The day when I finally have to cook more often has arrived. I find that my normal repertoire of spaghetti, traditional Christmas vetable salad and a few simple dishes is not enough. Now, when I miss Polish food, I realize that I must learn to make it myself.
While browsing in bookstores or watching American television, I haven’t noticed any culinary guides to Polish cuisine. This would have been quite helpful, as it is not always easy to find the American equivalents of my native products.
Fortunately, the internet provides countless international recipes. I also bought the cleverly named Can’t Cook Book. It resulted in my preparing, among other dishes, a quite tasty rosemary salmon.
Once I tried to cook leniwe- lazy dumplings. After consulting with my sister I was full of optimism. We managed to find a tvarog in a Russian Deli. It tasted delicious. Unfortunately, it proved to be too moist, and the flour did not lend itself perfectly to the dumplings. The dough came out also in light brown shade, rather than the anticipated white, which was due to the absence of vanilla sugar – here, I am forced to use vanilla extract or create vanilla sugar myself. Still, my lazy dumplings resembled true Polish leniwe, and the next day no one complained of a stomachache.
Another time I attempted to make pomidorówka. American tomato paste met my expectations. The soup turned out fine, and Dean even asked for seconds. Another Polish soup made out of barley, krupnik, will be my next challenge. At the Jewish Deli I also spotted pickled cucumbers, which will be a great for ogórkowa.
For the second course I plan mielone (cutlets), for which I am awaiting Mum’s recipe. Apple pancakes, racuchy, now appear often in our cuisine.
As for non-Polish traditional dishes, I specialize in vegetables cream soups, chicken curry and spinach smoothies. I think I could now ow invite guests for a simple, three course dinner. Just in case, we always we always stock a couple of frozen meals, including Ukrainian pielmieni. And when I miss Polish cuisine, we can also drive to Polish House, where quite decent food is served.
For further training, I could attend the “making of pierogi” session organized by the Polish community in Seattle.
And less than a month my Dad is coming to visit us. Maybe he will manage to bring with him a ittle bit of homemade rosół ?:)
