British food products in Poland?

That's true, full of fibre, and the most nutritious part of the spud is right under the skin. When I was a child, we'd sometimes ask my mother 'can we have the potatoes all burnt, please' :) and my mother would turn the heat up really high on the cast iron pot and deliberately burn the skins, they were yummy! There was an art though in prising them off the base of the pot without breaking them to bits. Spuds were served in their jackets and peeled at the table according to individual preference.

I think there are certain similarities between the north of England approach to cooking and the Irish way.


In Victorian times, didn't they prepare the pastry on a marble slab? Also my granny used a ceramic roller, not a wooden one. So temperature is definitely a significant factor in preparing pastry.

Some people have a bowl of iced water to put their hands in from time to time. I just use a mixer; it's quicker and minimises contact.

Thank you Atch, I'll give it a shot and report back. I've been trying to make a decent pie for ages, but the pastry is always a huge letdown.

I was watching an old episode of Masterchef, and Michel Roux Jr was talking about how pastry is often avoided by professional chefs because it's so difficult to work with.

One mystery to me is how to make gravy as well. I'm just cheating and using sos pieczeniowy from a packet, but it would be nice to create something a bit better..

Oh yes, another thing I just remembered about pastry is that you should only roll it one direction, never back and forth. It helps to keep it light. Also don't overdo the kneading as it makes the pastry heavy and dense. Just a little bit and be careful about how much extra flour you're adding when working with pastry. It's easy to use too much when you're trying to stop it sticking.

As for gravy, that's another story entirely. Meat juices and Bisto, say I :)

I don't like potatoes Atch, so I won't be doing that. I've cooked plenty of them for others though.


I always roll it in one direction, then move it round, roll it again etc so it ends up being mainly circular. I've never had a problem with making pastry, and yes, it's best to keep everything cold. Hate making it though as I can't stand it getting under my nails.Interesting about using a glass base to avoid soggy pastry, didn't know that!

Wait, wait, Atch...I'm always rolling it in both directions *and* I'm overdoing the kneading, so maybe this is the source of all my woes!

Maybe the perfect steak pie will happen one day...

I've never been able to get it to do that. Mine is never nicely round however much I try..


Makes it hard and greasy. Less is more, don't knead.

The traditional Irish emotional attachment to potatoes (even knitting little jackets for them!) is really heartwarming.

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That'll make your pastry very heavy. Pastry dough needs very little kneading, and don't put too much weight behind it. That's a problem for men, as they tend to have stronger arms so you need to try and give it a light touch.

When my granny made a meat pie she would basically cook it completely in the from a stew on the hob and then simply let it go cold and put into the pastry case, pop on the pastry 'lid' and put in the oven for 40 mins or so. The pastry was always really light and crispy, but she made rough-puff/flaky pastry, not shortcrust. It has a higher fat content. She used half marg and half lard. It's really quick to make.

@Maf, lol, lol and thrice lol!!!

You don't 'knead' pastry ffs. In fact you handle it as little as possible.

You shouldn't even eat that stuff, only the filling.

interesting take - pastry isn't food... it's a serving container....

a bit the way that Vietnamese people have never thought of pho as soup - to them it's noodles etc served in broth...

Now that's an interesting idea. A very tasty container nonetheless!

Apparently Dealz is now cutting back on the British products because of Brexit, so they'll either increase the price or simply not stock them anymore if they can't be sourced in the EU.

Historically, one type of pastry was. Hot water pastry was for preserving meat. It's still delicious though.


JasonDMZ who used to post here was saying the same. He'd apparently spoken to someone at Dealz. Things like HP can be sourced (sauced) within the EU because it's made here (as is English mustard now) however it's all the other stuff that will disappear sadly.

Absolutely. Pies were one of the earliest take-away foods in the UK. Wasn't it a blaze in Mrs Miggin's pie shop that caused the Great Fire of London in 1666? Many people were without adeqaute cooking facilities in their homes and if they could afford it, they bought a hot dinner in the form of a pie. So yes, the pastry casing was a way of carrying home the meat and the gravy! As Delph says, it's a very tasty serving dish :) Possibly inspired by the old trencher loaf which served as a plate, do you think?

Pasties are pretty much the same. The thick edge of a Cornish pasty eaten by miners was used as a disposable handle. Very handy given that miners' hands were often covered in arsenic dust. I had a chat a while ago now with a couple of Poles who had never heard of pasties.


Don't tell me you scoop the filling out of pies?

I've always fancied one of these. Like pasties but savoury at one end and sweet at the other:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bedfordshire_clanger


Whenever I've made Cornish pasties here, they've always gone down really well.

Also known as the Trowley Dumpling. What great names! Never heard of it but they sound really nice! I'll have to look out for those.


I'm not surprised, sure they were very tasty :) Never seen anything made of suet pastry in Poland either. Steak and kidney pudding is food of the gods ;)

Suet here all goes into kielbasa. Pastry isn't much of a thing at all.

I bring Atora from the UK (or did until brexit).

Poles associate pastry with sweet dishes, not savoury. Have you ever noticed that they put sugar in their pastry?? Even the frozen pastry (and of course they don't have short crust, only puff) has sugar in it. Pastry shouldn't have anything added to it, just flour, fat and water. I love all pastry based foods! Very partial to vol-au-vents - so 1970s dinner party chic :)

The other thing I find weird is that there's no word for pastry in the Polish language. It's 'French cake'!! Excuse me missus, but pastry is every bit as British as it is French and it isn't cake!

I think a lot of that is down to the PRL.... ingredients were not always easily available and stoves were not... reliable and so people mostly stuck with well-known dishes and mostly on top of the stove...

Also I wonder if savory pastry is a thing among Poland's neighbors.... Eastern (not East) Germany... Czech-Slovakia.... Lithuania...

For me, I can take pastry or leave it alone... it really depends on what's in it (and ratio of edible parts vs flaky gets all over everything and the cat....).

A little while before the lockdown we were sharing a taxi back from somewhere with two Polish ladies, one in her 80s who'd lived in France and one in her 60s.

The older one was telling the younger one about a wonderful recipe she knew, how versatile and easy it was etc, etc, and was describing it step-by-step to the other who had never heard of it. It was shortcrust pastry!

She used all butter too.


Flan pastry (with an egg in) can be useful, though I'd only use it if the pie filling is going to be wet and even then I'd probably just do a 'plate pie' (probably called something else outside Yorkshire) instead where it's basically just a pastry lid over something.


They deserve a revival. Not just the mini ones that Iceland sell frozen but the big French kind. There's a restaurant in Lomianki that specialises in galettes (it's the main thing on the menu) which remind me a bit of that.

English breakfast which I ordered for my kid so that he learnt sth about the civilised culture`s cuisine.

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My kid eats English breakfast in the evening.

Nope, we do as the Venerable Royal Family - eat English breakfast in the morning. Traditions must be observed. What would we be without traditions???? Pathetic clowns.

aka a crime against humanity! beans and mushrooms are not meant to be eaten in the morning and fried tomatoes are just gross!

Maf, don`t critisize royal preferences which have become venerable tradition. Or you want to offend the Queen on purpose????

@pawian
I try to break my fast as late as possible during the day. Gotta burn that fat :)

Me too and my BMI is still 23.

Where did you order it Paw? The sausages don't look English. Wrong shape :) The bacon doesn't look very English either, but maybe it's just the angle they're photographed from.