Bigos (Hunter’s Stew)

Background

Bigos is a time-honoured dish that is a meal on its own. But you can add to it and make it part of a meal. Rye bread is a necessity when you eat this, but it is often served with white kielbasa, frankfurters, or other varieties of Polish sausage. It can also be served as a vegetable, and added to a dish that includes another meat, and boiled potatoes.

I have even had bigos as part of a casserole, that my mother used to make when she had leftover goulasz and leftover bigos. She added boiled rice and then layered these, with rice on the bottom, goulasz on top and finally bigos with a cover of sour cream, which she baked in the oven until it was all hot.

Bigos can be frozen, and since it is a typical Polish meal which takes a very long time to cook to the required flavour, you may choose to cook it until it is all cooked through (this in itself will take some 3 hours) and then freeze it. The freezing process seems to add flavour and when you have defrosted it, the flavour will be similar to a bigos which has been cooked for the suggested 3 days (yes, days, that is not a typo).

The historical background to Bigos, is that hunters would start a fire and place the cabbage, sauerkraut, and whatever meat they had, into a pot and cook it slowly over the fire. As long as the fire burned, the bigos continued to cook. They came back with the fruits of their hunting, and added meat to the bigos, ate bigos, and added more meat to the bigos. This stew would continue to cook and gain more flavour. These days, we don’t have the time to have this pot continually cooking, so we look for shortcuts to increase the flavour.

If you look at other recipes, you may find that they suggest the addition of prunes, tomato sauce, tomatoes and / or grated carrot. I have tried each of these and prefer to keep with the ingredients I have listed, but feel free to try. I find the prunes add too much sweetness to the bigos, as does the tomato sauce, and am simply not a fan of the carrot and, more importantly, neither are my family. But the addition of much red wine, is one of my changes to the original recipe, and I think it adds to the flavour, but you do need to cook it out to remove the alcoholic taste. How much wine? Well that really is up to you. For a pot of this size, I would be considering at least half a bottle, but it really depends on your taste and how much red wine you are prepared to sacrifice to your bigos.

Finally, a note about Polish Sauerkraut.

This is fermented cabbage and should not contain any added vinegar. If your sauerkraut contains vinegar, you will find the flavour is very vinegary and not the correct taste. Naturally fermented sauerkraut is also good for the gut flora, whereas added vinegar is not.

Ingredients

• 1 jar of Polish Sauerkraut (900g) – “Kapusta Kwaszona”

• 1 head of white cabbage

• 10 gm dried Porcini mushrooms (you may also wish to add fresh mushrooms)

• 2 large white onions

• 250 g speck

• 200 g pork belly

• Leftover roast beef or roast pork

• Kabanos or Polska kielbasa (this needs to be chunky and contain more fat, the drier variety will not work as well, though you may not always have a choice).

• Red wine (according to your taste but at least half a bottle of a reasonable red)

• Salt,

• Black pepper (either peppercorns or ground pepper),

• Beef stock powder,

• Bushroom stock powder

• 2 bay leaves

• Rye bread

• A large pot

• At least 3 hours to slow cook this dish

Preparation

1. Chop the speck and pork belly into small cubes

2. Slice the onions, not too fine

3. Shred the white cabbage into small and fine pieces. Make sure that any harder pieces are either removed or chopped very finely as they will remain hard for a long part of the cooking process.

4. Place the dried porcini into a small pot and just cover with cold water.

5. Bring this to the boil and then let it cool. Don’t use too much water unless you want to use the water for another dish. You can use some of the water for bigos, but the cabbage will release a lot of liquid and this stew does not need to be a soup.

6. Once the porcini have cooled, remove them from the water, drain them and chop them into small pieces. You can finely chop the fresh mushrooms if you choose to add these to your dish.

Method

1. Add the chopped speck and pork belly to a very large pot on a medium heat.

2. Fry off the meat making sure that the meat doesn’t catch or burn. Be careful throughout the entire cooking process, that the bigos doesn’t catch and burn as it will spoil the flavour. If you burn anything, you will need to stop the cooking and transfer the whole dish to another large pot.

3. Once your meat has cooked off, add the onions and fry very slowly. The onions need to be transparent, but they do not need to brown.

4. At this point, you may add the chopped porcini and fresh mushrooms. Cook slowly until these are cooked through.

5. Add the shredded white cabbage. Keep moving this over a low heat, until the cabbage has compressed and has begun to soften. You will need to keep stirring this to make sure that the cabbage doesn’t burn.

6. Once the cabbage has softened, add any other leftover roast meat or kielbasa, and stir through until it is warm. At this point you can add a stock cube to improve the flavour, also add salt and black peppercorns (or black peppers if you prefer). Add the bay leaves and stir through. Make sure that you are satisfied that all the ingredients have cooked through before adding the Polish Sauerkraut, as they will struggle to cook properly once this has been added.

7. Add the jar of Polish Sauerkraut and mix through the dish. You will find that this contains considerable liquid, but don’t skimp, just add it all as it adds flavour.

8. You now need to continue to cook this on a low heat and check and stir through frequently. The longer you cook this, the more intense the flavour becomes. As the ingredients combine into a savoury dish, you should add the red wine and cook on low heat again, until the alcohol taste is removed.

9. Keep cooking on low heat until you are satisfied with the flavour. (at least 3 hours, but you may wish to reheat and continue cooking the following day).

Storing

Bigos is suitable for freezing and can be reheated from a frozen state. The more you reheat this, the more intense the flavour becomes.

Smacznego!