Globecooking recipe : Metka & potatoes (Poland)

A few years ago, I went to Gdynia in Poland a couple of times on work trips and loved discovering the traditional Polish recipes and foods, including smalec, which is basically a cross between lard and pâté, zurek, a sour rye soup, and the iconic pierogis. 

I bought back some thin kabanoski sausages and also a big kielbasa and created a Polish-inspired Kielbasa, Potato & Spinach Stir-Fry. When doing the weekly shop at Lidl last week, I spotted some Polish Metka sausages and was intrigued enough to pop them in my shopping basket to see what they'd taste like. 

I had a quick google and almost put myself off, because there were several mentions of raw, fermented, smoked metka that is spread on bread like butter. I checked the label and mine were cooking metka (phew !) so I asked my Polish friends what would be a typical Polish dish using metka. They said boil them with potatoes, so that's what I did, putting them all in the same saucepan. The whole house smelt like a German delicatessen within minutes ! Cabbage is another Polish staple, and I decided the kids would be more inclined to eat it raw in coleslaw than cooked, so that was my accompaniment. And that was it !Juicy smoked sausage, crunchy coleslaw and boiled potatoes dotted with melting salted butter - cheap and cheerful comfort food that is surely the Polish equivalent of bangers and mash !

*** Don't miss my country-by-country globecooking recipe index ! ******

Fancy trying some more Polish cusine? How about these :

Bigos

Golabki

Kielbasa & Polish Coleslaw

Krupnik, Pearl Barley Soup

Makowiec (Poppyseed roll)

Pierogis #1 & Pierogis #2

Zurek - Sour Rye Soup 

Globecooking recipe : Smalec (Poland)

This month's Kitchen Trotter box is taking us on a culinary journey to Poland, a country I visited last year on a work trip. When I saw that one of the recipes was for smalec, I groaned - we tried this when we were there and weren't at all impressed. It's a kind of pâté, which we were told was a mixture of lard and pork scratchings, and it was as greasy as it sounds ! 

Here's the one we ate in Poland - admittedly, it was at an open-air event and the mass catering was not exactly gourmet ! (Click through for more of our Polish foodie adventures during our trip to Gdynia.) Having tried the recipe from the box, I can now actually say that I am a big fan, and the great dollops of lard make perfect sense when you make it right with hot bread.

The first thing to do is remove (but not throw away) the thick layer of lard on the top of the pot. It fills about the top third of the jar.

Underneath is the pâté part. Give it a stir to mix in any remaining lard.

Now, this is where all that thick layer of grease suddenly made sense. Use the lard to spread one side of your bread.

Fry the bread, lard side down, in a frying pan. When it's gone golden brown, flip over to toast the other side.

The Kitchen Trotter box also included a jar of horseradish, but we left this out as it's very hot and the kids were eating it too. A big jar of Polish gherkins is essential though !

Spread the bread with the meat part of the smalec and top with slices of gherkin.

It's definitely not a healthy recipe but it was very tasty.

*** Don't miss my country-by-country globecooking recipe index ***

If you want to try some more Polish recipes, how about  Bigos, Golabki, Kielbasa & Polish Coleslaw, Kielbasa, Potato & Spinach Fry Up, Pierogis #1 & Pierogis #2 and Zurek - Sour Rye Soup 

Revisiting Poland with this month's Kitchen Trotter box

This month's Kitchen Trotter box has just arrived and when I discovered the destination, I couldn't help but smile. You may remember that last year, I visited Gdynia in Poland on a work trip, so I am really pleased to be able to introduce the rest of the Madhouse family to some of the types of food that I tasted while over there. (Click through to my Poland label if you want to learn more about Gdynia, Gdansk, Sopot and what we got up to while we were there.)

I love this kind of box that is full of genuine exotic products with authentic labels from the countries they represent. In this box, I discovered some dried porcini mushrooms and some poppy seeds.

Some pearl barley and chocolate orange matchsticks.

Some more Polish sweets (these ones are peanut caramels), some grated horseradish (I still have the powdered horseradish from the Russian box !) and some Smalec. I tasted smalec when in Poland and we found it to be very greasy - we were told it's a mixture of bacon fat and pork scratchings so it's hardly surprising ! - but I'm willing to give it another try. I was very excited about the little gadget - a pierogi mould - because I tried pierogis in Poland and have been wanting to recreate them at home ever since !

So, which recipes are in this month's booklet?

As a starter, smalec on toast with horseradish

Porcini mushroom pierogis. (I may have to try the mashed potato and cheese ones that we tried and loved in Gdynia too.)

Krupnik, a pearl barley soup

And for dessert, Makowiec, a poppyseed roll.

I'll be back soon to share the recipes with you, but if you're already in the mood for Polish food, you might like to try my recipes for Bigos, Golabki, Kielbasa & Polish Coleslaw, Kielbasa, Potato & Spinach Fry Up, Pierogis #1 & Pierogis #2 and Zurek - Sour Rye Soup 

*** Don't miss my country-by-country globecooking recipe index ! ***

Poland diaries : A Taste of Poland

Over the last couple of weeks, I've been telling you all about my recent work trip to Gdynia in Poland. I decided to complete my Polish diary with a round-up of some of the foods that we encountered during our trip that don't need (or deserve !) a recipe post all for themselves. (Don't miss my Polish recipes for Pierogi, Zurek, Bigos, Golabki and Kielbasa with Polish coleslaw though, as they're well worth trying.) This cake, made by one of the Polish delegates for our official meeting with the mayor, sums up the whole trip because it features the Sport Evolution logo and the whole partnership was based on using sport as a vector of integration (for disabled people, children, elderly people, women, etc).

When we walked past this ice cream shack, I laughed and said "I bet the ice creams are nowhere near that big in real life". Then we saw some customers eating them and they were ! Polish people must be so disappointed when they buy an ice cream abroad !

All of the restaurants we ate in had jugs of iced water on the tables with slices of citrus fruits (orange lemon, lime or a mixture of all three) and some sprigs of mint in them. This was a really refreshing and palate-cleansing drink.

The pierogi restaurant had another alternative - mint and cucumber which was a lovely summery option. These make a great alternative to fizzy or sugary drinks for the kids too.

On the final day, we discovered this lovely old-fashioned grocery store.The shelves were lined with boxes and packets and across the counters were big jars of everything from sugar, coffee and rice to sweets and flour, that you could buy by weight.

Even in the big supermarket I visited, I was surprised to see loose frozen vegetables and frozen chips for you to buy by weight too.

We ate lots and lots of soup, my favourite of which was a rich, sweet tomato soup that we had in several places, always topped with a handful of leaves (rocket, basil or coriander).

This was another traditional soup with a kielbasa sausage in it. On the side is something we found less palatable - Smalec, which is a mix of lard and pork scratchings to be spread on bread. Yes, it is as greasy as it sounds ! Luckily the big gherkins were there to help it down !

On this plateful of food is a piece of salmon topped with wilted spinach and the curds cheese that we saw everywhere, including for breakfast and in pierogi.

I couldn't resist snapping a photo of this display of cakes in a traditional bakery - I'll have to look up some of the recipes.

The rye breads at the back are delicious - they were lovely slathered in butter and homemade strawberry jam at our guest house.

Our parting gift was a bottle of plum liqueur and a bottle of rye sour, for making zurek soup.

I also brought back some kielbasa, the most famous Polish sausage.

Along with some Kabanoski, skinny chicken sausages, which were equally delicious, even if Juliette quite rightly commented that they look like dogs' rawhide chewsticks !

Are there any other Polish foods or recipes I should know about?

*** Don't miss my country-by-country globecooking recipe index ! ***

Globecooking recipe : Recreating zurek (Poland)

Our leaving present when we came home from Poland last week was a bottle of plum liqueur and a bottle of rye sour, the soup base for making zurek, the soup that we had sampled in the pirate ship restaurant in Gdynia. I couldn't wait to try a homemade version and I made a few tweaks - it worked really well. The original recipe that I shared tells you how to make the rye sour from scratch (it's basically just flour and water that is left to ferment for a few days). The bottled version is a handy shortcut though.

My version of zurek

ingredients :

root veg (2 parsnips, 2 carrots, 2 celery stalks)

2 onions

2 large potatoes

2 bay leaves

garlic pepper, black onion seeds, smoked paprika

a bottle of rye sour (or make your own)

kielbasa (Polish sausage)

hard-boiled eggs (optional)

Put the peeled and chopped (or frozen) root veg on to boil. The original recipe says to use these to create stock then throw them away, but that seemed like a waste to me so I decided to leave them in the finished soup. I'd say it's even better than the original.

Meanwhile hardboil some eggs (one per person).

Scrub (but don't peel) and chop the potatoes. Peel and chop the onions.

Throw the potatoes and onions into the pot. Season with the herbs and spices. Pour in the rye sour. (Make sure you shake well so that the flour doesn't stay at the bottom. It smells/tastes a bit yeasty/vinegary rather than sour and is what gives zurek its unmistakable flavour.)

Leave to simmer for about 15 minutes until the potatoes start to get soft (but are not completely cooked). Chop the kielbasa and add to the pot. Top up with water if necessary.

Leave to simmer for about 20 minutes until the soup has thickened and the potatoes are totally cooked through.

Peel and halve the boiled eggs and put them in the bottom of the soup bowls.

Pour the soup on top of the eggs. It's a really hearty soup so you probably won't need bread with it, but if you do want some, rye bread would be the perfect accompaniment.

*** Don't miss my country-by-country globecooking recipe index ! ***

Fancy trying out some more Polish cuisine? How about Bigos,Pierogi, Zurek, Golabki or Kielbasa, Spinach & Potato Fry Up?

Poland diaries : Museum of Emigration, Gdynia

From looking at my recent blogposts about our work trip to Poland, you'd be forgiven for thinking we didn't actually do much work ! I've told you all about visiting Sopot, going sailing and discovering Gdynia's hotspots, including a rather fabulous pierogi restaurant. We did have lots of work meetings too, but I didn't think they'd make for very interesting blogposts ! Well, there was one final place for us to visit in Gdynia - the brand spanking new Museum of Emigration, which had only been open for a couple of weeks.

The concept seemed a bit strange initially - having visited Ellis Island in New York, I'd seen how interesting and poignant a museum of immigration could be, but how would they cover emigration? Surely once the people have left the country, all links to Poland have gone ? Well, it's actually brilliantly done, managing to cover the history of Poland and the reasons for the waves of emigration (both forced and voluntary), as well as the conditions during emigration (on the Titanic for instance), the new Polish communities across the globe and famous Polish expats in world history, including Jimmy Carter's National Security Advisor and Pope John Paul II. Everything is explained in Polish and English and I learnt an awful lot in a fairly short visit.

But our first stop was the very swish restaurant for lunch. The food was amazing, the decor is very posh and the views across the harbour are fabulous and constantly changing. We had a rich tomato soup topped with rocket and parmesan as a starter, the freshest, juiciest fish I think I've ever tasted, with buttery new potatoes and green beans, followed by a tiramisu for dessert (that was what they called it but I was relieved to see it had a chocolate, rather than coffee, taste.) I was stunned to see such a high quality restaurant in a museum.

Gdynia is a naval port so we had a view of the military ships in the dock, as well as several smaller boats and big container ships passing by from time to time.

We even saw the ubiquitous pirate ship - I'm sure it's following us !

The museum is housed in a marine station, the converted terminal of the ocean liners - very apt ! - so it has some great industrial architectural features. In the restaurant, if you head over to the huge windows to take full advantage of the sea view, you walk across reinforced glass panels that give you a view down through the steel girders to the ground below. A real walk of faith !

Time to investigate the museum. We headed out of the restaurant onto a big balcony running around the edges of the entrance hall. This is just like Ellis Island, where the immigration officials had their first look at the new arrivals as they streamed into the hall below and already checked out who they didn't want coming into America, if they looked sick or mentally or physically disabled.

There is a huge wall where many of the major towns that Polish emigrants settled in have been carved.

There is a surprising array of cities and countries : Paris, Dublin, Melbourne, Hamburg, Liverpool, Edinburgh, Deroit, ...

As well as numerous photographic displays and written descriptions, the museum offers a small number of reconstructions, such as this Polish peasant's hut ...

... or the sleeping conditions on the lowest, third class deck of ocean liner MS Batory, very similar to those on the Titanic, which is also mentioned.

It's a great way of getting a feel for life across the globe at different periods in time, such as World War II and its aftermath, the Communist years, the start of industrialisation ... I loved discovering this cute but probably pretty useless car, the Polski Fiat. Our Polish translator laughed because her brother used to have one when she was a child !

As we headed outside to regroup and take in the seaviews one final time, we witnessed a pretty surreal sight - a military submarine suddenly resurfacing in the harbour in front of us !