Bigos (Polish Hunter’s Stew) – Go Bigos or Go Home

I don’t often get requests for Polish food, but when I do, they’re usually for bigos. Which makes perfect sense, since this meaty stew is one of the most delicious dishes you’ll ever taste. It’s also low-carb, highly nutritious, and very simple to make, as long as you don’t consider having to wait a day to eat it, “complicated.”

While you can eat this as soon as it’s made, and I bet most of you do, it’s much better the next day, as all the flavors have time to properly meld together. You can also really customize this to your personal tastes by changing up which meats you use.

Traditionally, this is made with wild game, such as venison, boar, and other shootable animals, but is perfectly acceptable, if not amazing, using easier to find domestic livestock. Regardless of which meats you include, be sure to use a lot of them, as I think this stew should be at least 50% meat.

Since you can, and should make this ahead of time, it’s perfect for feeding large groups, especially when the weather turns cold and dreary. But, no matter what it’s doing outside, I hope you give this a try, and have a pot simmering inside soon. Enjoy!

Ingredients for 6 portions:

2 tablespoons unsalted butter

2 packed cups drained sauerkraut

1 small head green cabbage, quartered and sliced (2 pound head before trimming)

4 strips bacon, cut in 1-inch pieces

1 lb pork shoulder, cut into 1-inch pieces

1 lb beef chuck, cut into 1-inch pieces

1 lb polish sausage links, sliced (or any other sausage)

1 large onion, peeled and chopped

3 pitted prunes, diced

1/4 cup dried porcini mushrooms, soaked until soft and chopped

1 cup dry red wine

1 teaspoon paprika

1/2 teaspoon caraway seeds

1/2 teaspoons dried thyme

1/4 teaspoon allspice

1 large bay leaf

freshly ground black pepper

salt to taste

THENTHUK (Hand Pulled Noodle Soup)

This month our group,"Shhhhh Cooking Secretly" has chosen the Arunachal Pradesh Cuisine. I was given my two secret ingredients (Radish and Flour) by my partner Sujitha Ruban. She blogs at - " Sujitha Easy Cooking"  Do visit her blog for delicious recipes.
 I had recently seen the recipe of Thenthuk on Chef Ajay Chopra's show Northern Flavours on Food Food Channel. It was an interesting recipe

Zombie Meatloaf – Better Than Brains

After seeing various versions of this Halloween-themed, zombie meatloaf on social media over the years, I decided it was time to post my very own. I’ve seen many approaches to this; such as covered in “blood,” or mummified in strips of pastry, but the ones wrapped in bacon always looked the most realistic, and the most appetizing.

Ironically, “appetizing” is the last thing you want this to look like, but if we’re going to do some kind of gimmicky, holiday recipe, it might as well taste great, and this most certainly did. It’s been a while since I posted a meatloaf recipe, and I was very happy with how this one came out. You can use a food processor make chopping the mushrooms a bit easier, but don’t leave them out. They add a lot of flavor, as well as help keep the meat moist, and tender. 

By the way, if you're trapped in one of these households where certain people don’t eat mushrooms, add them anyway, since they’ll never be able to tell they’re in there. Then, next week, after they’ve eaten this, and loved it, you can come clean. Trick or treat, indeed.

Having said that, this zombification will work with any of your favorite meatloaf recipes, and you won’t be hurting my feelings. Much. Regardless of what you use, I really hope you give this fun-to-make, even funner-to-eat, zombie meatloaf a try soon. Enjoy!

Ingredients for 8 large portions:

1/2 cup unsalted butter (1 stick)

1/2 cup diced celery

1 1/2 cups diced yellow onion

8 ounces brown mushrooms, chopped fine

3 cloves minced garlic

1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

1/2 teaspoon dried thyme

1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper

3 pounds ground beef

3 teaspoons kosher salt

3 tablespoons milk or buttermilk

1 large beaten egg

2 tablespoons ketchup

1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce

3/4 cup plain dry bread crumbs

1 pound strip bacon for  zombie “facial muscles”

1 onion for eyes and teeth

- Bake at 325 F. for about 1 hour, or to an internal temp of 155 F.

- I went for a realistic muscular look, but if you’d rather have something that looks like crispy bacon, go ahead and put foil over the eyes and teeth, and pop this under a hot broiler, until it looks just right.

- Serve with “blood sauce,” which is made with equal parts SFQ bbq sauce and ketchup, spiked with hot sauce.

Buttermilk Pie – The Best Pie You’ve Never Heard Of

I can understand certain recipes being relatively unknown, but this buttermilk pie is not one of them. Not only is this easy to make, and beautiful to look at, it’s also bursting with the kind of bright, tangy flavor that no other custard-style pie can touch. Like I said in the video, this is sort of like a vanilla custard, meets lemon meringue pie, meets very light cheesecake. Except better.

I’ve never had much trouble finding buttermilk, even in regular, non-fancy grocery stores, but depending on where you live in the world, apparently that’s not the case. There are many “hacks” for making a substitute, usually using milk and lemon juice, or vinegar, and I’ll let you Google those at your leisure, but I’d be more inclined to try some yogurt, thinned out with some milk.

I think that would be closer to the tanginess of buttermilk, but as far as the recipe “working,” one cup of any type of dairy product should yield similar results. Once your pie is made, it can be served “as is,” or topped with seasonal fruit. I went with raspberries, mostly for the pictures, but if you were going to do this for the holidays, some persimmons, and/or pomegranate seeds would also be very nice. Regardless of how you serve it, I really do hope you give this a try soon. Enjoy!

Ingredients for one pie:

Enough pie dough for a 9-inch pie dish
(I used half a recipe of our butter crust dough)

For the filling:

1 1/2 cups white sugar

1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temp

3 tablespoons all-purpose flour

1/4 teaspoon kosher salt

3 large eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/8 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg

zest from one lemon

juice from one lemon juice

1 cup buttermilk

- Prebake crust at 350 F. for 15-20 minutes, let cool, then fill and bake for another 45-55 minutes, or until the filling is golden and “set.”

AKHROT KE KABAB / WALNUT CUTLETS

Akhrot kabab is one of the tastiest and rich snack from the Mughlai Cuisine made with walnuts, cashews, almonds, mawa and paneer. I have added a spoonful of Tangier spice mix which  adds to the flavours.  It is the most delicious vegetarian kabab I have ever tasted.

Ingredients:
Walnuts ......... 1/2 cup (boiled and chopped)
Amonds ....... 2 tbsps (powdered)
Cashew nuts .. 2 tbsps (powdered)

Potstickers – For When You Can’t Decide Between Fried and Steamed Dumplings

Potstickers (or Pot Stickers, depending on which style guide you’re using) are very fast and easy to make, unless you only do them once or twice a year, in which case they’re going to take a little bit of time to fold and shape. 

Just for fun, find a video that shows professionals doing these, and marvel at how they come together in seconds. That's what happens when you do hundreds each day, for years.

Having said that, every second spent producing these, is a second well spent. The play between the crispy, crusty bottom, and the tender parts, makes for a truly unique dumpling. They’re also very versatile, since you can fill them with anything you want. No matter what you use, you’ll know exactly what you’re biting into, which is not always the case when you get these out.

Don’t get me wrong; I love the occasional take-out binge, and its associated mysteries. But, it’s nice being able to control the contents, as well as the generosity of the filling. There is nothing worse than biting into one of these, and realizing it’s only half-full. So, for all those reasons, and more, I really hope you give these a try soon. Enjoy!

One production note: While I’ve made these many times, I’ve never actually measured the ingredients before, so I ended up with extra filling. So, I’ve increased the dough amounts from what I used in the video. Instead of getting 24 wrappers, you should get more like 32 (cutting each quarter dough into 8, instead of 6 portions), which should be a better match. Of course this depends on exactly how much you fill, but it should be close.

Ingredients:

For the filling:

1 pound ground pork

4 cloves minced garlic

1/2 cup finely chopped green onions

3 tablespoons very finely minced ginger

2 tablespoons soy sauce plus 1 teaspoon soy sauce

1 teaspoon sesame oil

pinch cayenne

1 1/2 cups finely chopped green cabbage

For the dough:

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

3/4 teaspoon kosher salt

1 cup hot water (about 130-150 F.)

For the dipping sauce:

1/4 cup seasoned rice vinegar

1/4 cup soy sauce

Optional: You can spike dipping sauce with things like hot sauce, garlic, minced green onions, ginger, etc.

RAJMA FALAFEL WITH RAGI PITA

Traditional falafel is made with chickpeas/garbanzo beans. I have tried making them with rajma (red kidney beans) for a change and served them with ragi/finger millet pitas. Though the pitas were not so fluffy like the ones we make with flour but they tasted good. They actually tasted like bhakris.

Ingredients:
Rajma / kidney beans .... 1 cup (soak them overnight)
Onions .... 1/4 cup
Ginger