Virtual food guide
Polish granny's recipes
Starter - Polish sour rye soup - żurek
Preparation
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Pour rye flour into a clay or cup pot, add pressed garlic and pour over warm but not hot water. Mix it with enough water so that a slurry forms, and then leave for about 4-5 days in a warm and sunny place. After this time it will have a distinctive sourdough sour smell (don't worry - disappears during cooking). The sourdough can be poured into jars or bottles and stored even a month.
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Pour your sourdough into a large pot, add some water or broth, so as to be adequately acid (according to your taste). Cook it.
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After boiling, add the leaves, all spices, juniper, diced sausage.
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In the meantime, boil the potatoes separately - otherwise, they become hard and are distasteful.
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Cook until soup goes an intense aroma of meats and herbs. Add salt, pepper and other seasonings to taste. Cook a moment more and then turn off. At the end add the sour cream, eggs and boiled potatoes. Stir. Serve hot!
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Enjoy your meal !!!
History
Sour rye soup is a very traditional Polish soup. A distinctive feature of this exclusive food is its sour taste. However, this is not like the sour taste of lemon. Żurek is much more delicate and extremely palatable. The taste of this Polish soup comes from so-called sour leavening, originating from fermentatedrye flour and bread crumbs.
Ingredients
Sourdough
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half cup of rye flour
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peel from one slice of wholemeal bread (not obligatory)
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2 cloves of garlic - crushed
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2 bay leaves
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1 cup of water
Soup
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2 white sausages
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previously made sourdough
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half of a small parsley
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1 medium-size onion
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3 potatoes
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3 tablespoons of thick sour cream (18% fat)
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1 spun of marjoram
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salt, pepper
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hard-boiled eggs when ready to be served
Starter - White borscht
Preparation
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Pour wheat flour into a clay or cup pot, add pressed garlic and pour over some warm but not hot water. Mix it with enough water so that a slurry forms, and then leave for about 4-5 days in a warm and sunny place. After this time it will have a distinctive sourdough sour smell (don't worry - disappears during cooking). The sourdough can be poured into jars or bottles and stored even a month.
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Add your sourdough to broth made with bacon. Do it up to your taste, so that the acidity is OK for your tongue. Add bay leaf, crushed garlic clove, allspice, horseradish, sliced carrots and diced white sausage. Boil the mixture.
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Then remove from heat and pour the cream distributed in several spoons of the hot soup. Mix it and season to taste with salt and marjoram.
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In the meantime, boil the potatoes separately - otherwise, they become hard and are distasteful.
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Cook until soup goes an intense aroma of meats and herbs. Beetroot serve with slices of sausage and carrots; you can also add hard-boiled egg.
History
Apart “żurek” white borscht is a very traditional soup especially eaten at Easter breakfast. These two soups look the same and are served with similar inserts – white sausage and hardboiled egg but it tastes different. The subtle difference lies in the sourdough. White borscht is less acid and more aromatic as it is cooked sourdough wheat flour and broth in bacon.
Ingredients
Sourdough
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half cup of wheat flour
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peel from one slice of wholemeal bread (not obligatory)
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2 cloves of garlic - crushed
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1 cup of the water
Soup
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2 liters of broth made with smoked meats (for example boiled lean smoked bacon or sausage)
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previously made sourdough
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1 bay leave
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1 clove of garlic
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1 medium carrot
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2-3 allspice grains
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2 tablespoons of freshly grated horseradish
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3 tablespoons of thick sour cream (18% fat)
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1 spin of marjoram
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salt, pepper
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hard-boiled eggs when ready to be served
Red borscht with cream and potato recipe
Preparation
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Cut three carrots and one parsley into matchsticks. Slice half a leek. Grate 1/3 of celery.
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Pour 1.5-2 litres of pure water (filtered or mineral) over above vegetables. Throw 5-6 beef stock cubes and start boiling.
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In the meantime grate two or three beetroots. Throw beets belts onto the frying pan.
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After stock cubes dissolve and stock becomes hot, pour 1/3 or half of stock to the frying pan with beets. Stew beets under lid for about 20 minutes. At that time the juice is being extracted from beets and broth gains very beautiful colour, similar to the colour of a red wine. Borscht made of beets of high quality should be naturally slightly sweet at this point.
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Beets if soften that stewing can be deemed completed. Pour the content of the frying pan to clean pot through strainer (beetroot stays on strainer).
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Take pot with stock (earlier put away) and pour through the sieve with beets to the 'new' pot that contains borscht. In this way you will separate carrot, parsley and leek. Pour the stock through strainer with portions, trying to squeeze the remaining juice still staying in beets.
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You can throw a portion of vegetables and beets from the sieve to the clear borscht. Do it at your own discretion and taste, but don't exaggerate.
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Place the pot with borscht on the cooker and start warming gently. Add about 10 grains of black pepper, 5 grain of allspice and 5 bay leaves. Borscht should be cooke in the temperature of about 80°C.
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Squeeze two cloves of garlic to the red borscht.
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At that time cut two onions into fine dice. Throw onto the frying pan, add butter or olive and fry to browning.
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Throw 1 of the fried onion into soup. Pour the remaining amount into the bowl and put away. This will be needed for us as the seasoning for potatoes, while serving borscht.
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On the same frying pan, on which you fried onion, add about 5-6 tablespoons of breadcrumbs. In this way you obtain the roux. Add it to the borscht and mix precisely.
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Now time for adding the cream. Use fresh cream intended for soups. Pour half a cup of the borscht from the pot. Add two-three tablespoons of the cream and mix precisely. If lumps appear crumble it. Pour back into the pot and mix. Repeat the procedure, until you get the borscht pink colour. The amount of the cream in soup is a matter of the taste of course, Soup with the cream cannot be boiled.
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After the cream add the sugar – 1or 2 teaspoonfuls of sugar, mix it and taste. Add little portions of the sugar charily, until soup gains the gentle sweet-sour taste. You should break a sour taste of the cream - it should not dominate.
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After mixing borscht with the cream turn heating off and put soup aside for cooling.
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Meanwhile peel the appropriate amount of potatoes, cut into cubes and cook.
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Mash boiled potatoes and season with the salt to the taste. Don't add the cream or the milk. We don't want this 'purée' to be too tender, because then it would dissolve in the borscht on the plate to easily.
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When the borscht will cool heat it again. Put portions of potatoes on the plates, then pour the borscht. Sprinkle potatoes with the fried onion and shredded parsley and dill.
Ingredients
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3 carrots
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1 parsley
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1/2 of leek
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1/3 of celery
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or about 400 g of frozen vegetables instead of those above
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5-6 stock cubes
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2-3 beetroots
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10 grains of pepper
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5 grains of allspice
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5 bay leaves
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2 cloves of garlic
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2 onions
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butter or olive for frying onion
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5-6 tablespoons of breadcrumbs
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cream
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sugar
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potatoes
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dill and/or parsley leaves
Polish sorrel soup recipe
Preparation
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First prepare broth from the bones and vegetables. Bones and meat thoroughly washed in hot water put them into the pot and pour six cups of cold water. Cook it on a strong fire under cover, then decrease the flame and cook over low heat for about 1 hour.
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Then wash, peel and put the green (vegetables)into the broth cooked bones. Then boil them all together. At the end of cooking add the spices.
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When vegetables and meat are already soft, drain them off. Vegetables can be used to prepare salads. Crush the meat and put into the soup. When we are ready to brew, we can deal with preparing the Sorrel soup.
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Wash the sorrel and finely chop it, boil it in filtrated broth. Instead of boiling it in the broth, sorrel can be chopped, stew in butter, and then added to the broth. If the sorrel is older, after strangling rub through a sieve. Mix flour with sour cream (or natural yoghurt), pour to the soup and cook, you can add some salt.
Ingredients
Broth
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1920 to 1925 grams of meat or meat with bone
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1925 to 1930 grams of vegetables (carrot, parsley, celery, leek)
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half medium onion
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spices (a few peppercorns, bay leaf, salt to taste)
Soup
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6 cups of broth
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3 ounces flour
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12 ounces sour cream (or natural yoghurt)
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10 ounces sorrel (fresh or from jar)
Sorrel soup can be served with hard-boiled, chopped into quarters eggs. Sorrel soup is also served with potatoes, which are washed and peeled and should be cut into cubes and cooked in the broth before putting sorrel.
Polish beef tripe soup
Preparation
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Clean 1 kg of beef tripe, previously cut up and blanched. Sift out on the colander.
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Put 0.5 kg of the beef without the bone into the pot. Pour over 2.5–3 litres of water and cook 1 hour.
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In the meantime cut up or shred 4–5 of medium–sized carrots, one average celery and 2 parsleys.
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Put vegetables into the stock and cook along for next 30 minutes.
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Pour previously prepared tripe.
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Salt some more and season to taste.
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Gently cook the whole on the slight fire for 1 hour and 30 minutes.
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Make the roux from butter and the flour, add to soup and mix precisely.
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Before the end of cooking add the marjoram.
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Serve with fresh bread (the best is to serve with a roll).
Ingredients
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1 kg of pure, cut up beef or pork tripe
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0.5 kg of the beef meat (without bone)
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4-5 carrots
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medium size celery
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2 parsleys
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spoonful of butter
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two spoonfuls of the flour
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one spoonful of the marjoram
Polish dumplings dough recipe (original)
Preparation
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Pour 3 cups of wheat flour into the bowl. Pour the flour through a sieve to separate any lumps and in order to aerate the flour. Thanks to the latter, your pierogi dough will be softer and more delicate in flavor. Then add half a teaspoon of salt.
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Pour 0.75 of cup of boiling water into the bowl, while vigorously stirring the mixture with a fork or wooden spoon. At this stage, it is normal that lumps of flour will form and surface – crumble them down with the fork. Cover the bowl with a cotton cloth and set aside for about 5 minutes.
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After 5 min, add a quarter of a cup of cold water, give it a stir, and crumble down the lumps (if any). Once again cover the pierogi dough with a cotton cloth, but this time set is aside for 15 minutes.
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After 15 min, add half a teaspoon of vegetable oil (canola, sunflower or olive oil). Roll up your sleeves – it's time for some work. Knead the pierogi dough until it becomes a smooth and uniform mass. In general, it takes 5 to 10 minutes, and at this stage a pair of men's hands may be quite useful. When finished, the pierogi dough should be homogeneous, stretchy and a bit adhesive.
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Now, the dough is ready to prepare pierogi. Roll out the dough on a pastry board (or simply on a table) until you reach the thickness of about one-tenth of an inch (2-3 millimeters). However, before you start rolling it out, you should flour the pastry board. Thanks to that the pierogi dough won't adhere or tear. However, remember that one side of the dough should remain clean. You want it to cling on to itself while folding pierogi.
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Cut circles out of the pierogi dough by using a cup. Place the filling in the middle of every circle and fold it to form pierogi.
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Collect scraps of pierogi dough, knead again, roll out and repeat steps 5-7.
Ingredients
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3 cups of wheat flour (all-purpose)
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half a teaspoon of salt
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0.75 cup of boiling water
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0.25 cup of cold water
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half a teaspoon of oil
Having made your pierogi, what is left to be done is to boil them and fry if that's what suits you. Despite of the simplicity of ingredients, some say that the pierogi dough is a fickle thing. I do not have bad experiences. However, if it happens to you to do it wrong from time to time, do not give up. It might require some experience, but everyone can become an expert by trial-and-error. I wish you good luck and hope that you find this pierogi dough recipe useful.
Polish cabbage rolls in tomato sauce
Preparation
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Cover cabbage leaves with boiling water.
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Let stand until leaves are limp.
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Drain.
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Mix beef, rice, 1/2 CUP tomato sauce, garlic salt, pepper, onions and green pepper.
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Put 1/3 cup in each leaf; roll, tucking in the sides.
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Place, seam side down in baking dish.
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Mix remaining tomato sauce with the sugar, pour over rolls.
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Cover and bake at 350* for 45 minutes.
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Remove from pan, pour juice in saucepan.
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Mix cornstarch and water; stir into saucepan.
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Cook and stir until mixture boils; cook 1 minute.
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Serve with cabbage rolls.
History
Gołąbki or stuffed cabbage is one of a traditional food of Central and Eastern Europe. Polish gołąbki is a cooked knob of forcemeat wrapped up in a leaf of a white cabbage. Important ingredients are: groats (nowadays rice is much more popular), onion and an appropriate blend of spices. Sometimes mushrooms are added to the filling. Also some other variants of the filling exist in the traditional Polish cuisine, e.g. fowl, mutton or even with no meat at all (some vegetable-based gołąbki, but these are less common). This Polish food is stewed or fried before eating. When laid on plates gołąbki are poured over with a delicious dense home-made tomato sauce. Polish cabbage rolls are eaten with bread, sometimes with boiled potatoes.
Ingredients
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12 cabbage leaves
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1 lb ground beef
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1 cup cooked rice
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1 (15 ounce) can tomato sauce, divided
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1 teaspoon garlic salt
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1/4 teaspoon pepper
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1/2 cup chopped onion
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1/4 cup chopped green pepper
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1 teaspoon sugar
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1 tablespoon cornstarch
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1 tablespoon water
Polish hunter’s stew
Preparation
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Cut pork and onion into small pieces. Fry in oil.
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Put fried meat & onion into a pot, add small amount of water and simmer for 30 minutes.
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Cut cabbage into small pieces. To the boiling meat and onion add: cabbage, diced bacon, vegetables, whole bay leaves and allspice.
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Boil the whole mixture until cabbage is soft.
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Season your bigos with salt, pepper and a little sugar.
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Before serving add sausages (kielbasa) to the pot to make them warm. Chop dill and sprinkle bigos served on plates (or serve chopped dill on a separate saucer).
History
‘Soft' variant of bigos (Polish hunter's stew). Made of young cabbage and stewed for a short time, therefore really easy and fast to prepare. Keeps rather light brown colour instead of dark brown (characteristic for a traditional Polish bigos stewed for many hours). Of course it is usually eaten 'alone', I mean with bread or rolls and sausages (if you like). But it can be also, and often is, served as an addition to kotlet schabowy (Polish pork schnitzel) or other kinds of meat dishes (without sausages then).
Ingredients
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4 young cabbages
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0.7 kg of lean pork
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0.25 kg of smoked bacon
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0.7 kg of thin sausages (kielbasa)
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1 carrot, 1 parsley, half of celery, 1 onion
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1 bunch of dill
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3 bay leaves, 4 grains of allspice, 1 tablespoon of sugar, 1 tablespoon of oil
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sugar, salt & pepper
Polish pork schnitzel
Preparation
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Cut the meat into chops thickness of about 1.5 cm and beat pestle.
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Then add salt, pepper, garlic powder and marjoram and set aside.
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Dip each chop into the flour coating on both sides and then into the beaten egg and into bread crumbs on separate plates early prepared.
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Heat oil and butter in a large frying pan and when very hot add the pork and cook over high heat for 3 – 5 minutes on both sides until golden brown.
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Serve with potatoes, cabbage or vegetable salad.
History
Polish pork schnitzel is a staple of Polish dinners. This Polish food is just a pork cutlet. in a coating, dished up with potatoes (sometimes chips) and vegetables or a stewed shredded white cabbage bed. This is closely related with a schnitzel. The history of Polish kotlet schabowy dates back to the 19th century.
Ingredients
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4 medium pork chops
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¼ teaspoon garlic powder
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¼ teaspoon dried marjoram
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2 ounces plain flour
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1 egg beaten
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1 tablespoon oil
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1 tablespoon butter