POLISH CUISINEMiriam O’Callaghan

4 PearlMs Cooney

National Dishes - Bigos◦ Commonly known as Hunters Stew. It is a savoury stew made mainly with meat

(pork, ham, bacon or beef), sausages, tomatoes and cabbage.◦ It is either served with mashed potato or in rye bread.

National Dishes - Zrazy◦ It is made by rolling thinly cut strips of beef together, flavoured with salt and

pepper and stuffed with vegetables, mushrooms, eggs, and potato.◦ The stuffed meat is then rolled and secured with thread. After being fried in oil for a

short period of time, the zrazy is placed in a casserole dish with celery, onion, and various spices and covered with a hot stock. It is then stewed at a low temperature.

◦ Prior to serving, the thread is removed. Zrazy is usually eaten with the sauce it was stewed in.

Common Ingredients◦Meat ( Beef, Chicken, Sausage, pork, smoked sausage)

◦ Vegetables ( Gherkins, Cucumber, Sauerkraut, Beetroot, Mushrooms, Cabbage)

◦Other ( Sour Cream, Tomato, Poppy seeds, potato)

Main Meal◦Usually eaten around 2 pm ◦ The polish main meal consists of 3 courses starting with a soup (tomato) then

moving on to an appetiser (herring in cream sauce)and then the main course.◦ The main course is usually a large serving of meat either chicken or beef and is

served with a shredded root vegetable salad and a side dish of either potato or rice.

Special Meals - Christmas◦Wigilia is the name given to the traditional Christmas eve dinner, no meat is served

at this meal.◦ To start they have stuffed dumplings which have been shallow fried. Next served is

typically fried carp or cod and apple salad. ◦ For Christmas day dinner they would have a national dish (Bigos or Zrazy), also

commonly served would be fish.◦ Both ginger bread and poppy seed cake would be popular as desert.

Special Meals – Fat Thursday◦ Fat Thursday is a catholic feast served on the last Thursday before lent starts.◦ It is a day spent eating sweets and cakes and these as not aloud to be eaten during

lent in Poland. ◦ The most common treat eaten on Fat Thursday is Polish donuts called paczki usually

filled with rose petal jam.

Bread ◦ Bread is one of the most important foods in polish cuisine. The main ingredient is

either wheat or rye. ◦ Traditional polish bread has a crunchy crust and is soft on the inside. It can be

stored for up to one week without going crumbly when cut.◦ In Poland welcoming someone with bread and salt was part of their traditional

hospitality but now this is more commonly seen on a persons wedding day when the new couple are welcomed home by their parents after the church ceremony with bread and salt.

Sample Menu

◦ Rye and smoked sausage soup◦ -----------------------

◦ Breaded pork with sautéed mushrooms◦ ------------------------

◦Honey vodka ice-cream and roasted nuts