Sunday Breakfast

I just couldn't be any happier! I can officially announce that I managed to revive my grandma's recipe for Poppy Seed Buns, Polish popular sweet breakfast rolls which everyone in the country calls "drozdzowki z makiem". I was going through old recipes kept in the family for years, then suddenly got a burst of inspiration and a sense of warmth in my heart. I am not sure if this is only me, but very often smell and taste of what I eat can literally instantly bring me back memories of emotions I had when I first tried the food. And I absolutely and positively love the feeling when it brings great memories from my childhood!

I do not know what my and my kids' mornings would be like, if  my grandma did not just once baked these goodies, filling my and my sisters' noses with the most amazing scent of freshly baked drozdzowki. Back in Poland they are traditionally served for breakfast and are best freshly baked, so don’t  even try to save them – eat them up immediately! lol

So here it is, my perfect Sunday Breakfast. Something lovely to eat on lazy morning. A trademark and an old beloved tradition. Homemade Polish Poppy Seed Rolls accompanied by a glass of milk. Exactly how I remember from being a kid. If there are any readers of Polish descent - Is this is how you ate them too? I am genuinely interested to know!

I do hope it inspired you to have a bite. When in Poland you certainly can try them out in any bakery and patisserie or... you can simply start baking them at your kitchen. Freshly baked buns in the morning? Oh, why not. Making them is really not as hard as it may feel. It takes just under 2 hours and makes 12 buns which is my family's daily supply lol. Yes, it is a quite long-winded process, though everyone agrees it is worth the hassle. Smacznego!

A world-renowned "Gyros" salad (a 15-minute recipe)

We all know "Caesar", now it's time to introduce you to "Gyros" lol. One of the most famous Polish salad recipes of all time, a nice chicken and veg combination. There is no extraordinary story behind how I was introduced to this recipe. The salad was simply made by my lovely sister, Domi, who wanted to treat us with something fresh, healthy and hearty at the same time. Ever since then this recipe has been a hit in our house for years and it still steals my friends' hearts away each time they attend our dinners or parties.  I guarantee it will be loved by everyone regardless their personal taste and acquaitance with Polish cuisine. 

Ingredients:

1 can sweet corn
1 large onion, finely chopped
1 large chicken breast, diced
4-5 gherkins, finely chopped
1 head iceberg lettuce, chopped
Gyros seasoning (available in all Polish supermarkets for about £0.49)
1/2 cup mayonnaise
1/4 cup ketchup

Preparation time: 15 minutes

Preparation steps:

Place chicken breast in a frying pan and sprinkle it evenly with gyros seasoning. Fry it. In a medium bowl place fried chicken pieces and cover with ketchup. This would be a very first layer of your salad. The order of ingredients makes the difference in taste so make sure you put layers as follows:

*chicken breast
*ketchup
*onions
*gherkins
*sweet corn
*mayonnaise
*lettuce

All ready to eat! Healthy and easy to make. Great for any occasion. My favourite serving suggestion?? Accompanied by a fair portion of French fries :)

Polish food tastes so good! - Meatballs with tomato-garlic sauce

This is one of those quick, easy and comfortable traditional dishes that every Polish lady of the house is very proud to serve! :) The benefit of it is the fact that you can modify the recipe in many ways and it always tastes so good. Today I will give you the traditional recipe with a tiny bit of modern twist. My only modification to my mum's original recipe was fortifying a sauce with an extra garlic and a scallop of natural yogurt. Other than that, the taste of it is exactly the same as I remember from being a kid.  

Ingredients:

For the meatballs:

500g minced pork
1 free-range egg
2-3 tea spoons freshly chopped or dry herbs to season (like marjoram, basil, salt and freshly ground black pepper)
1-2 table spoons bread crumbs

For the tomato-garlic sauce:

1 can tomatoes
2-3 fresh tomatoes (prior to chopping leave them in hot water for 10 minutes, then peel the skin off)
1 tea spoon of tomato paste (optional)
2-3 garlic cloves, crushed
salt and freshly ground black pepper according to your taste
1 medium onion
1 table spoon olive oil
fresh coriander

Preparation method:

1. In a bowl, mix the minced pork with herbs, beaten egg and bread crumbs. Make sure the mixture is nice and smooth. Season it with salt and pepper then place it in a fridge for about 10 mins.

2. Meanwhile, make the tomato-garlic sauce. Heat the olive oil in a saucepan, add the chopped onion and sweat on a gentle heat until soft

3. Add the canned tomatoes, empty can fill in half with water and add it to the sauce too.

4. Chop fresh peeled tomatoes and add it to the sauce together with crushed garlic and sauteed onion. Season it with salt and freshly ground pepper.

5. Cook it all covered for about 10-15 minutes until tomatoes soften and the sauce gets its right texture. You may need to use a hand blender to make it nice and smooth.

6. Keep making small round meatballs and place them in a sauce. Sweat covered for another 15-20 minutes on a very gentle heat until meatballs are cooked.

7. Evenly top with a fresh coriander. Serve hot with potato puree, plain rice or pasta (optionally a scallop of natural Greek yogurt). Tastes like heaven and it looks like million dollars to me! lol

Pictures prove it! Enjoy!

Blooming Tea

I thought I knew everything about drinking tea the Polish way and there was no way I could be taken aback by any novelties. Well, I was wrong.

As there are always plenty of tea worthy situations in my life, I see my friend around a nice cup of tea on a regular basis. This time, she was inviting for a blooming tea...

Never before I have heard about or tried blooming tea plus I got to know that its popularity in Poland is growing incredibly quick - I had to investigate the subject thoroughly lol. So, as I found out, the flowering tea is actually a Chinese invention. Somebody's skillful hands wrapped tea leaves around freshly dried flower to make a little tea ball like this:

There is nothing rather interesting about the tea ball itself, but the brewing process is truly spectacular! It all unfurls when hot water is added showing the wonderful flowering process. 

How to brew:

• Place a tea bloom in a transparent glass so you can properly see how it's blossoming
• add boiling water and brew for 3-5 minutes depending on how strong you want it to be. See what I got!

As this post is more about watching than reading I am going to be brief. I agree with blooming tea fans: having this tea is not only a real spectacle for your eyeballs but a treat to the taste buds too. It is fresh, fragrant, delicate in flavour, healthy and calms the mind. Each hand tied tea bloom is individually wrapped so stays fresh and storing is not an issue.

It is easily accessible on the internet (ebay sells them too). Tea balls can be mixed and matched and there are so many different types to choose from. Each combination of tea leaves and flowers has different benefits ranging from detoxification, whitening skin, invigorating circulation of blood, helping to digest to eliminating the tension and many more. I have got spare 2 tea balls. If anyone would like to try it out for yourself, drop me a quick email. I am happy to post!

To read more about the legend and art of blooming tea, visit http://www.teavana.com/tea-info/the-art-of-blooming-tea.

Indulge with fine food and a glass of śliwowica...

Yes, there are places in this world where dreams of tasting real food are still alive. The region of Łącko in Lesser Poland is remarkably recommended as one of those magic corners where you can explore the very best that this nation, and beyond, has to offer.

This small village comes as a surprise, tucked under a lone hill, with the adjoining plum and apple orchards which seem to become an inseparable landscape feature. Not many would come expecting to be connected to the most uncommon food experiences and local producers you can find here in every corner. But, that's exactly how it is. 

Yet again, with many thanks to Kamil Bankowski, the author of the photographs, who kindly agreed for them to be published on this site. For more photographs by Kamil visit his official website: www.irart.pl. 

The local people take pride in canning, freezing, drying and preserving the harvest as well as distilling a local plum brandy, called śliwowica łącka (literally slivovitz from Łącko). We are talking here about 70% of pure alcohol so you would have to have nerves of steel to try it out! Quoting local tasters, "it is very refreshing"! lol

Śliwowica łącka has been distilled in Łącko since at least 17th century and due to its characteristic and distincive flavour it has already made a sensation inside and outside of Poland! I would not called it a cheap and ordinary spirit that you drink in large amount! As it is produced with such a great care and attention, it gets people all around the world to taste it with zestful pleasure! A small shot of it after dinner is all you need!

If you feel like trying it out for yourself, 200ml bottles of śliwowica łącka are now available to buy at Krzysztof Mauer's shop in Zabrzeż. Soon, there will join in another 12 types of high-proof spirits including an apple brandy, cherry brandy, black currant brandy, raspberry brandy, pear brandy and any other fruit brandy you can think of!

Those who know the subject may fancy reading the latest article in "Sądeczanin" online newspaper:

http://www.sadeczanin.info/wiadomosci,5/to-hit-sezonu-w-gminie-lacko-zalegalizowali-sliwowice,40021#.Ukh49dKmiOI

Polish Doughnuts to die for!

As winter is coming, I decided to put these nice spongy Polish doughnuts back to our menu immediately! They are traditionally served on Fat Thursday (or Shrove Thursday) but since I have such a sweet tooth, I am in the mood to make them slightly more often than only once a year! lol I have no doubt you will enjoy them with a morning coffee. They are simply fresh and soft, not too sweet and great for busy bees as all you need is 30 minutes of your time!

Ingredients:

500g plain flour
300g curd cheese
100g butter
200g caster sugar
2 eggs
2 teaspoons baking powder
15g vanilla sugar
(icing sugar for dusting, oil for cooking)

Preparation:

1. Mix flour with baking powder then add butter. Using a knife, cut the fat into small lumps then begin cutting them into the flour. Keep going until it's fairly blended.
2. Add remaining ingredients and gradually blend into a smooth dough.
3. Place the dough onto a lightly floured surface and roll it out fairly thick. Start cutting with a glass to get circles. Using a shot glass cut smaller circles inside your circles.
4. Heat the oil in a deep-fat fryer or a heavy-bottomed pan.
5. Fry on each side until golden brown (they get brown very quickly)
6. Pat dry on kitchen paper and sprinkle with icing sugar

Tips:

* butter has to be at room temperature and soft enough to be easily cut with a knife. If it is too cold, you end up kneading the dough twice as long

* make sure your dough is soft and sort of rubbery. If it is too hard, add a little lukewarm water and knead again until you get the right texture. Otherwise, your doughnuts will turn out rock hard (I am talking from experience :)) 

* use leftovers: fry spare small circles in order to get bite-size doughnuts

Smacznego! x

Seasonality & Freshness. A word about Polish cuisine

If you are about to try traditional Polish cuisine, you'd better forget about counting calories! Typical Polish meals as such are notorious for being very meaty and hearty with lots of potatoes, beetroots, gherkins, cabbage, bread, sausage and... a shot of vodka to help it all digest! lol However, the style of cooking is still evolving, it is truth that we mostly reach for soups, large meat portions and sweet desserts. 

I bet some of you wonder how Poles manage to keep their fine figures without paying too much attention to calories... Here's the secret.

It took me a while to think how to fully define Polish cuisine and I think the word that says it all is SEASONALITY. There are four proper seasons in Poland which appear in the following cycle: a soaking wet autumn, bitter cold winter, rainy spring and scorching hot summer and no wonder these changes, to such a great extend, determine what we eat. To give you an idea how it works I will give you a quick example. During hot summer Poles mainly stick to seasonal veg soups, summer fruits cocktails and hectolitres of fizzy drinks, while in winter we opt for larger portions of more calorific and stodgy food (potato rules!!! lol). To face the cold body requires more fat then naturally burns it in the heat. At least that's my theory :) 

Another distinctive feature of Polish food is its FRESHNESS. However big and stodgy portions are, they are always made of organic, locally grown and fresh ingredients! And even though many of our traditional dishes are often demanding in preparation, we allow ourselves taking time in cooking and enjoying the meal. So as you can see, every dish is home-made and 100% fresh! 

Again, many thanks to Kamil Bankowski, the author of the photograph, who kindly agreed for it to be published on this site. For more photographs by Kamil visit his official website: www.irart.pl. 

Out of spite, I am going to say: Polish cuisine does not have to be boring! There are tones of exciting recipes (unknown to the rest of the world) that are quick to make, easy on the wallet and super tasty! I will keep you posted! x

Celebrating Polish Food - Pierogi

You can't talk about Polish cuisine without mentioning Potato-Cheese Pierogi or "Pierogi Ruskie". Pierogi are Polish stuffed dumplings, a little like Italian ravioli or Asian samosa, though boiled rather than steamed or fried. Traditionally, pierogi ruskie are served with caramelized onion, bacon fried pieces or a dollop of sour cream. I wouldn't say they are hard to make, but rather time consuming. However, anyone who decides to try this for themselves would agree they are worth the hassle. As I was making them today I thought it is a great opportunity to share the recipe with you. Again, you can stuff them with a filling of your choice: potato and soft cheese, meat, sourkraut and mushroom, soft cheese and spinach, lentils etc. You may also like sweet versions of them: soft cheese pierogi, pierogi filled with fresh strawberries, blueberries, plums or apples. As you can see there is a plenty of choice. Today I decided to make traditional pierogi.

Potato-Cheese Pierogi (my mum's recipe)

serves 6

Preparation Time: 45 min
Cook Time: 15 min

Ingredients:

Dough:
2-3 cups of all-purpose flour
1 egg
1 cup of lukewarm water

Filling:
500g boiled, mashed potatoes
200g dry curd cheese
1 finely chopped onion sauteed in a little bit of vegetable oil
salt and pepper to taste
1 teaspoon herb pepper (optional)

Note:

These are polish products I used (all easily available in Polish shops):

• maka poznanska (flour) costs £0.69
• twarog poltlusty (cottage cheese) - £0.99
• pieprz ziolowy (herb pepper) -£0.39

Preparation:

1. Mix mashed potatoes with sauteed onion and cottage cheese until smooth. Season to taste, mix it and put aside. I add herb pepper for better result. The filling is ready.

2. Place two cups of flour in a large bowl, break the egg into it and add a little bit of lukewarm water. Start kneading the dough adding a little water and flour at a time. Make sure water is neither hot nor cold, it has to be lukewarm, otherwise the dough will get hard. Don't worry if dough seems to be loose or sticky, keep adding a little flour when necessary. It should end up soft  and sort of rubbery. 

3. Now cutting. Place a half of the dough on floured work surface, then roll it out thinly and start cutting with a glass to get circles. Using a teaspoon place a portion of the filling into the centre of each circle. Then fold dough in half and pinch edges together so that the filling is locked inside. Repeat with remaining circles and another half of the dough.

4. Sprinkle a kitchen towel with flour and place stuffed pierogi on it. In the meantime bring water to boil (it's best to use a large pot so you can boil about 8-10 pierogi at a time). Drop in pierogi into boiling water, reduce the heat. When pierogi rise to the surface, let them simmer for about 3-5 minutes. Remove one to taste if they are ready (the dough should be soft). If you are with them, remove all pierogi with a slotted spoon to a strainer and rinse with a little of cold water. 

5. Serve warm with caramelized onion, fried bacon or sour cream.

PS. It may not be to everyone's taste, but I recommend you to also try them slightly sizzled in a tiny bit of vegetable oil or butter. You will get this nice, crunchy skin! Smacznego!

The making of... Polish Sweet Cream Cheese Pancakes

I am very excited to share this recipe with you hoping it will inspire you to try Polish cuisine. "Nalesniki z serem" is a very popular dish in Poland, definitely one of my favourites. Nice, fluffy pancakes wrapped around with rich sweet cheese filling is what I Iove treating myself with on lazy morning... Smells divinely. Tastes equally good. It is a great breakfast option or an alternative to a sophisticated dessert. If you like New York Cheesecake, you will quickly become a fan of Polish pancakes. Simple enough recipe with all ingredients you easily find in your fridge. So, why wait for a Pancake Day? Let's get them done now!

Ingredients:

For the pancake mixture:

• 200g plain flour
  
  300ml milk
• 1 table spoon sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 tea spoon bicarbonate of soda

For the filling:

• 100g curd cheese (you can get it in Polish shop for £0.99) 
• 1 table spoon sugar
• 1 egg
• 15g vanilla sugar
• 
  

To serve (optional):

whipped cream or vanilla ice-cream

fresh or canned fruits (I like pineapple or peaches but you can also serve them sprinkled with icing sugar, fresh raspberries, blueberries or strawberries)

dark chocolate

Tip: if you happen not to have curd cheese, a Philadelphia will do.

Preparation method:

Put all ingredients into a bowl then begin whisking until all lumps disappear. Add milk and flour until it is smooth, with consistency of thick cream. Start making pancakes as you would normally do using butter or a bit of oil. Stack them as you make them. Spread each of them with cottage cheese filling, fold in half, then in half again to form triangles, or else simply roll them up. Basically, they are ready to eat but what I like is an upgraded version of them: get the pan really hot, coat it with butter, then place 4 pancakes each time and fry on each side for 2-3 minutes until tinged gold. Serve hot with whipped cream/vanilla ice-cream and fruits of your choice. 

As we say in Poland: Smacznego! 

Unlike Brits, Poles have pancakes when they like them. Making them is not restricted to any particular day of the year. You can also find them in Polish restaurants menu. I am planning to come back soon with a savory version which I hope you will also like. What I like about pancakes is that you can serve them in tones of different ways, always achieviening success. You can spread them with sweet cream cheese filling, strawberry jam, apple mousse, wild mushroom filling, bacon and grated cheese... The list is endless. I hope you managed to try them and you fell in love.