Of course, I mean pork, not the whole pig :-) the name for the dish was somehow inspired by the names of dishes I used to find really fascinating as a kid. A lot of dishes served covered with some variety of white sauce, often a cream or cheese based sauces tend to be called ".... under the duvet" or "... under the cover". Funny, isn't it? I remember how gripping I used to find cookbooks, or my mum's recipe scrapbook as a child. Not that I wouldn't read other books, I did. I was quite a bookworm, and actually that hasn't changed. There was certainly something intriguing about the dish names I found there, sadly most of the dishes rarely lived up to the expectations :-) The names still don't cease to amuse me - when I see all the "the royal style" dishes - meats (mostly game), fish, pates, and even soups. There were also the 'luxurious', 'exquisite' or 'gourment' dishes - raging from meats, through salads, b...

I wasn't going to make anything special for Valentines, as day was going to be rather on a hectic side, but the craving for shortbread come all of the sudden and I couldn't get rid of it! ;-) I was very pleasantly surprised to find out how easy they are to prepare. All in all, I ended up making a small batch for the evening during my lunch break :-) Ingredients:  150 g soft butter 55 g caster sugar 180 g plain, all purpose flour Use an electric whisk to cream butter and sugar. When the mixture is smooth, spoon in the flour and knead the dough until all ingredients combine. Gently roll the dough on a floured surface -don't press the rolling pin hard, as the dough is very brittle. When it's about 1 cm thick cut out the shapes and prickle them with a fork. You may need to use a fish-slice to transfer the biscuits onto a baking tray.    Bake in 160C for about 15-20 mins., until they start getting golden-brown. That really is all there is to do! They are FAB...

It's definitely one of the best days in a year - diets are completely out of the question and it's actually required to eat doughnuts and other goodies. With time, this has lead to various competition, like eating as many doughnuts as you can - to time limits etc., which may not necessarily be the best idea. However, the concept of enjoying sweeties for a day is certainly down my street! Apart from doughnuts, snot her traditional treat are faworki, aka 'brushwood' or Angel Wings, as they are brittle and apparently resemble wooden twigs that were used to heat houses. Popular in Poland, Lithuania and Germany, they are traditionally eaten during the Carnival, on Fat Thursday and on Mardi Grass, the Tuesday preceding the Ash Wednesday. The name comes from the medieval period when women would give a ribbon "favour" to their favourite knight.  They're neither as difficult, nor time-consuming to prepare as they may seem, but they do disappear from t...

Soups are quite a big thing in Poland and many families will still have their lunch or dinner of two dishes - a soup followed by the main meal. Nowadays, perhaps less and less so with people spending most of the time chasing their own tails (sorry, pursuing their careers :-), but I guess many would agree with me that soups definitely are one of the best parts of our cuisine. There are soups for each season - lighter for spring and summer (we even have fruity ones) and heavier, more substantial for autumn and winter. This soup is pretty filling so it may well be served as the main meal. Ingredients:  Soup: 4 chicken thighs 3-4 carrots 2-3 parsley roots 4-5 potatoes 0.5 celery root 1 clove of garlic 3 bay leaves 5-6 allspice grains 1 stock cube 1 tbsp mixed dry vegetables salt and pepper Place the chicken thighs in a large pan and cover with water, bring to boil. Add the stock cube, dry veg mixture, garlic clove, bay leaves, allspice, celery  peeled and dice...

With about -15C outside, I decided we need something to "warm us up" :-) In other words, the cold weather served as a handy excuse to make ginger biscuits. Whereas I'm not entirely sure about their warming up properties, the flavour is definitely to die for! They're amazingly easy and quick to prepare (it didn't take me longer than an hour to make a solid bunch of I guess around 150 biscuits). They've been miraculously disappearing from the plate at a stunning speed now :-) Ingredients: 2 cups plain, all purpose flour 3-4 heaped tbsp ground ginger 1 tsp baking soda 1/4 tsp ground cloves (or 5 whole cloves crashed in pestle and mortar) 1 tsp ground cinnamon 1/4 tsp salt 170 g soft butter or margarine 1 egg 1 cup caster sugar 4 tbsp honey 1 pack of vanilla sugar (or a few drops of vanilla extract) In a bowl mix flour, ginger, cinnamon, cloves, baking soda and salt. In anther bowl mix butter with a food mixer until it's fluffy, then gradual...

I guess each Polish child, at some point, used to believe that "gołąbki" (the diminutive of Polish word for "pigeons") are made of pigeon meat. Whereas to some it may be a perfectly logical assumption, pigeon meat is not very popular in Poland, and the idea seems rather amusing to the majority of people. Quite frankly, the thought  of eating the meat of world's most scuzzy creature never ceases to give me the creeps. As a child, though, I deeply believed that it was pigeon meat I got served stuffed inside the cabbage leaves. I seem to recall my grandmother fostering that belief, as my childhood credulity was the source of infinite joy to her. I don't quite remember when I found out about the real origin of one of my favourite dishes, but certainly was quite relieved by the truth.  The dish is made of mince - traditionally mixed pork and beef, though minced pork shoulder will certainly suffice. Although it may seem like a complicated dish, it really i...