janradder

After going an entire day without meat (a traditional Polish Christmas Eve dinner is "meatless," meaning there's only fish), what you really want -- no, what you need is meat. Lots and lots of meat. Well you're not gonna find it here, though if you want to substitute the real mccoy for the fake-meat ingredients, feel free to go ahead and do so (just make sure to cook them before adding them to the stew).

Bigos is also known as Hunter's Stew, and it uses a variety of meats (chicken, veal, beef, sausage, ham, bacon -- pretty much anything you can think of). It's known as the official dish of Poland -- there's even an official recipe, though each person who makes it seems to have their own version. I make make it about a week or so before Christmas so that it can sit in the fridge and the flavors can mix and meld even longer. It also makes Christmas dinner a hell of a lot easier than Christmas Eve -- all I have to do is get out the crock pot at about noon, stick the bigos in, and let it heat up. Unlike most stews, which tend to use one pot, bigos uses a few, and because of the number of ingredients, it really can't be made in small quantities. This is my very own recipe, adapted to be meat-free. To make it, you need:

1 qt. sauerkraut
1/2 a head of cabbage, shredded
3 onions, chopped
2 tart apples (like Granny Smith), peeled and chopped
4 prunes, also chopped
2 oz. dried mushrooms
butter
2 cups dry red wine
2 bouillon cubes
2 bay leaves
1 can tomato puree (or diced tomatoes that have been crushed)
about 1 T or so of allspice
salt and pepper to taste

Meats (thawed):
2 1/2 pkgs. Morningstar Farms bacon, diced
2 pkgs. Morningstar Farms chicken strips, cut into small pieces
1 tube of Lightlife Gimme Lean sausage, crumbled and lightly browned
8 veggie brat-like sausages (I used to use Boca, but they were discontinued. You can also use Field Roast, or Tofurkey brats), sliced into smaller pieces


1. Drain, rinse and coarsely chop sauerkraut. Add to pot and add 2-3 cups of water (not enough to cover it, but just shy of doing so). Bring to boil, turn heat to low, and cook for 1 hour or until no longer crunchy.

2. While the sauerkraut is cooking, re-hydrate the mushrooms (if they are not already in small pieces, cut them up so they are) and shred the 1/2 head of cabbage. In another pot, melt 3 T of butter. Add the cabbage and sauté for i minute, then add the mushrooms -- liquid and all. Stir it up, then cover the pot and turn heat to low. Cook until the cabbage is well done (about half an hour to forty minutes).

3. While cabbage and kraut are cooking, chop and sauté onions in 2-3 T of butter until they are soft. Then add the chopped onions and prunes and brown them. Once they are lightly browned, add the bacon and cook (while stirring periodically) for 3 more minutes.

4. Add bouillon cubes to the sauerkraut, stir until dissolved, then add the cabbage/mushroom mixture and the onion/apple/prune/bacon mixture. Stir will and add tomatoes, meats (cut up), bay leaves, allspice and 1 cup of wine. Stir well again and turn heat to low. Cook slowly for at least 1 hour. Add salt and pepper to taste, cook half an hour more (slowly), remove from heat and refrigerate. Before reheating, add 2nd cup of wine.

Serve over small boiled potatoes and with rye bread and chilled vodka.

Top 5 Non-traditional Christmas Songs

1. "Just Like Christmas," Low
Between the jingling bells, the loud booming drums and chugging acoustic guitar, I can't help but feel happy each time I hear this song.

2. "Snoopy's Christmas," The Royal Guardsmen
I had this song on a Peter Pan 45 and listened to it over and over again. Even so, it was always a thrill to hear it on the radio each year.

3. "Father Christmas," The Kinks
The best rock-n-roll Christmas song ever. And socially conscious to boot.

4. "The Chipmunk Song (Christmas Don't Be Late)," The Chipmunks
According to Dr. Demento, Ross Bagdasarian, Sr. (aka Dave Seville) wrote this song when a Christmas display went up in his town a couple months early and his kids started freaking out in anticipation of December 25th. Whether that's true or not, having my own five year old who's been on the verge of exploding with excitement for Christmas since the middle of August, I can totally understand.

5. "O Holy Night," Unknown
Forgive me for this one. I know it's a traditional Christmas carol, it's just that this version is so damn beautiful it makes me cry each time.

(The picture isn't mine, by the way, but this is how they should look)

Of all the dishes and cookies I make for Christmas, chrusciki (hroos-CHEE-kee) have to be the biggest pain of ass of them all. Mixing up the dough for the cookies is easy enough. It's rolling them out thin enough that's the problem. But when you make them right and the chrusciki literally melt in your mouth, it makes all the trouble almost seem worth it. This recipe comes from my grandmother, who got it from her mother, who got it from their next door neighbor in Union City, CT, Mrs. Karaba.

6 egg yolks
6 t sugar
2 t sour cream
1-1/2 oz. apricot brandy (or plain brandy if that's all you have)
2 cups flour

Beat yolks and sugar, add cream and brandy. Add flour and mix until workable. Cut the dough in half. Leave one half under a damp cloth and put the other on a board dusted with flour.

Now here's the hard part: roll it to within an inch of its life and then keep rolling it some more. Don't stop until it is as close to paper thin as is humanly possible (leave it too thick and they're no good).

When the dough is as thin as you can get it, cut it into long thin strips (about 3 inches long). Cut a slit in the middle of each strip and pull one end all the way through it so that you have something that approximates wings. Fry the strips in fat (or vegetable shortening) about 5-10 seconds on each side (don't let them brown). Drain the cookies on paper towels. Right before serving, dust them with powdered sugar.

It took me years to perfect (seriously!) and now I'm sharing it with the interwebs. Here it is:

4 c. flour
4 eggs
3 T oil (the secret ingregient -- it will make rolling the dough so much easier)
1/2 c. cold water

Mound the flour on a large cutting board and make a big well in the middle. Add the eggs, oil and salt to the well then use a large chef's knife to cut them into the flour. Keep cutting until all the ingredients are thoroughly mixed. Transfer the mixture to a large bowl and slowly pour the water in while you stir with a fork (sort of like you'd mix water when making pie crust), then knead until the dough is firm (but don't knead too long or else the dough will become too elastic). Wrap the dough in a damp towel, put it in a warm bowl, and let it sit for 10 minutes. While you're waiting, make the filling:

(this is a cheese filling -- there are plenty others, though)
2 c. white farmer's cheese (Baltic style, otherwise use the driest cottage cheese you can find)
Couple dashes of salt
2 t lemon juice
2 T sugar
2 eggs
2 egg yolks (set aside the whites for later in the recipe)

Break up the cheese then mix the rest of the ingredients.

Now, cut the dough into quarters. Take one quarter (leaving the rest wrapped in the towel so they won't dry out) and roll it out as thin as you can (about 1/16th of an inch or less) and then use a 3 1/2 inch biscuit cutter to cut out circles. Put a dollop of filling in the center of each circle (a little less than 1 tablespoon). Now here's the big trick -- get a pastry brush and brush the egg white you set aside around the outside edge of each circle (but just do one at a time, otherwise the egg dries out). Fold the dough in half and pinch it shut. Viola! You have a pierogi. You should have enough dough and filling to make about 72 of them.

Now, you can either freeze them or cook them right away. To do the latter, drop the pierogi in a pot of salted boiling water and boil them gently for 3-5 minutes. They may stick to the bottom, so us a slotted spoon to knock them off. When they float they should be done. If you want to eat them like that (with a little butter) go ahead. Otherwise, fry them in a pan with butter and onions and enjoy.

I prepare an eleven course meal for Christmas Eve each year, and because it's eleven courses, I usually start cooking it at the beginning of December. This year, though, I've decided that I'd like to enjoy some of my December and not spend it cooking the entire month, so I've started making some of the various holiday treats early. Also, because I've started early, I thought I'd post the recipes. Tonight I made Krupnik, a honeyed vodka drink that is traditionally served warm (though it can be served cold as well). Since I posted this recipe last year, I'll just provide a link to it here. If you like it a little sweeter feel free to add more honey. Likewise, decrease it if you don't. You can do the same with any of the other ingredients as well (I often add a little more lemon peel than the recipe calls for. Same goes for the cloves.)