You cannot visit Poland and not taste national dishes. High-calorie, but incredibly tasty and unusual in its combinations cuisine is able to satisfy any discerning guest.
Features of Polish cuisine
Poland is rich in its history and traditions, including gastronomic ones. The national cuisine was formed not only under the influence of different regions of the country, other peoples brought their characteristic features: Jews, Armenians, Magyars, Lithuanians, Tatars. The Polish recipe was also enriched by the chefs from Europe, who traditionally went to the court of the Polish kings and the aristocracy.
The national cuisine of Poland involves the preparation of dishes, the main ingredients of which are gifts of nature: meat, mushrooms, nuts, vegetables, fish. Old recipes are passed on in families from parents to children and are carefully preserved. Even now, Polish chefs can surprise tourists with rutabaga pancakes, hawthorn tsomber sauce or smoked sheep's cheese.
Polish and Russian cuisine also uses pickled cucumbers and mushrooms, sauerkraut or fresh cabbage, kvass, and fermented milk drinks. It is these products that give the main taste to dishes - sour or spicy.
Another feature of Polish cuisine is its calorie content. Most meals are heavy carbohydrates, and the portions are usually very large.
The most popular Polish dishes
Polish soups
- Zhurek is a hungover sour and nourishing soup based on rye flour sourdough with meat broth, sausage, kvass and raw egg. Each region has its own recipe for this truly Polish dish, only the basis remains unchanged.
- chiller - sour soup on beet broth, with the addition of kefir, herbs and cucumbers, which is served cold.
- chernina - made from goose blood with dried fruits, offal and spices.
- flaki - tripe soup with vegetables. It is rightfully considered a legendary Polish dish. Thick and greasy, it takes more than 5 hours to cook with the addition of root vegetables and aromatic spices to the broth. Due to the length of time it takes to cook, Poles prefer to order flask in a cafe.
In catering establishments, soups are served in large portions, in bread or a cup. On average, the cost of one serving of soup varies from 10 to 25 PLN (Polish zloty).
Zhurek or flaks can be easily prepared at home. To do this, it is worth bringing sourdough from Poland in any hypermarket in a bottle or tetrapak and warm it up at home, adding Polish rye bread when serving. The approximate cost of one pack of a jurek base is 2, 5 PLN, and a flask - 2-3 EUR.
Hot dishes
- bigos is the trademark of Polish cuisine. Sausage, minced meat or meat is stewed with sauerkraut and mushrooms. But this is only the basis for the dish. There are more than twenty recipes for making bigos. It can be served in bread or beer with sausages, bacon or unusual spices can be added to it. In supermarkets, bigos can be purchased in various containers as a souvenir for loved ones.
- cabbage rolls - stuffed cabbage leaves.
- feathers - large dumplings with various fillings.
- sorcerers - beef dumplings.
desserts
- charlotte - a traditional apple pie was invented in Poland.
- grandma - high-calorie yeast cake stuffed with nuts, chocolate or jam.
- mazurek - shortcrust pastry pie.
For alcoholic beverages, local beer, Zubrovka vodka is recommended. For spirits, Baltic porter and Polish pale lager are also worth a try. One bottle will cost about 4 EUR.
Where to taste in Warsaw
A café with traditional cuisine is worth looking for in the Old Town Market Square and the surrounding streets. The premises there, as a rule, are small, so verandas are set up near the cafe, or simply take tables out into the fresh air.
