Bigos (Polish Cabbage Meat Stew)
Bigos is a Polish cabbage and meat stew that many people regard as the national dish. It combines fresh cabbage and sauerkraut, which gives a mild sourness, with pork or venison, sausage, bacon and mushrooms. The real technique is time: it is stewed for hours, even across several days, until it turns thick and deeply smoky. It also keeps well for days without refrigeration, which made it a soldiers' staple.
Instructions
Chop the fresh cabbage and put it in a large pot with the pepper, salt, bay leaf and some of the mushrooms. Cook it until it is completely soft, which takes about 2 to 3 hours.
Chop the bacon and melt it in a frying pan so that it gives up its fat.
Chop the meat and the sausage and fry them in the bacon fat until they are browned.
If the stewed cabbage is sitting in a lot of liquid, drain off the excess. Stir in the fried meat, sausage and bacon, and scrape in all the fat from the pan.
Keep stewing the whole pot for as long as you can, since longer cooking improves it. Some cooks stew it for 3 hours a day over 3 days in a row, or even longer.
It is done when the stew is a thick mash that does not leak water onto the plate. It should taste mildly sour with a strong note of smoked bacon.
Better meat, delivered.
Premium cuts shipped to your door. Skip the grocery store and cook with quality you can taste.
Shop Meatzy →Affiliate link · PicksByRecipe may earn a commission at no extra cost to you.
