bake look up your local European Deli. Campbelltown in Western Sydney has these fresh most Saturday mornings but you have to be quick! They sell out as soon as they open their doors at 8 am!

Olka Polka Deli is located at Shop 4, 100 Queen Street Campbelltown NSW. Telephone (02) 4626 3726

I guarantee you will fall in love with these too!

Bella

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Pierogi with Smoked Slippery Jack Mushrooms

Finding Feasts - Pierogi — Click image for recipe

Pierogi, ahh just saying the word takes me back to my childhood.

Pierogi are synonymous with the Polish. My mother would make these every few weeks with different fillings. One of my favourite was a farm cheese filling with burnt butter and cinnamon sugar – a dessert style dish. My other favourite version was filled with Sauerkraut and Slippery Jack Mushrooms that we had picked in autumn during one of the many mushroom foraging tours I did with my parents and many other Polish families.

I loved biting into the fresh pasta to reveal the dark and rich mushroom filling. The Sauerkraut gives the pierogi a bit of zing as well.

Finding Feasts was recently very fortunate to be asked to take the gorgeous Lyndey Milan on a mushroom forage in Oberon for her upcoming Taste of Australia show which is due to air at the end of the year. Talking to her about all my past mushroom picking escapades with my family made me realise that I have been mushroom picking for a very long time! Since the early 1980′s! That is well over 30 years.

My dad recently came across this gorgeous picture of our family mushroom picking down the Southern Highlands, in 1983! I’m the one with the brown hair not looking at the camera and the gorgeous lady sitting in the picnic chair is my beautiful babcia (grandmother) who is no longer with us but was an avid mushroomer!

Pierogi can be made with various different fillings and once you start experimenting there is no limit to the fillings you can make.

Seeing as ’tis the wild mushroom picking season’ I thought I would share this very traditional recipe with you, however with a very FinSki’s twist on it. This recipe calls for smoked mushrooms and where do you get these I hear you ask? Why FinSki’s of course!

Blondie and I have been experimenting in the kitchen for about 2 years now. We have both tried our hand at smoked mushrooms. Drying the mushrooms elevates them to another level, it increases the flavour tenfold and these smoked mushroom and sauerkraut pierogi are full of wintery smokey flavour.

Enjoy!

Bella

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Makowiec – Polish Poppy Seed Cake

Picking my first recipe for the blog was exciting, challenging and scary! It brought back very special memories of growing up.

When we moved to Australia, mum tried her best to keep a traditional Polish kitchen but it was always subject to seasonal produce and the Australian climate. Having a traditional Polish Christmas Eve dinner on the 24th of December was a little difficult in 35 degree heat! However, hats off to mum as she has done an amazing job keeping a Polish kitchen.

For my first blog I have attempted to make my very first Makowiec…Poppy Seed Cake. Makowiec is very popular with Poles especially during Easter and Christmas and delicious with a cup of coffee! It’s actually very rare to turn up to a Polish party and not have this cake on the menu!

The combination of poppy seeds and the yeasty cake gives it a lovely moist, crunchy like texture. The key to a successful poppy seed cake is to ensure that you mince the poppy seeds 3-4 times to ensure you get rid of the grittiness. Yes, it is a little labour intensive, however the taste is amazing… just ask Blondie.

Making the cake for the first time suddenly gave me an appreciation of the great care mum took with the yeast to ensure that it would rise. There were times when the dough would be wrapped in a warm blanket and put in a dark warm place, away from noise to make it grow. I remember how mum would whisper that noise would spoil the dough and it would not grow, I used to giggle at this theory.

On my 2nd attempt, when the dough failed I found myself suddenly applying all of mum’s old school techniques… no matter how strange they were!

My main tip for this cake is to use fresh yeast when possible, the results are much better…and yes, the whispering helps!

Bella

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