Bigos Myśliwski Image Used Under Creative Commons License From wikimedia.org
Citizens, your beloved and glorious leader occasionally enjoys the end-results of a successful hunt, with the pastorally-grazed wild meats frequently ending up in this recipe of renown – Bigos!
Frequently translated into English as hunter’s stew, this is a Polish dish of finely-chopped meat of various kinds stewed with sauerkraut and shredded fresh cabbage. The dish is also traditional in Belarusian, Ukrainian and Lithuanian cuisine.
The principal ingredients are assorted kinds of meat chopped into bite-sized chunks and a mixture of sauerkraut (pickled cabbage) and shredded fresh white cabbage. The meats may include pork (ham, shoulder, bacon, ribs, loin, etc.), beef and veal, poultry (chicken, duck, goose, turkey) and game, as well as charcuterie, especially various kinds of kiełbasa, or Polish smoked sausage.
The variety of meats is considered essential for good bigos; its preparation may be a good occasion to clean out one’s freezer and use up leftovers from other meat dishes. Some of the meats may be roasted before being diced together with other cuts of meat and braised in lard or vegetable oil.
As noted by my dear friend and master of all Polish goodness John Biggs: “The key is to point out that this isn’t WET. It’s not a stew in the traditional sense but the bigos should be almost dry with a reduction of all the flavors coating it, like a carbonara. If it’s too wet the meat falls apart and makes a mess and it isn’t bigos.”
Take due note, Citizens!
The sauerkraut is often rinsed and drained before being chopped and mixed with shredded fresh cabbage. The proportion depends on the sauerkraut’s maturity – the longer it has cured, the more sour it tastes, calling for more fresh cabbage to balance the flavor. Other ingredients often added include onions, diced and browned in lard together with the meat, and dried forest mushrooms that are precooked separately in boiling water.
The stew is usually seasoned with salt, black peppercorns, allspice, juniper berries and bay leaves. Some recipes also call for caraway, cloves, garlic, marjoram, mustard seeds, nutmeg, paprika and thyme.
The tart flavor of sauerkraut may be enhanced by adding some dry red wine or beet sour (fermented beetroot juice that is also a traditional ingredient of borscht), which may impart a reddish hue to the stew. Bigos is often slightly sweetened with sugar, honey, raisins, prunes or plum butter (known in Polish as powidła).
Traditionally, bigos is stewed in a cauldron over an open fire or in a large pot on a stove, but it may also be prepared in an electric slow cooker. The contents should be stirred from time to time, to prevent scorching, which may impart a bitter taste to the entire batch. The stew is considered best after it has been repeatedly refrigerated and reheated to allow the flavors to fuse.
In the region of Greater Poland, bigos typically contains tomato paste and is seasoned with garlic and marjoram. Kuyavian bigos is often made from red cabbage as well as white. In Silesia, it is usually mixed with kopytka or kluski, that is, small plain boiled dumplings made from unleavened dough that contains flour and mashed potatoes.
A variant which contains julienned apples, preferably with a winey tart taste, such as Antonovka, is known as Lithuanian bigos and is typical for the territory of the erstwhile Grand Duchy of Lithuania (now Belarus and Lithuania).
In bigos myśliwski, or “hunter’s bigos”, at least part of the meat comes from game, such as wild boar, venison or hare. It is usually seasoned with juniper berries, which help neutralize off-flavors that may be found in the meat of wild animals.
Bigos is particularly associated with major Catholic holidays, such as Christmas and Easter, as it can be prepared in ample quantities beforehand and only reheated on the holiday itself and the following days.
The stew is typically dished up with rye bread or boiled potatoes. In a fancier setting, it may be served in stoneware bowls, puff pastry shells or bread bowls.
Bigos, especially when enjoyed outdoor, is traditionally paired with shots of chilled vodka, either clear or flavored. Varieties of flavored vodka that match well with bigos include żubrówka, jałowcówka (juniper), piołunówka (wormwood), Goldwasser (various herbs) and starka (oak-aged). If served at home or in a restaurant, the stew may be washed down with beer, red wine or Riesling.
Bigos made entirely of meat and exotic spices was affordable only to the affluent Polish nobility. The 18th century saw the development of a poor man’s version of the dish, known as bigos hultajski, or “rascal’s bigos”, in which vinegar and lemon juice were replaced with cheaper sauerkraut as the source of tartness.
Sauerkraut and cabbage also acted as a filler allowing to reduce the amount of meat in the dish. Rascal’s bigos became common during the reign of King Augustus III of Poland (r. 1734–1763). Over the course of the 19th century, its rise in popularity continued as the proportion of meat decreased in favor of sauerkraut, eventually superseding all other kinds of bigos and losing the disparaging epithet in the process.
Citizens, my version of the dish is both traditional and profound – I truly hope you enjoy this classic recipe!
½ lb venison stew meat (strongly preferred) or use beef
¼ lb of mild ham, in one piece
¼ pound pork stew meat
½ cup lard (preferred) or oil
2 cups dried wild mushrooms – In Poland, you would use grzyby leśne, which you’ll find in any supermarket and are a mixture of dried forest mushrooms. You can probably find something similar just about anywhere, but make sure that they are wild forest mushrooms and not something like champignon as they simply don’t have enough flavor. TFD prefers a blend of dried porcini, dried morels and dried champignons
5 large garlic cloves
3 medium carrots, diced
1 ½ lb. drained sauerkraut (do not rinse)
5 cups white cabbage (TFD prefers Napa), shredded
1 ½ teaspoons dried thyme
2 tablespoons sweet paprika
1 teaspoon caraway seeds, crushed
2 ½ teaspoons marjoram
1 tsp. freshly-ground allspice
3 bay leaves
8 juniper berries, lightly crushed
Pinch of cayenne
salt & pepper to taste
1 cup dry red wine
4 cups beef stock
¼ cup plum butter (known in Polish as powidła) or use plum jam
Porcini or morel mushroom powder to taste (optional but highly recommended)
Instructions
Put the dried mushrooms in a bowl with enough warm water to cover them completely, and leave them to soak.
Fry the pork and venison or beef in half of the fat until it is browned. Add the sliced onions, cover and braise until the meat is half cooked.
Squeeze the excess liquid out of the sauerkraut, either using your hands, or put it in a colander and press it down with a wooden spoon.
Put the sauerkraut and bacon together in a large pan with a little water, some allspice and the bay leaves. Bring it to the boil, and then turn it down and let it simmer.
There are a couple of important things to note at this point. Firstly that the finished dish should be quite thick and not swimming in liquid, and that you will be adding wine as well as liquids from the mushrooms and the meat a bit later, so you should add just enough water now to prevent the cabbage from burning and allow the bacon to boil.
Again – the key is this isn’t WET. It’s not a stew in the traditional sense but the bigos should be almost dry with a reduction of all the flavors coating it, like a carbonara. If it’s too wet, the meat falls apart and makes a mess and it isn’t bigos.
Secondly, it is important not to add any salt to the dish at all until the cabbage is completely cooked, otherwise it will prevent the cabbage from softening.
When the bacon is half cooked, remove it, and leave the cabbage on the heat.
Strain the mushrooms, and cut them into slivers, then add both the mushrooms and the water they were soaked in to the cabbage.
Cut the cooked pork and beef, together with the bacon into medium-sized chunks, and add them all together with the onions and any juices from the meat to the cabbage.
Cook over a medium heat till the cabbage and the meat are cooked through and soft. Sauerkraut has a tendency to stick, so it is very important not to use too high a heat, and to remember to give it a good stir from time to time.
While it is cooking, cut the sausage into half moon slices, and the ham into cubes, and fry them in the rest of the fat. When they are cooked, add them to the cabbage, together with the remaining spices, prune jam, dried mushroom powder to taste and red wine.
Bring the whole thing to the boil, and then lower the heat and simmer for about 15 minutes.
At this point your bigos is finished and ready to eat, and it should taste wonderful. If you want to be really traditional and really get the very most flavor into the dish though, you have a lot more work to do.
(optional)
Traditionally bigos was cooked, cooled down and then reheated and recooled for seven days in a row in order to ensure the perfect mingling of all flavors.
After cooking allow your bigos to cool completely and then refrigerate it overnight.
The following day slowly and gently bring the whole thing up to the boil and then turn the heat down and simmer it for 10 minutes. Take it off the heat and let it cool completely before putting it back into the fridge for the night.
Repeat for another 5 days.
(end optional)
Drink either with shots of good quality frozen vodka or a bottle of the same red wine that you put into the bigos itself.
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