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Polish Food

Welcome to our Polish Food section

Polish cuisine (Polish: kuchnia polska) is a mixture of Slavic culinary traditions. It is rich in meat, especially chicken and pork, and winter vegetables (cabbage in the dish bigos), and spices, as well as different kinds of noodles the most notable of which are the pierogi. It is related to other Slavic cuisines in usage of kasza and other cereals. Generally speaking, Polish cuisine is substantial. The traditional cuisine generally is demanding and Poles allow themselves a generous amount of time to prepare and enjoy their festive meals, with some meals (like Christmas eve or Easter Breakfast) taking a number of days to prepare in their entirety.





Traditionally, the main meal is eaten about 2pm, and is usually composed of three courses, starting with a soup, such as popular bouillon or tomato or more festive barszcz (beet) or zurek (sour rye meal mash), followed perhaps in a restaurant by an appetizer of herring (prepared in either cream, oil, or vinegar). Other popular appetizers are various cured meats, vegetables or fish in aspic. The main course is usually meaty including a roast or kotlet schabowy (breaded pork cutlet). Vegetables, currently replaced by leaf salad, were not very long ago most commonly served as 'surowka' - shredded root vegetables with lemon and sugar (carrot, celeriac, beetroot) or fermented cabbage (kapusta kwaszona). The sides are usually boiled potatoes or more traditionally kasha (cereals). Meals often conclude with a dessert such as makowiec (poppy seed cake), or drozdzowka, a type of yeast cake. Other Polish specialities include chlodnik (a chilled beet or fruit soup for hot days), golonka (pork knuckles cooked with vegetables), kolduny (meat dumplings), zrazy (stuffed slices of beef), salceson and flaczki (tripe).

 

Learn to Cook Borshch

WHAT'S COOKING? : Learn to Cook Borshch

Why not try some Polish cooking before you come to Warsaw, better still, cook it yourself. Iwona Krasuska shares her own Borshch recipe with you (until now, a closely guarded family secret). Give it a whirl and impress your dinner guests with something other than Prawn Cocktail for a change!