Guest Author - Ewa Sapinska

Walk into any Polish restaurant,or visit a Polish family for Christmas,and you are bound to be offered Bigos as part of the menu. In England they call it Hunters stew. It is easy to cook-all-you need is time.


Ingredients

500 grams sauerkraut
500 grams white cabbage
500 grams of meat (pork/beef)
200 grams of Polish sausage
50 grams of smoked bacon
120 grams of onion
50 grams of tomato puree
2 cloves of garlic
2 prunes
3 laurel leaves
A couple of large dried wild mushrooms (re-hydrated)
Salt and pepper


Preparation

Dice all the meats.
Cut the Sauerkraut into smaller pieces.
Dice the onion.
Re-hydrate the wild mushrooms and chop into smaller pieces.
Chop the Garlic.
Shred the white cabbage finely.


Put the shredded white cabbage and diced onion into a large saucepan and fill with a little boiling water.Cook on a medium flame.

Put all the sauerkraut into a saucepan and fill with a little boiled water. Cook on a low flame.

Stir the sauerkraut and cabbage frequently.Keep both pans topped up with water when necessary.

Lightly fry the diced meat and chopped garlic and put to the side.

When the white cabbage is cooked and soft, and the sauerkraut ready, mix the two together into a large saucepan. Cook the mixture on a low flame for about half an hour.

Add the fried meats and the rest of the ingredients to the cabbage and sauerkraut mixture.Stir the mixture well.

Cook on a low flame for an hour, stirring the mixture frequently and adding water when necessary.Once the hour is up leave the mixture off the flame for half an hour

After half an hour, cook again on a low flame as before.

Continue to cook the Bigos in intervals of half an hour on.

Cooking it like this will allow it to take on more flavour from the meat.

Re-heat the Bigos before serving.

The Bigos will taste better after each re-heating.


Enjoy