Sausage and Gnocchi Soup

Comforting winter warming food is perfect as it seems to have gotten colder these weeks. So for a weeknight quick and simple hug in a bowl, I present you my version of sausage and gnocchi soup. I used Polish sausage in this recipe but any sausages will do. If you have one of those British sausages, do fry them first as you would normally or if you are too lazy to do that, just remove the casing and make them into little meatballs. Cooking is so flexible and fun, there is no need to follow recipes by the point so whatever you have, use it. Even leftover Sunday roast or duck from yesterday’s Chinese takeaway will be great in this gnocchi soup. Also, gnocchi can be replaced with any other types of pasta or dumpling too.

Sausage and Gnocchi Soup

Adapted from Very Culinary
Serves 4

Ingredients:

• 2 tbs olive oil
• 1 onion (finely chopped)
• 3 cloves garlic (minced)
• 340g Polish sausage, diagonally sliced (I used )
• 1L water
• 2 chicken bouillon
• 3 carrots (cubed)
• 6 juniper berries (bruised)
• 2 tsp dried marjoram
• 1 tsp paprika
• 500g ready made fresh gnocchi
• 130g spinach
• sliced chilli for garnish
• salt and pepper to taste

Method:

1.  Heat oil over medium saucepan or pot and sweat onions until soft and translucent then sauté the garlic until fragrant.

2.  Add the sliced sausages and slightly colour both sides then add the carrot cubes and juniper berries.

3.  Pour in water and let boil. Then add the chicken bouillon, marjoram and paprika and let simmer for 15-20 minutes.

4.  On a separate pan, pan fry the gnocchi to crisp up the outer layer on both sides (optional) and portion them into bowls.

5.  Wilt the spinach in the hot soup, season with salt/pepper and ladle soup over the gnocchi.

6.  Garnish with sliced chillies and serve.

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2 hours train for dinner at Restauracja Opera | Szczecin

The Opera Restaurant formerly known as the Kuncu Corridor is situated on the beautiful Pomeranian Dukes' Castle ground. The castle was rebuilt after war and has since became the administrative and cultural institute aimed to promote artistic events. The first time I visited, there was a concert going on and we were not allowed to visit but was lucky enough to be let through later on for a quick browse since M told the guards that I came from very far away and it would be ashamed not to be able to see the beautiful architecture. It is obvious I am not European. I am really glad they were nice enough to let us through so we managed to experience the very romantic space especially with the lovely live music playing.

The Pomeranian Dukes' Castle (photo courtesy of Marcin Bauer)

In the square of The Pomeranian Dukes' Castle (photo courtesy of Marcin Bauer)

Look who's happy!! (photo courtesy of Marcin Bauer)

At the restaurant entrance (photo courtesy of Marcin Bauer)

This time back in Szczecin after a 2 hours train ride from Berlin and a short rest, it was a real blessing to be back on the castle grounds and dine in the restaurant for a combine catch up with some mates and my birthday dinner. The interior has Gothic vaults and walls styled by one of the best Polish designers Ryszard Kaja. The restaurant has quite an intimate space and has live piano and jazz music from Thursdays to Saturdays. Food here has won several awards for its Polish cuisine

Marynowana plers kurczaka w miodzie drahimskimi i kremie balsamicznym podowana

Chicken with skin wedges in balsamic cream and potatoes

Szynka z dzika po polsku - 3 dni przed podeniem marynowana w winie i korzeniach podawana z clemnym sosem i ziemniakami

Roasted ham of wild boar (marinated in wine for 3 days) served with dark sauce and potatoes were very tender and tasty

Blust kaczy duscony w wermucie, podawany z sosem sliwkowym z dodatkiem mlodu drahimskiego z kluseczkami

Duck breast in plum sauce was perfectly cooked

Moist baked halibut with cherry tomatoes

Apple pie and ice cream with a candle!! :) (photo courtesy of Marcin Bauer)

I would really recommend this restaurant for its ambience, good food and good service.

Restauracja Opera
(Formerly the Kuncu Corridor)
70-540 Szczecin
Pomeranian Dukes' Castle
Street. Corsair 34

70-540 Szczecin
Zamek Książąt Pomorskich
ul. Korsarzy 34

Tel: (+48) 601 732 300, (+48) 91 434 17 10 

Open daily from 11:00-23:00

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Learn Polish Language in 4 weeks

I have been telling myself that I need to improve on my French after the course I did a few years back. Besides loving French patisserie and food, I really think the language itself is beautiful. For example, crème patissiere sounds more elegant than pastry cream or custard, and French music seems to put me in a good mood. With all these very good reasons, I signed up for French beginner's course at Institut Français. Although I did learn some French after the course, I realised that even after paying through my nose for supposedly one of the best professionally taught French courses in London, I was still unable to structure a sentence properly and have a simple conversation in French. I am not saying that the course was bad. It was a good course, but I find it less effective for me.

FOUR WEEKS CHALLENGE

Recently, some friends came up with the idea of a 'Four Week Challenge'. The key to this is to learn a skill smartly and efficiently in four weeks. Of course, four weeks will not get us to an advance level of whatever each of us are trying to learn, but we have to set a learning plan and goal we would like to achieve in four weeks and work towards it.

"Set a goal and work towards it."

WHAT AM I LEARNING

After an introduction about wanting to improve my French, I will be taking up Polish language instead. You must be thinking why am I learning Polish instead of brushing up my French, one with which I have some basics already. I would like to use this challenge to learn a language from scratch and experiment with it. If this plan is successful, I can apply it to any other languages.

"My challenge is to learn Polish in four weeks."

MOTIVATION

I have a good reason to learn Polish cause my boyfriend is Polish and his mum does not speak English. Although I do not see her that often, it is still nice to be able to converse. We tried communicating with each other over tea but to no avail,  hand gestures was not very helpful. We ended up flipping through a Polish-English dictionary to communicate. It was a really funny experience but I hope that will be last of our dictionary word pointing conversation.

"... to communicate without having to flip through dual Polish-English dictionary over tea."

WHAT IS MY GOAL

At the moment, the extend of my Polish saying Happy Birthday, Good Morning, Good Evening, How are you, Thank you and Goodbye. So that's pretty much all I know. Oh actually, I know 'Dzik' is 'wild boar' and that 'Jestem głodna' is 'I am hungry' in Polish. That las sentence is very helpful indeed. At the end of the first four weeks, I would like to be able to:

• construct sentences and have simple conversation in Polish
• read and understand a Polish food blog and to cook from the recipes

The reason why I chose food as part of my goal is because I love food and that I write a food blog, so this is something I am passionate about and that I can relate to. Personally, I think linking goals to something that we are passionate about, will excite us more and will assist in a excelling at a quicker pace. This will make learning more efficient.

"The goal is to read and understand Polish food blog and cook from the recipes. In 3 months time, the target is to be able to write a dual language blog post about Polish food."

HOW TO ACHIEVE MY GOAL

The learning plan is very important in achieving your goal so spend some time in structuring the plan. In this instance, my plan will be to:

listen to Michel Thomas's audiobook

• The Michel Thomas Method is a very effective way of learning language with no books, no writing and no memorising
• I first came across this through recommendation of Jakub, a fellow 'four weeks challenge' participant

• increase Polish vocabulary
  
  Start with the 100 most common Polish words list
  
  • Use applications such as Flashcards+ or Quizlet to assist in remembering vocabulary

make new sentences in Polish everyday

• It will be useful to construct sentences you use daily
  
  • Write a list of topics and construct about 5 to 10 sentences on one topic each day

"Come learn Polish with me or follow my progress here. If you are interested in tracking the progress and challenges of other participants, check out the 'Four Weeks Challenge blog'."

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Bigos (Hunter's Stew)

M is always raving about Bigos and he has it every Christmas morning. Since we will be up in the sky on Christmas eve, making our way to Mumbai for a friend's wedding, we will have to have plane food for Christmas. So I volunteered to make Bigos for my darling dearest as an early Polish style Christmas celebration. The sound of cooking Bigos for the first time is daunting. This is one of the most popular food in Poland, also M’s favourite food of all time. What is more intimidating is that he absolutely loves the one his grandmother makes. He thinks it is the best in the world, like many of us think that our nan is the best cook in the entire universe. So how can a Malaysian girl who only had Bigos twice in her lifetime make 'The Best Bigos' ? Well, I took up this challenge and used my instincts to make an amazing Bigos M will also love after his nan and mum’s version. I don’t mind coming third when it comes to Bigos as long as I am his favourite woman under the age of fifty.

For those of you who does not know what Bigos is, it is known as Hunter’s Stew. I am not sure why it is called the Hunter’s Stew. I can't seem to be able to find information of how Bigos came about, other than it was introduced to Poland by a Lithuanian Duke who became the King of Poland in 1385. It was said that he served it to his hunting-party guests.

My rationalisation is that during the stone age, men were hunters and women stayed home to cook. So Polish men came home to their wives and children with lots of animals from their successful hunt. The families were blessed with overwhelming meat supply, the Polish women created this stew that uses up these meat from the hunt and spices they had nearby. There is a mixture of all types of meat and is cooked in a big pot for many hours until the meat fall off its bones. Since it was a big pot of Bigos, there tend to be leftovers and the pot will be left outside in the natural freezer to be reheated the next day. The stew tastes better the more they are cooked so the fifth day of chilling and reheating the stew makes it burst with big hearty meaty flavour. Again, this is just my reasoning and I shall share with you the exact facts about Bigos once I find out from a trust-able source. For now, I hope my made up story will keep you entertained.

This stew is perfect for the cold winter; warm and hearty, piping hot and lots of meat to provide energy to keep warm in the winter. With Polish winter time being arctic cold, no wonder this is one of their favourites.

BIGOS (HUNTER'S STEW) RECIPE

adapted from Simply Recipe
makes 8 servings

Ingredients:

• 250g bacon
• 400g beef
• 1.2 kg pork shoulder

• 1 ham hock
• 400g kielbasa or other smoked sausage or kabanos

• 1 large onion, chopped
• 2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
• 1 head white cabbage (regular, not savoy or red), shredded
• 700g  sauerkraut (drained)
• 40g dried porcini or other wild mushrooms
• 300g mixed fresh mushrooms
• 250g pitted prunes, sliced in half (optional)
• 1 large carrot, julienne (optional)

• 1 tbsp juniper berries
• 1 tbsp black peppercorns
• 2 tbsp dried marjoram
• 1 bay leaf
• 1 bottle of pilsner or lager beer (500ml)
• 1 chicken stock cube
• 1 tbsp tomato paste (optional)
• 10g dark chocolate (I used 90%)
• salt to taste

Method:

1. Submerge the dried porcini mushrooms in hot water until soft.
2. Cut the pork shoulder into 2 inch chunks and sausages diagonally.
3. Clean the mushrooms and make sure all dirt has been removed and cut into large pieces.
4. Sauté onion until translucent, add the cabbage, carrot and garlic to the pot, stirring until cabbage is soft and wilted. Set aside.
5. Heat a separate pot and fry the bacon to render the fat. Brown the pork shoulders, ham hock, beef and sausage over medium to high heat. Do not crowd the pot and work in batches if needed. Set the browned meat aside.
6. Using the same pot, deglaze pot with a splash of beer and cook the mushrooms without additional oil until the mushroom juice is released. Season with a little salt. When the liquid is almost completely evaporated, add the browned meat, cabbage and onion into the pot.
7. Add the beer and tomato paste into the pot of ingredients, with the bay leaf, roughly crushed juniper berries and black peppercorn. Stir well to combine. Pour some of the water used to hydrate the dried porcini into the pot.
8. As Bigos is a dry stew, don’t worry if the liquid does not cover all the ingredients. The ingredients will give off some liquid when they are cooked. Bring everything to simmer and let it cook for about 3 hours (or at least 6 hours in the slow cooker), with lid on or until the meat falls of the bone. Cut the ham hock into chunks and place back into the pot. Discard bone and fat.
9. Now add in the prunes and dark chocolate and let cook until tender for at least 30 minutes. Season with salt and taste.
10. Serve with rye bread or potatoes.

Tips:

• Bigos tastes better the longer you cook them. Also, it improves with age so the leftovers are often tastes better than it was on the first day.
• Bigos is also made differently in every household.

   

You may also like:

Pork & Apple Burger

Stuffed Cabbage Roll

Beef Pot Roast

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Trojka restaurant with russian doll mural

This was a completely random find. We were in the area for Lanka’s delightful green tea gateau for our girly afternoon tea. As we were walking towards the station on our way home, we saw what looks like an interesting restaurant with a Russian doll mural. So we had a peek inside and a browsed through the menu. It took us about 30 seconds to decide that we were having early dinner after our tea and cakes. Odd girls, I know but it really was hard to say no to what will be our first Russian experience.



We did not order a lot of food but enough to make me come back with an Eastern European to conclude its authenticity. We started off with some caviar and blinis which were soft and nutty, then the hot and earthy beetroot soup.

To say that I used to hate beetroot is too harsh. It was more like if mum forced me to eat some and that it was good for me, I would take a few bites but never more. So ordering Borschtch, a beetroot soup served with smetana (sour cream) was adventurous. Surprisingly, I liked it and would ask for more if mum came to me with this soup. This soup has transformed my views on the once upon a time, odd tasting red root vegetable. Either that or my palate has changed through time.

The Russian version of salmon pie named Coulibiak was sandwiched with mushrooms, spinach and rice served with smetana and fresh tomato sauce. The pastry was crisp with lots of ingredients inside. It would have tasted divine with more seasoning. Nevertheless, we still enjoyed it. The hunter's stew (Bigos) of smoked sausage, sauerkraut and chicken served with mash was enough to keep the Polish diner occupied. Bigos is his favourite dish in the world. Although this was not the ones his grandma makes, it was enough to make him reminisce of home. 

We did not have desserts cause we had some before dinner. And we were not about to leave an Eastern European restaurant without vodka. It can never be too early for Vodka shots so we tried a few. Had Zubrowka for the first time, and lets say that was not the last.

Smile..

No-fuss Eastern European home cooking and cheap.

Frown..

They close pretty early (probably only on weekdays), although written on their website 'open till late'.

Will I return?

I will and have happily returned for some comfort food.

Trojka

101 Regents Park Road
Primrose Hill, London W8 4RT
Tel: +44 (0)207 483 3765

Closest station: Chalk Farm

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Stuffed Cabbage Roll

While making these stuffed cabbage rolls, I cannot help but think that they are actually makeover of meatballs. Many recipes are derived from a specific recipe that each and everyone of us have interpreted. So these aren't gołąbki, the Polish traditional cabbage rolls but they are my adaptation and interpretation.

Let the meatball makeover begin!! You must be wandering why I think this is a meatball makeover. First, the filling is similar or can be the same as typical meatballs depending on how you like them. Now, they are wrapped in a blanket of cabbage. It is like putting on a dress with beautiful pattern.

Stuffed cabbage placed carefully in the pot.

The sauce should be thicker than this. This was boiled for about 30 minutes instead of the required time as I was too hungry to let it simmer. So please let it simmer longer or to the consistency you like. However thin this sauce is, it still tasted lovely.



STUFFED CABBAGE ROLL RECIPE

adapted from Betsylife


Filling Ingredients:

• 1 savoy cabbage
• 1 pot of boiling water

• 500g minced pork
• 1/2 onion (chopped)
• 1/2 carrot (chopped)
• 1/2 apple (chopped)
• 3 cloves of garlic (chopped)
• dried mixed herbs
• salt and pepper to taste

Sauce Ingredients:

• 750g chopped tomato
• 5 tbsp tomato ketchup
• 2 tbsp worcestershire sauce
• 2 tbsp Dijon mustard
• 2 tbsp strawberry jam
• 1 bird's eye chilli (deseeded and sliced)

Methods:

1. Core the cabbage, peel off each leaf carefully and place them in a pot. Pour boiled water into the pot to cover over the cabbage.
2. Boil until the leaves are soft. Carefully remove the leaves from the pot and place them on a plate to cool.
3. While the cabbage leaves are cooling, mix well the filling ingredients with your hands with kneading motion.
4. Mix the sauce ingredients in a different bowl.
5. Now roll the mixed filling into batons, not too big making sure it is about 1/3 the width of the cabbage leave.
6. Place a cabbage leave on your worktop and fill it with the rolled fillings.
7. Then fold in the sides of the cabbage and start rolling from the base of cabbage first.
8. Place the rolls in an empty pot and pour the over the sauce mixture.
9. Bring the pot to boil and simmer for about an hour to thicken the sauce and let it sit for 20 to 30 minutes.
10. While the pot is simmering, gently lift the rolls to make sure they don't burn.
11. When ready, carefully arrange the rolls on a plate or a wide bowl. Then scoop some sauce onto the rolls. Garnish with parsley or basil leaves and serve.

  

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