Fermented Winter Dishes – Part 2

It looks like winter came back to Ireland, so I can continue with my listing of Fermented Food Winter Dishes. Yes, there are loads of them, and they are warming, comforting and delicious.

In the last post, I wrote about bigos and pierogi z kapustą, both being the most known internationally, I think. It has happened to me several times that a new met person, after realizing I am Polish, started to talk about bigos, usually mispronouncing it strongly, yet charmingly; for the record: we say ‘beegos’ with g like in ‘big’.

Both bigos and pierogi are rather elaborate dishes, and I am not competent enough to give you my own recipe (yet). I recommend looking at the number one (in my own ranking) Eastern European cuisine blog, where you will find very good recipes for both bigos and pierogi z kapustą.

On the other hand, I reached a certain level of competency in cooking Fermented Food based soups. Please, check my recipes for żurek (fermented rye flour soup), barszcz (fermented beetroots soup), kapuśniak (sauerkraut soup) and zupa ogórkowa (dill pickles soup).

They are not probiotic as all the bacteria are killed in the cooking process. Nonetheless, they still can be qualified as relatively healthy food, if you don’t overdo with cream and meat. Besides, they are a fabulous hangover remedy.

Another popular Polish winter dish is łazanki z kapustą. Łazanki is a kind of pasta, shaped into little flat squares. The name derives from Italian lasagna, but here all the connection with the Italian cuisine ends. Łazanki are a quintessentially Polish dish, and the most popular form of it is łazanki z kapustą i.e. łazanki with cabbage, and cabbage would usually be sauerkraut.

It’s very easy to make; you just fry sauerkraut with cubed onion and small pieces of meat (e.g. kiełbasa) and mix with cooked łazanki pasta. It’s surprisingly tasty, and some people say it is a lazy version of pierogi z kapustą.

Then we have krokiety z kapustą. These are just crepes with cooked sauerkraut filling. I find this dish a bit boring unless served with barszcz (fermented beetroots soup, remember?). Recently, I found a similar, but the much more appetising version of krokiety on one of my favourite blogs. The author calls it kapuśniaczki. Although the recipe says about fresh cabbage, it can be easily swapped for sauerkraut.

As I said, there are loads of winter dishes based on Fermented Food. However, most of them would be a variation of the ones I mention above or in the previous post.

That’s my opinion. If you disagree and know a completely different dish, please let me know!