Bigos Recipe

Would that be the Muslim guy that your daughter is living in your basement with making babies ?


Perhaps you could post some pictures of your slop that you call English Bigos so we can be as rude to insult you.

It's sad to witness people argue over something as wonderfully varied as bigos. There's no right way. There's my way, your way, his way, her way, their way.
I'm not Polish. I don't make bigos, but I cook sauerkraut with lots of onions, and bacon, and a variety of meats.
I wouldn't think of adding tomato paste but mushrooms are an occasional addition. I've seen prunes in some bigos, and I love prunes, but I'm not tempted to add 'em to sauerkraut. And I use bay leaf, dried thyme, parsley and chicken stock.
Most people say that the English language translation of bigos is hunter's stew. I get it, but I think a better translation would be dressed sauerkraut; dressed meaning "finished", in this case with meat. So in French it's called choucroute garnie; sauerkraut "garnished" with meat.
I say this because, to me, a "hunter's style" dish should contain tomatoes, bell peppers, mushrooms, and maybe black olives, as one finds in Italian hunter's-style chicken, otherwise known as Chicken Cacciatore.

They aren`t people! They are beasts in human clothing!


Do you know why? Because it has been the fave dish of Polish hunters for centuries. Already extensively described by the greatest Polish poet in mid 19th century.
Please, do not try to change this tradition into some French or Italian invention.

So why are you arguing about it?

You sound like you may be French."Choucroute Garnie a L'Alsascienne" is very similar to bigos.

Bigos is a traditional Polish dish adopted by Germanic people, even in France.


Agreed!

Arguing is the national sport in Poland, and elsewhere arguing about food is surprisingly common . I've seen Sicilians getting really worked up about whether arancino or arancina are more authentic and almost come to blows over the correct type of pasta to use in pasta al forno.

With bigos, the gulf between a good one and a bad one is huge, however some people prefer the kind I'd call a bad one. It's what someone's used to, what individual tastes are and of course nostalgic memories.

I dislike the name Hunters' Stew for similar reasons to the thing you mention; "hunters'" implies chasseur to me which bigos isn't. A better name is simply bigos, since soupe au pistou is soupe au pistou and not paste soup, ossobuco is ossobucco and not bone hole and haggis is haggis everywhere rather than a description of what it is.

@jon357, I agree - bigos is simply "bigos" and not any "choucroute garnie" either :)

Yes. They're related though not the same thing. Bigos is bigos and choucroute garnie (which I slightly prefer to bigos, though that's not a high bar since I don't like bigos) is different.

Some people say that Napoleon's Grande Armée (or specifically their Polish wives) brought bigos back with them to France and choucroute was developed. I'd say that's a bit of a stretch and it's more to do with using available ingredients..

@jon357, I've never heard of this theory/story. To be honest I didn't even know that the French have something similar to our bigos :)


I do like it which shouldn't come as surprise :))) I don't like every bigos though, since it's not made the same by everyone. I like the way my family makes it. It's great for winter, btw - it warms you up well for some reason :) I'd say it's a kind of comfort food. 🤔 My father absolutely loves it.

I've had three over the decades that I liked. One was in Podlasie and had blobs of a sort of paste made from grapes in it, another was just good and I'm not sure why and the last one was made by a Polish lady who'd lived for many years in Paris and had a lot of red wine in.

A hot stew warming you up? What a conundrum that will forever baffle your household!

@Poloniusz, there are other hot dishes that don't warm me up as well as bigos during winter. At least that's my impression/experience.

If you'd actually spent time in PL or nearby countries, especially Germany and Austria, you'd know that stews and soups in Central Europe are often served more warm than hot.

And after spending time in those places, you'd probably be happier and have better manners.

Stews have a high thermal mass, which allows for better heat retention and slower release. This density also contributes to greater satiation.


Emotional eating is more of a coping mechanism and women tend to have higher rates of it than men.


North African dwellers like yourself find European hot temperatures cooler because you're acclimated to much hotter and drier conditions, making European heat seem mild in comparison. Fact!

@Poloniusz, I wouldn't really call bigos a "stew". 🤔


It's not about emotions, but about temperature. The sensation of warmth isn't the same as emotion, you messed up misogynist.


I don't know how people serve their stews and soups, but bigos is definitely served hot in my family and often in bowls, not on plates. We usually start eating it when it's still hot. It grows cold fairly quickly so I'm trying to eat it at a pretty good pace - maybe that's the secret of it warming me up so well :)))

aniagotuje.pl/przepis/bigos

An advice from the author of this recipe:

"I recommend serving bigos very hot."

:)

Less of the 'north' since it's in the tropics and no, I don't 'dwell' there, just visit for professional reasons.

And btw, they tend to serve food warm rather than hot in most of Africa too. At home in Poland, it's very common (not that you'd know that); food often seems tepid to me and in southern Germany there are dishes that are left about a foot away from the fire for hours before serving, sometimes to the point that it causes food poisoning.


Depends on the fat/oil content and a couple of other things. Bigos isn't actually that high in this respect.


I guarantee that you'd find some of the stuff I cook to be too hot. Poles generally do so I tone it down a bit and am less likely to serve things on red hot plates.

@jon357, I don't know how you personally serve food - I'm just saying that by Polish standards or my family standards bigos is served and eaten when still hot (and eaten fairly quickly from my observation and in my experience) :)

It's also easy to eat it fast - it's a light dish - it's mainly sauerkraut, after all... I usually wtrzącham bigos aż mi się uszy trzęsą ;D

Hot hot hot. Not so much a personal thing, more cultural to do with coming from a very rainy place.


I've had it with steam coming off, though it's generally not as hot as I'm used to. I've sent back food in restaurants in Warsaw before (though not bigos)because it's not quite piping hot.

Have you had bigos with the grape paste in? I'm not sure what it's called however the lady who did it that way said it was traditional.


:-)

@jon357, nope, I've never had a bigos with grape paste, I've never even heard of a grape paste before :) Maybe it's a local recipe in Podlasie or simply the lady's family is doing bigos that way.


She said that putting that grape paste in bigos is traditional?

There are many types of stews, but the slow cooking method, combination of meat and vegetables, and hearty texture still make bigos a stew. The only difference is the use of sauerkraut, which gives it a distinct aroma and flavor.

According to one account, the earliest bigos recipes from the 16th and 17th centuries didn't use cabbage and instead used vinegar or sour fruits for a tangy flavor.

"The bigos which Poles eat today has its roots in the 18th century. "Bigos with cabbage" and "rogue bigos" (a poorer version of the "real" bigos, called this to distinguish it from the dozens of others of variants) were the ancestors of the meal, which today is mainly cabbage, with meat as just an extra. Due to the difficulty involved in getting exotic fruit, sauerkraut (pickled cabbage) was used instead of more expensive lemons and limes for a sour taste."

culture.pl/en/work/polish-food-101-bigos

Yes, though as you say, it may be a family tradition, perhaps as an alternative to prunes.

It was sorrt of black blobs, perhaps made out of raisins. It was actually very nice. Since then, I've once seen a picture of bigos that looked like it had them in, however from the photo it was hard to tell if it was that or prunes.

Perhaps just her way of saying she didn't think you were special enough for the real stuff.


Did she own a cat? Maybe she didn't like you at all.

With bread or potatoes? Or alone.

Break. Always :)

Sorry, but I don't understand the connection with my question.

Maybe powidła? I think I've heard of that in bigos.

Auto correct. Was supposed to be bread. I must have misspelled and my phone changed it to break.

I like it and the best option is to say both names: bigos - the hunter`s stew. Then everybody knows what the dish is like more less.
And when you say only haggis, some people, especially Americans, believe it is British poultry!!! coz they associate it with turkey.


Mr Honourable Prime Minister Reverend Donald Holy Tusk loves bigos!

I dislike that name because, to me, it doesn't imply something that hunters eat but rather the products of the hunt (boar, venison, wild birds...) and bigos usually does not have game in it. Also, for Americans, stew implies chunks of meat with potatoes, carrots and onions (among other things) but not cabbage.

If I had to give it an English name it might be 'stewed cabbage' since that's what it is.

Interestingly, there's a sort of similar dish in Romania 'varză călită' 'braised cabbage' often eaten with polenta (called mamaliga in Romania)

tasteatlas.com/varza-calita

I guess every true Pole loves bigos. Well, except for the radical right mayby. The right wing loves bloody black pudding even more.

Similar taste, very different consistency.


Plus, 999 times out of 1000 that someone eats it, they're not a hunter or even rural.


The same for us, however there's a dish called Scouse that's cabbage, potatoes, cheap meat all done in layers in a pan.

Stewed cabbage is a good name, however I just call it bigos. It doesn't need translating and food translations (particularly in PL) can be a mess, like calling schabowy "a chop" or translating smalec as lard rather than dripping.