Bigos, or Hunter’s Stew

I really connect with Polish food. It’s rustic, seasonal and affordable, as well as being influenced by just about anyone who’s passed through at some point; notably French, Jewish and Russian cuisines. I know this is silly but it feels really earthy and spiritual somehow when I cook something Polish for dinner; I feel transported to a scarred land of wheat fields, cabbages, harvests and preserving. I want to go to Poland at some point to get the “peasant making delicious stew on farmstead” image out of my head; I’m sure that it doesn’t actually resemble a Bertold Brecht play. This aside, what’s most important to me is the food, and it’s really delicious. One café, Barbakan, situated on Walmgate in York was one of my favourite lunchtime spots when I was a student. Small, bustling and cosy, Barbakan really opened my eyes to the wonders of Polish food. Baskets of sourdough bread would be served alongside piping hot dishes of goblaki -stuffed cabbage leaves- potato and cheese stuffed pierogi -dumplings- or peppery, juniper-spiked bigos. According to my worn cookbook, The Polish Kitchen, by Mary Pininska, bigos is the national dish of Poland and was traditionally made with any food harvested from the land; game, juniper berries, mushrooms, all bolstered of course, by sauerkraut. See this as a base recipe to expand upon and make additions to; there is only one prerequisite, which is that you absolutely must make bigos at least one day in advance to let the flavours mature.

Serves 8-10 (which is mammoth but it freezes really well)

Ingredients:

25g butter

2 onions, peeled and sliced

250-400g good smoked sausage, sliced thickly

900g jar Sauerkraut (I use Krakus)

2 tins plum tomatoes, chopped

1 pint beef stock (made up with 2 stock cubes)

1 tbsp honey or golden syrup

1 tbsp tomato puree

Black pepper

1 dsp hot paprika

1 small white or savoy cabbage, sliced roughly

5-6 pork ribs

Addition: 500g bone-in rolled pork shoulder joint (I find that as I used little ribs, there was only enough meat for meal number one, so braised this later in leftover stock and sliced it in. If the ribs you use are mighty then this is a judgement call- but the more meat the better, right?)

To serve: Hot bread, chopped dill and soured cream.

Method:

1)      Before you start, make sure you have a casserole pan huge enough to fit in all the ingredients!

2)      Melt the butter in the casserole pan on the stove and fry the onions until translucent.

3)      Tip in the chunky sausage slices and fry off for a few minutes to release the flavour.

4)      Drain the sauerkraut, rinse lightly and then stir into the casserole along with the tinned tomatoes, beef stock and honey.

5)      Mix in the tomato puree, a heavy grind of black pepper, the hot paprika and then finally, the sliced white cabbage and pork ribs.

6)      Leave the pan on a low heat to cook for 1 ½ hours.

7)      Cook for a further hour the following day and either shred the pork off the ribs or leave on. If there’s a lot of cooking liquor then siphon it off and freeze for future smoky-stock use (i.e. goulash or soup bases).

8)      Serve with a sprinkling of dill, a dollop of soured cream and chunks of hot bread.

As I mentioned before, my ribs were small so we effectively “ran out” of meat after day one of eating this. In the pint or so of excess cooking liquor I then braised a 500g rolled pork shoulder joint for a few hours before slicing roughly and stirring in.