Polish Food | Finding Feasts

Polish Brined gherkins [OGÓRKI KISZONE]

Summer means that my parents have an abundance of cucumbers and gherkins. They eat the cucumbers, the gherkins, well in good Polish tradition, they pickle them or preserve them in brine – a water solution which is flavoured with salt, pepper, garlic, horseradish, mustard seeds, bay leaves and the all important dill, is left to ferment over time. You can add chilli however I am keeping to mums basic traditional recipe.

As the brine ferments they become sour in flavour and take on the spice from the garlic and pepper. Mum sometimes adds fresh horseradish if it is available.

For fresh and crunchy gherkins you can pop open your jars on about the 4th day, if you can’t wait, however for a tangy and more fermented gherkin keep them fermenting around 2 – 4 weeks where their flavour will be bold and tangy, absolutely delish! Your brine will become a little cloudy which is absolutely ok.

After you have popped the lid and are ready to enjoy, these will keep in the fridge for up to a month….not in my house tho! Gone in a matter of days. Gherkins were a staple at my families breakfast, lunch and dinner table on a weekly basis. No Sunday brunch extravaganza would be complete without these making it to the dinning table.

Smacznego!

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Polish cucumber salad – Mizeria

Polish cucumber salad – mizeria is a simple dish but crunchy cucumbers make it a perfect side dish for any hot meal.

End of last year I decided that I wanted to study nutrition and hence I enrolled in a course called Food as Medicine at Nature Care College. The first vegetable under the microscope was the humble cucumber.

Whilst learning about the nutritional benefits of this simple vegetable, childhood memories came flooding back of long Sunday lunches where mums crunchy mizeria was served as an accompaniment to the many dishes that filled our families lunch table. Did you know that a freshly sliced cucumber will lose up to 49% of its vitamin C content within the first three hours if it is left out in the fresh air! Luckily for the cucumber this dish almost disappears instantly as soon as it hits the table.

Mizeria translates to misery, however there is nothing ugly or miserable about this humble dish which traditionally consists of cucumbers, sour cream, dill and salt and pepper. Other versions call for chives as opposed to dill, sugar and vinegar or lemon. The skin is normally peeled for this salad however given that cucumber skins are high in important vitamins and minerals I keep their skins on. Cucumber skin contains silica which is said to add to the strength of our connective tissue. I think the skin also add to the colour and presentation of the dish.

On this occasion I steered away from the traditional sour cream and made mine with home made plain yogurt. Equally nice and indulgent if you ask me.

Nutritional value aside I’d be happy for a bowl of this salad with some new steamed potatoes. It’s the simple pleasures.

Smacznego! Bella

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Farm Cheese

Home made farm cheese, my first blog post for 2017! Yipee.

Actually break open the champagne and do a little dance. It’s more like the first blog post for about 8 months! For me anyway.

Without going into boring lengthy details lets just say that 2016 was a very frustrating year for Finding Feasts. Not only were there NO mushrooms to forage for but accessing our blog (no thanks to our old hosting partner) was a nightmare.

I am pleased to say that yes, we are back!

Now back to my recipe. Farm cheese or farmers cheese is something that takes me back to my childhood. Mum used to farm cheese fresh from the local deli or make it from milk that would go sour before it was boiled.

True Polish farm cheese has a white curd like texture and a slightly sour smell, it is often used for making cheese cake and our famous pierogi (take note…no ‘s’ on the end!) I am not quite sure when mum first found it at the deli here in Australia, but when she did I was in heaven, especially when she made me a plate of farm cheese pierogi, smothered in a burnt butter sauce with sprinkles of sugar and cinnamon.

I have been wanting to make my own farm cheese for a while now but didnt know how to until I cam across this recipe by fellow Polish blogger Martyna Angell from Wholesome-cooke.com. Her blog is amazing! This is her recipe.

Buttermilk is expensive at $2.70 per 600 ml, however this is my treat. I use two 600 ml cartons to produce about 500 grams of fresh farm cheese in about 2 hours.

My favourite at the very moment is fresh farm cheese on rye bread with chives.

It’s great to be back blogging!

Bella

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Szarlotka – Polish Apple Cake

Finding Feasts Szarlotka Apple Cake — Click on image for recipe

Szarlotka – Polish apple cake – If I had to make a choice between a sweet and savoury dish I would definitely choose savoury, unless a plate of my mum’s yummy apple cake otherwise known as Szarlotka was put in front of me!

Szarlotka is somewhat similar to an apple pie however the top and bottom is of a much different consistency and the apple mixture is far less sweet. Mum has also from time to time added raisins, although as a child I hated that version. Raisins were these strange unknown little brown ‘bits’ that didn’t sit well with me. The topping can vary too from a sweet short-crust pastry to a sweet crumble, very similar to an apple crumble pie.

The recipe I have posted here is one that my mum has been making for years and if challenged she could most likely make it from scratch with her eyes closed! It’s a recipe that takes me back to my childhood memories, especially the ones where I could have endless slices and not worry about the side effects like having to count the calories! Ahh those days a long gone!

Mum would always let the cake rest and cool first before serving it up, but I love it whilst its still warm and sometimes have some vanilla ice cream on the side! Equally delish the very next day, warmed up in the oven.

… enjoy

Bella

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How to make beetroot kwas or kvass

Beetroot Kvass or kwas (in Polish) – With the foodie world going crazy about fermented foods such as sauerkraut, kombucha tea, kimchi and kefir I thought it was time to pay some attention to kwas, a fermented tonic made from beetroots. Kwas is also known as Kvass, although that’s in Russian.

Fermented foods and juices are good for you but let’s quickly look at why:

They add good bacteria to the gut, and seeing as the gut makes up about 80% of your immune system that’s a pretty good reason in itself!
Fermenting foods creates more nutrients in the food whilst enhancing others
If consumed prior to your meal fermented foods will improve your digestion and allow for the absorption of nutrients
Fermented foods are high in b-vitamins, Omega-3 fatty acids and carry various strains of probiotics – much better than taking them from a jar in tablet form!

What are probiotics? They are live microorganisms such as bacteria, yeasts and fungi. Probiotics can protect against disease an boost your immune system and are essential especially is you have just gone a round or two of antibiotics.

So how does beetroot kvass fit into all of this?

Beetroot kvass has been consumed in Eastern European countries for many centuries. A common non-alcoholic drink, it was originally made from stale rye bread which gave it its colouring. This beetroot version has also been made by many households as the starter to an awesome beetroot barszcz (borscht if you are Russian).

Beetroot kwas shares similarities with kombucha tea, it is fermented in a similar way and is high in probiotics, it is also an excellent liver cleanser, rich in nutrients and fiber, high in antioxidant and anit-inflammatory properties, a perfect blood tonic! Mum and dad have been making it for as long as I can remember and drink it daily.

Best of all, it is extremely easy to make, although I did fail at my first attempt. I forgot to add the salt and sugar, key components! Simply peel your beets, add salt, sugar, juice of sauerkraut, water and ferment away. The fermentation process will depend on the time of the year and how warm your kitchen is. Do check it daily and if it starts to smell funny start again.

I typically let mine ferment away for 2-3 days, when light frothy bubbles form at the top you know your beetroot kvass is ready.

What does it taste like once ready? Sour, tangy earthy flavours.

Happy fermenting!

Bella 🙂

Bella4 Comments

Polish Stefanka cake – Honey cake

Looks good huh! It’s a Polish cake called Stefanka or Miodownik (honey cake) and yep, it’s pretty awesome.

Each school holidays Imogen and I do our usual girls road trip to Rosedale, a small holiday town on the NSW South Coast to visit Nanna and Pop. During one of my last visits I decided to make something Polish, sweet and slightly challenging, Stefanka cake it was.

Like all recipes there are many, many versions of this cake on the web, with altering ingredients, toppings and layers. The one that appealed to me the most was on my favourite Polish cooking website called, Kwestia Smaku.

The cake has the most amazing filling made from semolina, milk, butter, icing sugar and almond extract, almost a custard like texture. The chocolate topping isn’t bad either.

When I first read that it had semolina I ran a mile, you see in the cooler months mum used to make us eat a semolina style porridge as kids for breakfast and I HATED IT! No disrespect to you mum but it was bland, lumpy and gluggy, I still get shivers just thinking about it! Fast forward many, many years, add some sweetness and the semolina it is to die for! I only just had enough filling for the cake, most of it was eaten from the pot by me and Miss H.

Cake difficulty wise I would rank this about a 6 out of 10. The pressure point in this cake are the layers. The cake is meant to be quite soft and sponge like. I failed at the soft and sponge like bit, although in my defense I was using a foreign oven, so I over baked the cake layers. It was definitely 100% edible but would have been much better had the layers been a little softer, cloud like.

All in all, I am very chuffed at my first Stefanka attempt, if anything I have also learnt how to make a yummy semolina custard!

If there are any Polish fans reading this and you know where the cakes name originates from do drop me a line! I know that Stefanka or Stefania is a Polish female name, similar to Stephen in English however I am stumped why the cake has been named so!

Bella

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Napoleonki – the Polish version of Millue Feuille

FinSki's Napoleonki1 — Click on image for recipe

Desserts are not my ‘thing’, I mean I am happy to eat them but my cooking skill lie with savory food. My hubby isn’t a huge dessert fan either so I don’t particularly go out of my way to make desserts each week. The extent of dessert in our household is ensuring that we have a constant (err never ending) supply of chocolate mini magnums in the fridge for Imogen, all hell can break loose otherwise! I’m also not very good at making desserts and have had many failed attempts. Give me a mystery box of savoury ingredients and I can guarantee you that I will be able to whip something up, without a recipe. Sweet dishes are my nemesis.

If there is one thing that I admire about my mum that’s the fact that she can can whip up a Polish dessert blind folded! When I visit my parents house there is always a cake, a tort, a slice or some other sweet hiding in the fridge. I always get excited about visiting them because I know I’ll be eating wholesome good home cooked food, but then I end up leaving very full, simply because I can’t resist the temptation of sampling everything else that she has in her fridge, including the sweet stuff which always takes be back to my childhood days of living at home.

Each May I host a Mother’s Day lunch at my place and this year mum made Napoleonki which are another one of Poland’s best known desserts and share a striking similarity to the French dessert Mille Feuille, a vanilla/custard type slice also known as Napoleon.

I haven’t eaten Napoleonki for probably about 10 years and for very good reasons, one because just looking at them makes me put on about 10 kilos! Two because once I have one, I want another.

With the family luncheon finished, dessert came out and I made a bee line for the Napoleonki slice and with just one bite I was transported to my childhood days of eating desserts a plenty without a worry in the world. Days of Polish family gatherings where the tables were filled with food as far as the eye could see and laughter, banter and eating went on forever!

One of the things I love about cooking and eating, is how it can make you feel, the memories that it can create and the memories that it can bring back.

Having finished my slice I knew what I had to do next and that was to make very first Napoleonki!

So my dear friends, what’s a dish that brings your childhood memories flooding back?

Bella

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