Report from the Deep Freeze: I HEART Bigos!

Yesterday I pulled a container of bigos out of the freezer and moved it into the fridge so I could have it for lunch today. Now it's lunchtime, and I'm in heaven.

 In case you don't recall, while reporting on Polish cuisine during week #49 of my "52 Cuisines in 52 Weeks" adventure, I made a big pot of bigos filled with beef, Polish sausage, sauerkraut and mushrooms. It's addictive stuff, and I love it cold. I just put it into a pretty bowl today so it would photograph better than in the deli cup I froze it in--and out of which I was eating it while standing in the open refrigerator door when it occurred to me I should tap out a blog entry about it. If it weren't in the 90s today, I'd heat it and have it with some mashed potatoes. But it's good to know that Poland's classic "hunter stew" is not only edible straight out of the fridge, but PRIMO served cold.

And here's something I already knew but that was reinforced for me today: When you make a big batch of something with the intent of freezing part of it, and it's something you know tastes better a few days after it's made, then wait a few days after you make it before you freeze it. This way it will be at the peak of flavor when you're ready to eat it, whenever that might be.

I neglected to include a recipe in the Polish cuisine blog entry, so I'll do it now. I apologize for the oversight. While there are many ways to make bigos--and as a hunter's stew it accommodates most any sort of meat you want to chuck into it--what follows is a good basic way to make it.

 Bigos

Soak 4 ounces of dried mushrooms in warm water for between 30 minutes and an hour, until they're completely hydrated. Squeeze water out of mushrooms and set them aside (strain any remaining grit from this mushroom broth and keep the broth to make soup another time).

While the mushrooms are hydrating, dice one large onion and set aside. Cut a pound of meat(s) of your choice into bite-sized pieces, along with two Polish sausages and 6 ounces of bacon.

Melt a tablespoon of lard (I used bacon drippings, but you can use canola or vegetable oil if you must) in a large, thick pot and brown the meat, sausage and bacon. Then add in the diced onion and cook until transparent. Add the mushrooms and a pound of strained sauerkraut to the pot and enough beef broth to cover it all. Sprinkle in some caraway seeds and a tiny bit of sugar. And a splash of red wine. Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat and let simmer for about 30 minutes.

Taste to see if it might need a bit more salt (the kraut and sausages may give you as much as you want) and season with salt and black pepper as desired.

Serve hot, cold or room temperature.

Week #49 Polish

Lately Himself has been trying to eat less meat, which is nigh impossible, seeing as how he's my #1 date on these dining adventures. It's not too difficult if we're eating Asian, but Polish food is particularly heavy on meat of all kinds. As we made our way to Polka in Glendale, I wondered if the meat-and-cabbage stereotype was just that, or if there was more to this cuisine.

As expected, there was plenty of meat and cabbage on the menu. But Himself found a vegetarian plate that included pierogis, large flour dumplings filled with mashed potatoes and cheese and palushki, little white football-shaped noodles made of potato and flour. They reminded me a bit of really large spaetzle, but without the egg. There was also a generous serving of sautéed mushrooms, which provide a nice meatiness and heft to the meal. He didn't come away hungry from this meatless plate--but I'll confess, since he might not, that he did pinch a couple of bites of my beef.

I went for a trio of Polish standards, gulasz, slow-cooked beef; golabki, cabbage roll stuffed with ground beef and onion; and the same pierogis filled with potatoes and cheese. My plate included a couple of those little creamy smooth palushkis, too. Rounded out with vegetables and a bowl of tomato soup, this was a meal best eaten in preparation for a full day of work--or a really long nap.

Every time I have cabbage rolls I'm surprised all over again by how much I love them. As a child, I was okay with coleslaw, but I just didn't like cooked cabbage. My aged grand-auntie loved boiled cabbage and tried to instill in me a liking for it, but it was pretty awful stuff. The mere sight of those limp, sickly pale green leaves sent waves of revulsion rippling through me. I was happy to discover as an adult that if you roll up some tasty food inside a cabbage leaf, blanket it in a coating of tasty sauce and cook it, it can be quite, well...tasty! In Poland, cabbage is called "the king of vegetables." Considering its versatility and its ability to get people through a long, cold northern European winter, I'd say the title is well earned. It's a cold-weather-happy vegetable that can be further kept until the next harvest by pickling. That's where sauerkraut comes in.

Back home I made a whopping pot of bigos, a rich, meaty, mushroomy, krauty stew that I'm sure would have been even better if I'd slow cooked it on a cold, winter's day and luxuriated in the heat it provided for the house. Instead I faced August's triple-digit nightmare with the oven turned on. No matter. This was good stuff and worth the extra heat. I used beef, kielbasa and bacon, but from everything I've heard and read, the more types of meat you chuck into it, the better it is. And it's reputed to be its best after several reheatings. This recipe makes a generous batch, so it's easy to put this theory to the test. Himself and I will be eating on it for at least a week.

Bigos is made with sauerkraut, dried mushrooms and whatever meat is available from the hunt. In fact, the Poles call it "hunter stew," because it was carried along for sustenance during the hunt, and they'd chuck into it bits of meat from whatever they'd bagged each day. It's an all-purpose, popular meal that traditionally was made in a large quantity and kept in a wooden barrel. While it is especially popular during Lent and Christmas, it seems everyone eats bigos all the time. In fact, bigos is considered the national dish of Poland.

I'm including a photo of some pierogis from a demo of their production at the Polish Museum of America in Chicago, which has the largest concentration of Poles outside of Poland. These are so plump and lovely. We ate a lot of pierogis that day, some savory and some sweet. I'd never really thought about having sweet pierogis, but filled with lightly sweetened farmer's cheese and topped with nuts and dried fruits and drizzled with honey or a light syrup, pierogis are a good dessert as well as main course. It makes perfect sense.

Now, about that stereotype. Yes, Polish food is heavy on meat and cabbage, along with potatoes, mushrooms and milk products. These foods have been its staples for a very long time, and with good reason. Given the lack of outside influences between the end of World War II and the collapse of communism in Poland in 1989, this country has been a sort of time capsule of foods. While foods from the rest of the world--and fast foods--are available there now, they don't seem to factor into what is considered authentically Polish. Not yet, anyway.