Just a Cabbage Salad but with Garlic

Can a year pass on this blog without another cabbage recipe? Probably not.

So today when I enjoy Polish food in Poland I have a wonderful excuse to share yet another cabbage recipe.

Seems like simple cabbage and beet salads became the most popular on my blog. And looks like even the simples recipe is never too simple and always worth trying.

All my life I loved and ate a lot of cabbage. Back then it was often the only fresh and green vegetable available during the winter months. But I still remember most the early summer cabbage in simple salads, which was very delicate and green like cabbage here in the US hardly ever is. So whenever I go back home I eat only local vegetables and forget for a few weeks about sophisticated greens that I buy in the US.

Somehow I grew in culinary tradition, maybe just in my home, when cabbage was always paired with onion. In this simple recipe it is made for a change with garlic like I often serve lettuce. And it tastes really good and different. If like me you have never thought about cabbage salad with garlic this is just another one, very easy, fresh healthy and different idea. Taste great with poultry, fish and any meats.

Cabbage Salad with Garlic

Ingredients:
1/2 cabbage, shredded,
2 garlic cloves, minced,
juice from 1/2 lemon,
1 tbsp of chopped fresh dill,
salt and pepper to taste.

Preparation:
1. Place cabbage in a bowl. Salt it and mix thoroughly.
2. Add garlic, lemon juice, olive oil, and dill.
3. Let it marinate for 10 minutes and serve.

Cabbage Rolls with Buckwheat and Mushrooms

Cabbage rolls (Golabki) are one of the most popular and well-known Polish dishes. The classic version of cabbage rolls stuffed with ground pork and sometimes served in tomato sauce was a dish you could find on most every Polish menu.

But over the years, as more and more people became vegetarian and others switched to a more healthy food, also the traditional cabbage rolls went through many makeovers. Instead of the basic green cabbage, other cabbage varieties like savoy or even red became used and rolls started to be stuffed with different ingredients that you could find in Polish cuisine, such as different types of kashas.

My favorite version of vegetarian cabbage rolls is the one made of savoy cabbage, stuffed with a buckwheat and mushroom filling. Buckwheat, as a gluten-free grain, became very popular in recent years in many different cuisines and became widely available in most American stores. Buckwheat has more taste than other kashas and therefore it replaces successfully the meat that is used in the traditional cabbage rolls. The addition of mushrooms to the filling enriches the taste of buckwheat. White mushrooms are used in this recipe but if you have dried porcini, they can be added to the sauce for extra aroma.

Cabbage Rolls with Buckwheat and Mushrooms
(Makes about 16 rolls)

Ingredients:
1 medium savoy cabbage,
2 cups buckwheat,
1 large onion,
2 large eggs,
1/2 lb white cup mushrooms, or half a cup dried porcini, soaked and cooked for 10 minutes,
1 stick of butter plus extra 2 tbsp,
1/2 tsp ground caraway seeds,
1/2 tsp coriander seeds,
1/2 tsp paprika,
1/2 tsp ground mustard seeds,
1 tsp dried marjoram,
salt and ground black pepper,

Preparation:
1. Peel off the outer leaves from the cabbage and cut out the stem.
2. Put the whole cabbage in a pot of boiling water (the pot must be large enough to fit in the whole cabbage). Bring water to boil again and cook the cabbage for about 3 minutes on a medium heat. Turn off the heat and let the cabbage stay in the pot to blanch.
3. Drain the cabbage on a colander and peel off gradually all the leaves trying to keep them whole.
4. To make stuffing, cook buckwheat according to instruction. Let it cool down and place it in a large bowl.
5. Melt about 2 tbsp of butter in a frying pan. Add chopped onion. When onion is translucent, add white mushrooms grated on a large whole grater. Fry until mushrooms release water and become slightly gold. Add mushrooms and onions to the bowl with the buckwheat.
6. Beat two whole eggs and add them to the buckwheat filling. Season generously with salt and pepper and add the remaining spices: paprika, caraway, coriander, mustard and marjoram.
7. Working with hand mix all the ingredients into a smooth stuffing.
8. Place cabbage leaves on a cutting board. Put about about 1/4 cup of stuffing on one end of the leave, fold in the sides and roll the leaves up. If, at the end, you have some leaves left, you can wrap some of the rolls in a second layer.

9. Preheat oven to 375F.
10. Place the rolls on a heavy duty backing dish, tightly, next to one another.

11.If you have dried porcini, scatter them around the rolls (to make sure they are soft enough, soak them in water and pre-cook a little). Cut the remaining butter into small cubes and put them on top and between the rolls. Add a cup of water to the bottom of the dish and cover the dish with the aluminum foil. 12.Bake rolls for about 40 minutes. Remove the foil and let the rolls become gold, which will take another 10-15 minutes.
Serve warm with a tomato salad.

Sour Cabbage Sautéed with Mushrooms

Sour cabbage is a typical winter vegetable. In Polish cuisine there are at least three types of dishes featuring it as a main ingredient: sour cabbage soup, sour cabbage salad, and many versions of sour cabbage cooked or, rather sautéed, with dried mushrooms, including our famous "bigos".

But I have just realized that, so far, I have not posted any sour cabbage recipes. One reason for that is that my favorite sour cabbage-based dish (sour cabbage sautéed with dried porcini mushrooms), which we serve for Christmas Eve, requires a lot of dried porcinis, which may not be affordable here in the US, unless you have picked up your porcinis yourself (like my friend from Bethesda, who finds porcinis in his backyard).

So, if someone asked me about a sour cabbage dish I would probably recommend this simple modern dish based on sour cabbage and white mushrooms, which in Poland we often pair with cabbage. It is an easy dish and requires only widely available ingredients.

There is a long-standing tradition of eating sour cabbage in France, especially in Alzace (choucroute) and Germany (sauerkraut) and also among Jewish people. However, I noticed recently an increased interest in sour cabbage beyond this traditional circle. I suppose this is as much for its rather exotic sour taste (at least for those who did not grow up eating it) as for its great health value.

The lactic acid bacteria (lactobacilli) play a key role in the transformation of cabbage into sour cabbage and are also important anti-cancer agents. The importance of lactobacilli has been acknowledged by modern nutrition science, and many food items are now enriched with them. They can sometimes cause a strong digestive reaction in some people, but they are also responsible for the very low rate of digestive tract cancer, especially colon cancer, among the Polish population.

Those who are curious how cooked sour cabbage tastes, may wish to begin with this sample dish.

Sauerkraut saute with mushrooms

Ingredients:
2 cups sour cabbage (look for it under "sauerkraut" in your local supermarket),
2 cups chopped onion,
2 cups finally sliced white cap mushrooms,
salt and freshly ground pepper,
1 tsp caraway seeds,
4-6 tbsp vegetable oil.

Preparation:
1. In a frying pan heat the oil and fry the onions for about 5 minutes, until transparent.
2. Add mushrooms and fry together until the mushrooms become slightly gold.
3. Add to the pan cabbage, caraway seeds, freshly ground pepper, and mix everything thoroughly.
4. Turn down the heat to "low" and sautée cabbage for 20-30 minutes, until it is soft.

This cabbage tastes best served with water boiled or roasted potatoes. It can also be used to stuff savory pastry and pierogi.

Basic White Cabbage Salad--Polish Cuisine Classic

It has been a while since I posted a cabbage recipe, so I think it is time for another one. I can only imagine the green heads that pile up at Polish farmers' markets. Now is the season when it tastes best and we serve it very often fresh as salads or slightly sautéed in butter. Cabbage is available later as well as it preserves well over the winter, but my favorite is this very first crop, when it still rather green than white, delicate and sweet. It is funny that this simple, unsophisticated vegetable also tastes best if it is prepare in the simplest way. All the cabbage salads are very basic and do not need any special ingredients. And we do not serve it with heavy mayonnaise, but mostly with light oil and lemon.

Today's recipe is probably the most popular version of cabbage salad, which is served in all Polish homes and traditional restaurants. The whole taste of this salad comes from good, in many places still organic, cabbage. It tastes great with fish--especially fried, or any fried meat balls and breaded pork chops (wiener schnitzel or cotoletta alla milanese type), and boiled baby potatoes.

In the U.S. I serve it, like a traditional coleslaw, to accompany roasted or grilled meats. This salad is not only healthy but also makes for a very light addition to any meal. Throwing an extra handful of fresh herbs makes this salad a real vitamin bomb!

Basic Cabbage Salad
(Serves 4-6)

Ingredients:
6 cups white,tiny shredded cabbage( about half a medium head),
2 medium carrots, cut julienne or on a large whole grater,
1/2 medium onion, cut in half and then finely sliced,
1/4 cup fresh, chopped dill,
1/4 flat leaves, Italian parsley ,chopped,
2 tbsp lemon juice or apple cider vinegar,
3 tbsp grape seed or rice bran oil (or any light vegetable oil),
1 tbsp sugar,
1 tsp salt,
freshly ground pepper to taste.

Preparation:
1. Shred the entire cabbage (except the core) and place it in a large bowl. Sprinkle with salt, mix, and gently squeeze with hand, so the salt can penetrate the cabbage and soften it a bit.
2. Set aside for about 10 minutes. Cabbage, especially young, will release juice. Some drain it out but the juice contains all the vitamins so we want to preserve it in the salad.
3. After that time add sugar and lemon (or vinegar) and mix again.
4. Add grated carrot, onion, parsley and dill. At this point you need to try it--the salad should have a delicately sweet taste but it should be predominately sour.If cabbage and carrot you use are young and sweet, you may add a bit more lemon or vinegar (I always use white vinegar to preserve the light color of the cabbage).
5. When the cabbage has a desirable taste, finish it with pepper and oil. Mix, let it stand for another 10 minutes and serve.

Savoy Cabbage Rolls--Otherwise "Pigeons"

I had just finished cooking those cabbage rolls when I incidentally learned that people from the British website lovethegarden.com wished to learn more about cabbage and the way to prepare it and announced a contest for a cabbage-based dish. I am sure that with the recent tide of Polish migration to the UK, Polish cuisine has got a chance to become very popular, but I could always offer many ideas on that subject. So far, I have posted five cabbage recipes (most recently, for a spicy white cabbage salad) and at least another five are waiting to be posted. Nevertheless, in this contest I will vote for my follower Karolina and her cabbage dish: cabbage & mushroom pasties.

I agree that cabbage, so well-known in Eastern Europe, is still not very popular elsewhere. I consider cabbage a very Polish vegetable and we are the greatest experts on how to prepare it and serve it. Therefore, I am always very happy that someone from an exotic place like Trinidad checked out for instance my red cabbage salad. And the idea that someone would like to try for the first time that vegetable, thanks to my post, is very thrilling to me.

Recently, having my mother visiting I have been cooking more Polish dishes than I usually do, since normally I choose my daily food from a more international repertoire, only with some Polish elements. But with her help I was able to collect quite an impressive array of traditional Polish recipes, which I will share on my blog from time to time.

Today's stuffed cabbage rolls belong to the classic and probably most known Polish cabbage dishes next to bigos. Many of my friends visiting Poland fall in love with them, many heard of it, some ask me to prepare it for them to try. So as you can see on one of the photos, when I finally make them, their amount is really impressive. It is just the simplest version of that dish, sauteed with meat stuffing. In many Polish homes, they are made in a tomato sauce with a stuffing including meat and rice. The Polish name for this dish is "gołąbki", which means "pigeons".

Stuffed Savoy Cabbage Rolls
(Makes ten rolls)

Ingredients:
1 medium soft savoy cabbage,
1 lb ground pork (try to choose a lean and light pink piece; it is a better quality meat),
1 medium onion,
1 tbsp breadcrumbs,
1/2 lb thinly sliced smoked bacon,
1/4 tsp nutmeg
salt and pepper,
6 tbsp olive oil.

Preparation:
1. In a large pot boil water with a tbsp salt.
2. Peel off gently cabbage leaves, throw away the outer layer.
3. Put the cabbage leaves in a boiling water and let it blanch for about 5 minutes or until the leaves turn bright green. Dry and cool them on a colander.
4. Chop onion as thinly as you can, fry it on a tablespoon of oil.
5. Mix ground pork with spices, breadcrumbs, and onion. Using your hands mix all the ingredients, until they create a smooth feeling. Divide meat into ten equal portions
6. At that point heat oven to 375F.
7. Select the smallest leaves and put a one portion of meat inside, then place it on a big leaf that you will use as wrap.

8. Put oil in a baking dish and place all the the rolls next to each other.

9. If you like bacon, cover rolls with bacon slices, or with a few slivers of butter.

10. Cover the dish with aluminium foil and bake for 30 minutes. Remove the foil and bake it for another 20 minutes, until the rolls get slightly brown on top.

Serve with potatoes or rye bread and fresh tomato salad.

Spicy White Cabbage Salad--A New Arugula?

Looking at most popular recipes on food blogs, I often wonder if in cooking, like in fashion, simplicity is the way that always works best. On top of my blog list there are still the simplest dishes, including two cabbage salads, that basically require only one ingredient and some spices. I cannot figure out what explains this popularity, especially that Polish readers are in a minority among the visitors of this blog.

Are we simply tired of green salads and no one can be any longer impressed with a bowl of arugula? Or, are we looking for the new, easy, and healthy vegetable, that is ether still not fully appreciated in some parts of the world or already forgotten in others.

Well, whatever the reason, I could not be happier, as I always have some new recipes for salads, including cabbage salads. Ever since I tried arugula, I cannot live without it. I can eat it every day and will never get bored with its peppery taste. But for certain dishes that come from my native cuisine I prefer salads that are traditionally eaten with them. For example, I serve cabbage salad with most potato dishes, because the zesty taste of cabbage contrasts nicely with their mild taste.

I like to eat white cabbage salad in the summer and early fall when cabbage is young and green, naturally sweet, and almost as delicate as lettuce. In the winter, I prefer red cabbage salad or sauerkraut. But I have discovered this salad recipe, which uses fresh white cabbage, but seems pretty wintery to my taste. It is spiced with cayenne pepper and garnished with walnuts. Unlike most other cabbage salads, it is not predominantly sweet and sour but spicy from the hot pepper and walnuts. Wonderful with fish and meats, especially grilled and roasted.

Spicy White Cabbage Salad

Ingredients:
1/2 small cabbage, shredded (about 4 cups),
1 tsp sugar,
2 tbsp lemon juice,
1 small onion, chopped,
1 garlic clove, minced,
1/2 cup walnuts chopped,
1/2 tsp paprika,
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper,
1 tbsp oil (in this recipe I like the neutral taste of grapeseed oil),
1/2 tsp salt.

Preparation:
1. Place the shredded cabbage in a large bowl. Add salt, sugar, and lemon juice, and squeeze it gently with hands. Set aside for 15 minutes.
2. Add onion, garlic, walnuts, paprika, cayenne pepper and oil. Mix all the ingredients.
3. Let it macerate for 10 minutes and serve.

Cabbage Sautéed with Prunes--And Let's Go Shopping

December is not the month when we cook the most. It is the month when we shop. Actually, I think that until last days before Christmas we cook less than ever. My local Giant food store is not yet busier than usual, but my huge local shopping mall is crowded at any hour. We shop, but we do not shop for food, at least until next week. We shop for gifts, we shop for ourselves, we shop for parties. So who has the time to cook? These days, not even me.

Tomorrow, I going to a big Christmas party, and others will be cooking. For me, this is going to be about a tufted black Marc Jacobs dress, red lipstick, and perfumes. So, before the compulsive Christmas cooking starts, I decided to take a break and just use whatever is left in my refrigerator. I found there a half of cabbage, which has been there probably since October, but cabbage preserves well. This is why it has been such a popular vegetable during harsh winters in Poland.

At the bottom drawer of my refrigerator I also found an onion--which always goes well with cabbage--and a bag of Californian prunes. All those ingredients brought back the memory of a dish that I cooked years ago in Poland--cabbage with prunes. Today, I would think that this recipe had its roots in the Asian cuisine, but being such avid cabbage lovers, maybe we invented it ourselves, to bring a new flair to the old vegetable. It is an easy, fast, and I would say quite interesting dish. It can be eaten alone or as an accompaniment to meats. Whatever you decide, unlike many other cabbage dishes, it does not take long to prepare it, which is particularly important during these busy days.

Cabbage Sautéed with Prunes

Ingredients:
1/2 medium cabbage,
1 medium onion,
1 tbsp grated ginger,
3 tbsp soy sauce,
1 tbsp white vinegar,
1/2 cup prunes,
3 tbsp vegetable oil,
salt and pepper.

Preparation:
1. Cut the cabbage into thin slices, salt it, and set aside for 10 minutes.
2. Heat the oil in a large saucepan and, when the oil is hot, add ginger. Fry together for 2-3 minutes.
3. Cut the onion in half-moon slices, add it to the saucepan, and fry until transparent.
4. Add cabbage and saute it for 8-10 minutes, until it is soft.
5. Season with vinegar--you may add a little bit more if you like it on the sour side, soy sauce, and salt and pepper.
6. Cut the prunes into thin slices, add to the cabbage, and cook together for another 5-8 minutes.

This dish, as almost all cabbage dishes, tastes even better on a next day.

Brussels Sprouts in Béchamel Sauce--a Taste from the Childhood Garden

When I saw stalks of Brussels sprouts at my local food store, all my childhood memories came back to me at once. Brussels sprouts, with their very intriguing way of growing, for some mysterious reason, were the only vegetable thriving in my parents' garden. We tried to grow absolutely every vegetable that was known in Poland at that time, but the only vegetable that ended up being impressive were the Brussels sprouts. To my deep disappointment, we never managed to see various lettuces we planted to turn into lettuce heads. And I did not know at that time that a baby salad mix was considered more desirable in the culinary world than a lettuce head and cherry tomatoes were more sweet than those on the vine. I guess we considered their size rather than their taste as the proof of quality.

While being famous for the love of cabbage, we have never befriended Brussels sprouts. You can spot them occasionally on a Polish table, served with buttered bread crumbs, but compared to other cuisines, their presence in our culinary tradition was timid to say the least. Therefore, when I think Brussels sprouts I feel completely free to choose how to make them. From various experiments I have conducted with Brussels sprouts, I concluded that they tasted best when baked in béchamel sauce.

Brussels Sprouts in Béchamel Sauce

Ingredients:
2 lb Brussels sprouts,
2 tbsp butter,
2 tbsp white flour,
2 cups milk at room temperature,
1/2 cup shredded Fontina cheese,
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg,
salt and pepper to taste.

Preparation:
1. Cook Brussels sprouts in salted water for 5-10 minutes. Drain.
2. Heat the oven to 375F.
3. To make béchamel sauce melt butter in a saucepan, over a medium heat.
4. Add flour and using a whisker mix until the sauce becomes smooth.
5. Pour in at first 1/2 cup milk whisking continuously. Add the remainig milk gradually, and let the sauce simmer on a low heat for about 5 minutes, stirring from time to time to prevent it from burning.
6. Take the saucepan off the heat, add nutmeg, salt,pepper and Fontina cheese.
7. Place Brussels sprouts in oven proof dish and cover with the sauce.
8. Bake for about 30 minutes, until the sauce starts bubbling and becomes dark gold.

Serve with a tomato salad and white bread.

Jicama and Cabbage Salad--the Best of Two Worlds

In the first week of October, my sister came to visit us for three days. Of course, I wanted to be a good host and cook something that she would enjoy. The problem is that, although we grew in the same home, we are very different, especially when it comes to the culinary taste. As a child, she was the biggest picky eater any mother could imagine and, unfortunately, she has stayed that way. If you can imagine a person cutting the fat out of a perfectly lean prosciutto, that would be her. Almost in every dish there would be something that she finds "suspicious".

After going through hundreds of dinner ideas, I got discouraged and decided to go with the flow. My refrigerator is always full, especially now when I write a food blog, and any accidental guest can find something attractive there. When on a sunny day I was shooting my herring salad on the deck she did not even look in that direction; she has never had a piece of fish or any sea food in her mouth. Later that day I made a salad, also to take pictures of it. Surprisingly, it instantly became a culinary highlight of her visit. It would not be an exaggeration to say that she ate almost the whole huge bowl by herself over these three days. This salad blends perfectly the familiar with the exotic: our old good cabbage and beets with jicama and avocado that come from a completely different world. Jicama is the least known ingredient, which tastes like a mix of a pear and a radish, but more subtle than any of the two.

I was intrigued by this recipe from the moment I saw it probably already ten years ago. Since my cabbage recipe has been on of my biggest hits so far, from Mauritius to Copenhagen, I think it is a good moment to share this salad with those who check this blog.

At first, it seems that this salad won't be easy to make because it includes too many ingredients, not to mention two dressings, but most of them are either in our kitchens already or can be easily found in every supermarket. I modified slightly the original recipe by making the avocado dressing more thick and spicy, which turns this salad into a wonderful lunch meal in itself.

Jicama Purple Salad
(Serves 4-6; adapted from "Mexico: The Beautiful Cookbook")

Ingredients:
1/2 jicama cut into thin sticks (about 1 cup),
1 lb red cabbage (about half of the medium-sized head) thinly sliced,
1 medium raw beet thinly sliced (if you have a julienne slicer it would work best)
1/2 medium onion tiny sliced,
1 bag (6-8 oz) baby spinach,
1/4 cup toasted sesame seeds.

Oil dressing:
2 tsp soy sauce,
1/2 cup corn oil,
2 tbsp cider vinegar,
1 tsp dried vegetable bouillon,
1 tsp dried oregano,
1 tsp dried tarragon.

Avocado dressing:
2 avocados flesh,
2 garlic cloves minced,
2 tbsp lime juice,
1 cup sour cream,
1 tbsp chopped chives,
salt and pepper.

Preparation:
1. In a large bowl mix cabbage, beet, spinach, onion, and jicama.
2. Prepare the oil dressing by mixing all the ingredients in a a small bowl.
3. To make the avocado dressing, puree avocado,lemon, and cream in a blender. Transfer to another bowl. Add chives and season with salt and pepper.
4. Pour the oil dressing over the vegetables and mix until all are covered with it. Add sesame seeds and mix again.
5. Serve on individual plates with a couple of spoons of the avocado dressing on top.

This salad can be eaten just with bread or to accompany roasted or grilled meats.

White Cabbage Salad--Polish Ingredients, German Way

What can I possibly post on my last day of vacation in Poland? Cabbage, of course! But since this is almost a one-ingredient dish I will have to tell the story how this very low calorie and healthy salad got onto my family menu, especially that--which may seem surprising--this is not a Polish recipe.

Many years ago, still during the communist times, I went with my parents on vacation to our western neighbors--a tiny town called Friedrichroda in then East Germany, very close to the border with West Germany. You cannot even imagine how western it felt there then! Store shelves were filled up with a great variety of very desirable products: Salamander shoes, corduroy pants, a huge choice of wallpapers, not to mention the great variety of attractive looking food. The only regret was that we could not buy much for our limited allowance of GDR marks.

Every day's highlight were though the copious meals that we were served at the resort. It was a "lavish" Swedish buffet where you could eat as much as you wanted, which some people really tried, endlessly filling up their plates. The choice was wonderful, especially cold meats, which at that time we could only dream of in Poland, but also breads and salads. The most disappointing were desserts--tasteless, and not even sweet at all.

We liked the white cabbage salad particularly well. It was made from a very familiar ingredient--a mainstay of Polish cuisine--but was served in an unfamiliar way. We put our broken German through a strenuous test and got the recipe. Ever since, for more than thirty years, we have been having it at hour home. The only difference is we do not serve it as a self-standing salad but only with dinners--it enhance very good with meat, even grilled ones, and most of all with fish, especially fried in breadcrumbs.

So if you are tired of green salads and looking for something easy and healthy, this salad is an option rich in vitamins A, B1, B12, and C. It is always a huge hit at our deck parties and disappears fast, earning praises for its uniquely refreshing taste.

Shredded White Cabbage Salad

Ingredients:
1/2 medium white cabbage (it actually should be young and still green),
1/2 cup flat-leaved Italian parsley,
1/2 cup chopped dill,
1 tbsp sugar,
1 lemon,
salt and pepper.

Preparation:
1. Shred the cabbage very thinly, put in a bowl, salt with about 1/2 tsp of salt, squeeze with hands slightly to help salt to penetrate and soften the cabbage, and aside for about 20-30 min.
2. Add sugar and lemon juice--you need to try how sour and sweet you like it to be--it should be sweet but the sour taste should dominate.
3. Put in dill and parsley, mix together, and serve.

Can be made even hours ahead and served straight from the refrigerator, especially on a hot day, for instance with grilled meats.

Cauliflower from my Hometown

Whenever I visit the farmers market in my hometown, I am overwhelmed by the great number of stands selling fruits and vegetables. I have to admit that I have never seen anything as impressive in the US and only the open-air market hosted by Geneva's Plaine de Plainpalais was comparable to this one, which is located in a relatively small provincial city in Poland.

All the products sold are very fresh and most of them, including eggs, are genuinely organic. Although you can find there only about four kinds of lettuce, I am sure that there are not many places in the world, maybe with the exception of Italy or Spain, where you can find so many--probably around twenty--different kinds of tomatoes. And they all are wonderfully ripe and tasty. There is also an enormous variety of potatoes, and many different types of cucumbers and peppers. Green beans are green only in their name as they come in various colors, from purple to white, and in many shapes and sizes.

Behind each stand there are mountains of cabbage and of course cauliflowers--large snow white curds, which are very fresh and aromatic in an earthy sort of way. Without any hesitation I have chosen the biggest cauliflower curd (in Poland we always say "cauliflower head" though) I could find for today's dinner and I will prepare it in a traditional Polish way with buttery, crispy bread crumbs, and I will serve it accompanied by a tomato salad. But can anyone else anywhere in the world get excited like me about a cauliflower cooked in such a simple way? True, a simple cauliflower tastes really great only when it had been grown locally in a good soil, with the right amount of water and sun, and was harvested in the morning of the very same day it was sold at the market.

Probably this is the reason why I do not cook it as often anymore in my American home, and if I do, I typically serve it in béchamel sauce or baked with garlic, since both methods can make even a supermarket cauliflower taste rich and interesting.

Cauliflower Pie

Ingredients:
1 cauliflower,
1 egg,
3 cloves of garlic,
1 tbsp of sour cream,
1/4 cup Parmesan cheese,
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg,
1 tbsp chopped parsley,
salt and pepper to taste.

Preparation:
1. Preheat oven to 375F.
2. Divide cauliflower into smaller pieces and cook in salted water until almost soft.
3. Mix the whole egg, cream, and Parmesan cheese together.
4. Cool slightly the pieces of cooked cauliflower and, using food processor, break them into smaller rice-like pieces.
5. Add to the cauliflower the egg mixture, add chopped parsley and crushed garlic, and mix well.
6. Season with nutmeg, salt, and pepper.
7. Put cauliflower in a buttered oven-proof dish and bake for 35–45 minutes, or until the it turns slightly gold at the top.

Cauliflower prepared this way can be served as a self-standing, vegetarian dish and will taste even better with a tomato salad. It can also accompany any meat or fish. If enriched by adding chopped, smoked ham, it turns into a very rich meal in itself. It is not very photogenic but it tastes better than it looks!

Red Cabbage Salad--Coleslaw's Polish Cousin

Poland can certainly be called a land of cabbage and potatoes. These two ingredients, together with beets, practically define Polish cuisine. If you visit Polish farmers markets you will be astounded by the mountains of cabbage heads and the great variety and quantity of potatoes being sold. Therefore, while spending the whole month in Poland, I cannot resist introducing my international readers to cabbage.

Whenever any foreigner asks about Polish cuisine or wants to show any knowledge of it, cabbage-based dishes inevitably come up. The most famous is bigos--a long cooked dish (it can take days to cook bigos properly), which is made from sour and fresh cabbage with a generous amount of different meats and sausages, and it is spiced up with dried porcini or prunes. It is very heavy but very tasty and everyone who has been raised in its flavor is nostalgic about it. Foreigners who tried it either fell in love with bigos, or hate forever even the very smell of it.

For those who are even scared to try bigos, we also have much lighter and less odoriferous dishes that are made of cabbage. They are also much easier to prepare. We have many variations of them in our national cuisine and anyone who is willing to try them, will find for sure a dish made of cabbage that is very tasty but also very light.

Unfortunately, as foreign cuisines have become widespread in Poland in recent years and even all the "holes in the walls" now serve exotic food like sushi or Turkish kebab, it is now much harder to find a good traditional dish like a cabbage salad, which used to be so prominent on the Polish daily menu.

Red cabbage was always one of my favorites. It is very healthy as it is particularly rich in vitamins K and C. It can be served in a cooked version, as a side dish to heavier meats like duck or venison, but the one I make at home is a simple salad made of raw red cabbage to preserve all its nutritional values. It can be served to accompany any meat, especially grilled.

Red Cabbage Salad

Ingredients:
1/2 head red cabbage,
1/2 medium sweet onion,
2 tbsp roasted, slivered almonds,
3 tbsp balsamic vinegar,
1 tsp of sugar,
1/4 cup olive oil,
1/3 cup crumbled feta cheese (optional),
salt and pepper to taste.

Preparation:
1. Shred cabbage thinly, salt generously, and set aside for about half an hour.
2. Using hands squeeze cabbage to help soften and macerate in its own juice.
3. Season with sugar, vinegar, and pepper.
4. Add onion and oil and mix well.
5. Sprinkle with almonds and serve.

Useful tips:
This salad can also be served at lunch with bread and cold meat cuts. If you sprinkle it with feta cheese, it would become a rich meal in itself.