Posts tagged w/ cooking

Not so Miserable Mizeria

Posted by Anna Ikeda
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).

 
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I’m Hungry, Let’s Make Bigos

Posted by Anna Ikeda
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!)

 
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In the Kitchen

Posted by Anna Ikeda
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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How To Make Sernik Wiedeński

Posted by Anna Ikeda
Sep
23
2008

I have no idea why sernik wiedeński (Viennese cheesecake) is called that. I couldn’t find it anywhere in Vienna, but maybe I was simply looking in wrong cafes and cake shops. So where that name came from, I am not really sure. What I am sure of is that this cheesecake is in fact very much Polish. Even though there are many other types of Polish cheesecakes, it’s sernik wiedeński that comes to most people’s minds the moment you mention cheesecake. I mean most Polish people’s minds, of course, though I am working very hard to include other nationalities, too.

So how does one make this super-fabulous cake? Supposedly, it’s super-difficult to make, at least that’s what I had been lead to believe. You see, my mom was a decent cook, her food was OK for the most part, because she stuck to the basics and never tried anything fancy. And it’s really hard to mess up meat and potatoes. Or chicken and potatoes. It worked fine for us, and if we wanted really good food, we went to grandma’s.

Things would get a lot worse when mom tried to bake. And that’s an understatement. Fortunately grandma was a killer baker, too. Yet even grandma couldn’t make a nice sernik wiedeński. And so I grew up believing that this sernik was something so extraordinarily difficult that mere mortals, like you and me, shouldn’t even dare to dream about attempting to bake it.

As any Polish cheesecake, it’s made with a special kind of cheese called “twaróg”. I don’t think you can buy twaróg anywhere outside of Poland. And what is it? You will see this word variously translated as “cottage cheese” or “quark cheese”, but in fact, it is neither. While quark is very similar to twaróg, proper Polish twaróg is much firmer and fattier. In Canada that firm type of quark cheese is known as “baking cheese.”

Oh yes, baking! So, back in the olden days, you took a lump of twaróg and your indentured servants ran it through a grinder several times to make it properly fluffy. Since these days servants are hard to come by and I don’t own a grinder, I use normal Philadelphia cream cheese. Saves me several hours of work.

I use two 300-gram packages and a little bit, which comes out neatly to three 8-oz packages. Make sure it’s the normal full fat version, because otherwise it will not work.
But before you start getting all cheesy, you need a crust. The original recipe calls for a special “kruche ciasto” (shortcrust pastry), which really, who has the time to make it these days? I make normal graham cracker crust and it works just fine. Except I use Marie biscuits, because I like them better than graham crackers.

A proper sernik wiedeński is made in a springform pan (the one with a removable bottom) but really, any old pan will do. I use a springform, but not because I’m such a traditionalist, but because I don’t own any other cake pan.

And speaking of traditional… traditionally, this sernik was made with 12 eggs. Yep. Twelve. The original recipe was obviously created in the blissfully ignorant days when cholesterol was still unknown.

I only use 4 or 5 eggs, depending on how big they are. The trickiest part in the whole sernik making process is separating the yolks and the whites. Once you’re done with that, it’s a (cheese)cake walk, really.

This is what you do:
The yolks go into a BIG bowl, the whites into a smaller bowl.
Beat the whites until they’re stiff. And I mean really stiff. (I can’t imagine how they did this in the days before electric mixers, those poor indentured servants…) When you’re done beating the whites, put them in the fridge until you’ll need them. Which will be soon.

Now I have a confession to make. I’m allergic to measuring cups. I don’t even own a set. I just add things until I either like the taste or have to throw out whatever it is that I’m making.

But to make it easy for you, I tried to measure today just how much powdered (confectioner’s) sugar (cukier puder) you’ll need. And the answer is: about 1 cup and a little bit, depending on how old and sour your cream cheese is and how sweet you like your stuff.

Add some of that powdered sugar to your egg yolks and beat them until they become white and fluffy. Start adding the cream cheese. Really, it doesn’t matter if you do it all at once, or bit by bit. I’m lazy, I do it all at once. Add some vanilla if you like; vanilla powder, vanilla extract, it’s all good.

The traditional recipe calls for orange peel, but a) I don’t like orange peel, and b) who has the time to peel, chop and gently roast that stuff, huh? Not me. The original recipe also calls for raisins. Those I do add, about a handful, which I guess would be about 1/3 cup. You can soak them in rum or bourbon, if you like. I don’t. Today I forgot to soak them even in water. It didn’t matter. Sernik turned out just fine.

Baking powder is another issue, I don’t know if it matters or not. I always add some, just in case. But then again, I add baking powder even to pancake batter, just in case, so maybe you shouldn’t take this point too seriously.

Ok, back to our cheese mixture. Dump the raisins in it, and add those stiff egg whites sitting in the fridge. And here’s the Most Important Ingredient: add a couple of spoonfuls (big!) of cream of wheat (uncooked of course). Use your mixer to mix it all nicely and pour into the pan. The mixture will be runny. Very runny. But no worries. That cream of wheat will work its magic. It will make for a wonderfully soft and mousse-like cake. I promise you!

Bake the whole thing at 350F or 175C first for about 30 minutes or until the top gets golden, then cover it with a sheet of aluminum foil and keep baking it for another 30 minutes. Then, because I’m lazy, I just turn off the oven and leave the cake there until it cools a bit. And voila. You’re done. You’ve just made an almost typical Polish cheesecake. It will be the fluffiest most amazing cheesecake you’ve ever tried. I guarantee it!

Now if you excuse me, I have some serious eating to do!

Words for today:

  • ser biały, twaróg (masc.) = white cheese
  • jajko (neuter, pl. jajka) = egg
  • żółtko (neuter, pl. żółtka) = yolk
  • białko (neuter, pl. białka) = egg white
  • cukier (masc.) = sugar
  • cukier puder (masc.) = powdered (confectioner’s, icing) sugar
  • rodzynek (masc. pl. rodzynki) = raisin
  • kaszka manna (fem.) = cream of wheat, semolina
  • proszek do pieczenia (masc.) = baking powder

PS. If you want to make it look a bit fancier, you can sprinkle some confectioner’s sugar on top when the cake is cool. Enjoy!

 
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