Madam Arcati Cooks the Books #1; Polish Recipes

 

Madam Arcati Cooks the Books #1

You may know that apart from the garden my other passion is collecting Cookery Books. The 'Delargo Foundation' has at present some 287 books and a further 195 in PDF format

 I have often thought about using our diverse collection for a blog post but never have. Inspired by a blog chat with Steve. Because 'Steve'  I have decided to give it a bash. Having said that I am aware that if I cook and post from one book a month it will take me 2 years and 4 months to complete.

Lets see how far we get.

We start the ball rolling with book number 255. 'Treasured Polish Recipes for Americans'. Compiled from recipes from Polish women that moved to the USA after WW2 and Edited by Marie Sokolowski and Irene Jasinskiub. First published in 1948, my edition was printed in 2020.

 

I cooked Gołąbki, which translates as little pigeons and they do look similar cooked and on the plate.

 

 Now I was well out of my comfort zone cooking this and the result was beyond rustic. It was lovely however even if they were a bit larger than perhaps they should have been

Ingredients.

 

This was a Turkish flat cabbage which was enormous.

Luckily I have an enormous pot. I was amazed how easy it was to peel off each leaf whole from the blanched cabbage.

 I made 6 big ones, I think 8 or more smaller ones would have worked better. Gawd knows I had enough cabbage and beef - pork - rice stuffing.

This is were I entered into controversy. BACON! Every Polish person said that was wrong, in fact some were outraged saying that no one in Poland would ever top Gołąbki with bacon. 'Well' I told them this is a Polish recipe printed in 1948 so you are wrong! It turns out that bacon was not commonly used except for special occasions. Well, Madam Arcati cooking the the books is a special occasion. I stuck with the American Polish and used bacon and wish I hadn't.

 The bacon was in the oven for so long it wasn't that pleasant to eat and tinfoil would have protected my little pigeons better in the later stages of cooking.

Not the most refined or elegant cooking and presentation but very tasty when served with a good sauce. I used a tomato sauce from this book which used butter instead of oil and was lush.

Hope you found that worth the read and will pop back for next months post. I think I should have a go at something historic next time.

You will have seen this in the background of many of the photos so I will leave you with an image of my shrine to the major Gods of my kitchen.

If you have cooked something interesting I would love to hear about it.

Ttfn