Posts tagged with "cooking"

Not so Miserable Mizeria

Posted by Anna 15 Comments
Aug 23 2009

I was talking about my favorite Polish dishes the other day, and while all I could think of was “yummy” and “I’m so hungry right now”, the comment my friend made was “that name sounds absolutely miserable.”

Of course, she was referring to “mizeria”, which is definitely, hands down my most favorite Polish thing to eat. Yes, I know it’s just a side dish, but if I had my way, I’d eat it as a main course with a bit of potatoes and a slice of protein as side dishes.

Actually, until it was pointed out to me, I’ve never really made the connection between “mizeria” the food and “mizerny” the adjective.

  • mizerny (fem.: mizerna, neuter: mizerne, pl. masculine personal: mizerni, plural all others: mizerne) – poor, ill-looking, etc…


Mizeria can also be a synonym for “bieda” or “ubóstwo” (poverty). But if you hear an average Pole talk about mizeria, I guarantee you they’re talking about their favorite cucumber salad.

Because that’s what common mizeria is: cucumber slices in sour cream. With a bit of sugar, salt, pepper and dill.

Apparently, the name of the dish actually derives from the poverty of peasants back in the olden days. (hmmm… if they were so poor, then where did they get sugar and sour cream from?) But trust me, the dish itself is anything but miserable.

I don’t think there is a recipe for it. You just slice some cucumbers, mix some sour cream (I like my sour cream a bit runny) with a dash of sugar, salt, and pepper, pour over the cucumber slices, add some fresh green dill, chill it for a couple of hours and it’s ready. You can add a bit of vinegar to if you like your mizeria a little more sour.

The essential ingredient is sugar. This dish is all about being both sweet and sour and crunchy. But sadly, this is the part that many Polish-Americans forget about. I was once served mizeria (in NJ) with just plain, unflavored sour cream. Bleh… It was awful and totally miserable. Everybody knew it was awful, but still, they ate it, because to them it was a traditional Polish dish, and we all know how much Poles love their traditions.

Other Polish foods that I can’t live without are: ogórki kiszone (pickles), kapuśniak (cabbage soup), and galaretka (yes, the savory kind).
How about you? What are some of your Polish favorites?

PS> And does anyone know how to make proper ogórki kiszone from scratch?

image: wikipedia (because my mizeria never lasts long enough to take a photo).

I’m Hungry, Let’s Make Bigos

Posted by Anna 8 Comments
Jan 31 2009

I’m cold and I’m hungry and that’s always a very bad combination. And I’m not in the mood to write about grammar today.
So, let’s talk about food instead.
I found half a cabbage in the fridge (leftover from making okonomiyaki the other night) and I’ve been thinking what to do with it. I hardly ever make bigos, because my guy doesn’t like it. But he surprised me today by saying “you could make that cabbage thing, you know, the one you like and I can’t stand.” And I know he’s just trying to be nice to compensate for the fact that he left a plastic bag full of souvenirs on the floor in our hotel room in Antigua, but hey, what so I care? He told me to make bigos and that’s all that counts. I’m off to the kitchen…

Now, there isn’t one proper bigos recipe, instead there are as many as there are families in Poland. It’s one of those dishes that everybody knows and everybody has an opinion about. So, with that in mind, I’m going to share with you MY bigos recipe. No, it hasn’t been passed down for generations (my mom couldn’t make nice bigos if her life depended on it and hence avoided it like a plague), it’s entirely mine, but it’s been tested and approved by fellow Poles the world over.

So, here we go:

  • ½ kg or less (about 1 lbs) white cabbage (świeża kapusta), thinly chopped
  • ½ kg or less (about 1 lbs) sauerkraut (kiszona kapusta)
  • a couple of sausages (around ¼ kg or ½ lbs), can be polska kiełbasa, can be something else, I use chorizo and nobody can tell the difference, chopped into pieces
  • bacon, cut up into pieces, I use quite a bit, because it’s yummy (bekon, boczek or skwarki)
  • pork (hmmm… I’m estimating – around ¼ kg should be fine) chopped into pieces (wieprzowina)
  • proper bigos recipes call for veal, but I don’t use veal so I simply ignore it and add more bacon, or sausages. But if you like veal, then less then ¼ kg should be fine. (cielęcina)
  • a bunch of dried mushrooms (I use a handful, and if European mushrooms are hard to come by, I’ve been know to use dried shiitake) (grzyby suszone)
  • chopped onion (cebula)
  • tomato paste (koncentrat pomidorowy)
  • salt (sól)
  • pepper (pieprz)
  • bay leaf (liść laurowy)
  • a couple of whole grains of allspice (ziele angielskie)
  • dried juniper berries if you like (jagody jałowca)

Ok, let’s get started:
Throw all that sauerkraut into a BIG pot, pour some boiling water over it and simmer for about 1 hour.
I can’t be bothered to cook fresh cabbage separately, because that means more washing up later on, so I just dump fresh cabbage (thinly chopped) into the simmering sauerkraut and add dried mushrooms. You may have to pour some more boiling water if the mixture is too thick.
In a separate skillet cook bacon, onion, pork, sausages and then add into the cabbage pot. Add bay leaf, allspice grains, a few dried juniper berries, whatever else you like.
Cook for about 40 minutes on low heat.
If the mixture is too runny, you can thicken it with a bit of flour. I’ve never done it, because my bigos is always nice and thick.
Add some tomato paste and red wine if you like.
Simmer for a bit longer.
Taste it and see if it needs more salt, pepper, whatnot.
And voila. Ready!
Serve with nice crusty bread.

Generally, the longer you cook it, the better it is. Just be sure you don’t burn it.
The more kinds of meat in it, the yummier it is.

Smacznego! (Bon appetit!)

In the Kitchen

Posted by Anna No Comments
Nov 22 2008

Last week I went food shopping with my dad. We went to one of the Carrefours in Gdańsk. Don’t ask me which one, I don’t know, I have absolutely no sense of direction.

Anyway, while walking around that Carrefour and looking for balsamic vinegar (ocet balsamiczny), I ended up in their “foreign foods” section. And, oh dear… Take a look, because I don’t know what to say:

That “kuchnia chińska” (Chinese cuisine/food) label and stacks of Japanese products caught me off guard. Right next to sushi rice and wasabi paste, there were Thai curries and Vietnamese hot sauce. All dutifully labeled as “kuchnia chińska.” There was Malaysian sambal oelek, and Japanese soba noodles, all dumped under “kuchnia chińska.” There were surprisingly few Chinese products available, apparently due to the recent restrictions on food imports from China.

Still, wouldn’t “kuchnia azjatycka” (Asian cuisine/food) or even “kuchnia orientalna” (Oriental cuisine/food) be a better way of describing it?

“Nah,” said my dad, “if it’s to be eaten with rice, then it surely must be Chinese.” He was joking, of course. Well, was he? Apparently, that’s how the great majority of Polish people I talked to thought about Asian cooking. And they looked at me funny when I explained it’s like dumping Polish, Ukrainian, Czech, Bulgarian and other Eastern European cuisines under a common Russian label. I mean, they all eat borscht and potatoes and drink vodka, right? Same, same. “Oh, no,” my friend would answer, “it’s different in Europe.” Well, is it?

And while we ponder this contradiction, let’s take a look at the word “kuchnia.”
It’s an interesting, all purpose word in Polish.

  • kuchnia (fem., pl. kuchnie) – kitchen, as in – that room in your house/apartment where you prepare your meals. audio

But, it also can mean:

  • stove, cooker – kuchenka (a diminutive form of “kuchnia”), or
  • cooking, as in “good cooking” – dobra kuchnia, or
  • cuisine, as in “Chinese cuisine” – kuchnia chińska.

And there are a few other words derived from the same root:

  • kucharz (masc., pl. kucharze) – chef, cook (male) audio
  • kucharka (fem., pl. kucharki) – cook (female) audio
  • kuchenny – an adjective describing something to do with “kitchen,” for example: sprzęt kuchenny – kitchen equipment, or pomoc kuchenna – kitchen help. audio

But I think it’s more fun to talk about different cuisines of the world, wouldn’t you agree? So, here we go:

And now I’m totally hungry… Kuchnia koreańska (Korean food) for dinner tonight!

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