Dobra! Polish Christmas

Ever since I met the eastern European side of OH’s family back in the autumn I’ve been inspired to try some typical Ukrainian or Polish recipes. It’s a rich and diverse cuisine, influenced by the culinary traditions of moving borders, people and surrounding states, especially Jewish food, Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania, plus Czech, Germany and Austria. Many of the spices and ingredients are amongst our favourites, like cinnamon, paprika, clove, dill, mustard and pickled cucumbers

For the past few years we’ve had Christmas at home, a deux, so I’ve never felt constrained by any traditional ‘roast and all the trimmings’ type menus. Our Christmas meal is a time for experimentation – and a new tradition I’ve established is to choose fare from a different country’s Christmas cuisine every year. This year the choice was obvious  Poland.

Poles eat their main celebratory meal on Christmas eve, like many other European countries. It’s an important occasion in Polish culture, with the traditional catholic meal comprising 12 courses (symbolising the 12 apostles), known as wigilia. The Christmas meal is normally meatless, as a sign of fasting (though it does include fish) so it is quite easy to veganise. The meal opens with the breaking of a cracker or wafer at the table, known as optatek, which we accompanied with a swig of vodka.

Soups feature quite prominently at the start of the list, with the emphasis on borscht – beetroot soup – which I knew would not be a favoured flavour here, though I might try it in the future. I opted for a Mushroom Bisque, based on one of the first recipes I learned at the Vegetarian Cookery School way back when. Other Polish options include the said Mushroom soup Sweet Almond soup, and these are often served with little dumplings called uszka.

In the Polish tradition the soup is followed by a fried fish course and then a meatloaf, which I decided to omit, even though these could be easily veganised with tofu wrapped in nori sheets, battered and fried, and a good old-fashioned nut roast. I went straight on to the perennial Polish favourite pierogi – stuffed dumplings. Wow! What a discovery, similar but not the same as samosas, these will be on the weekly menu from now on. A whole range of different fillings is possible. My research threw up a couple of different recipes for the pastry, some using aquafaba, but I chose a simple caramelised onion and mash potatoes recipe from one of my favourite blogs Connoisseurusveg, but other options are cabbage and mushroom, sauerkraut, mushroom and white bean: there’s great potential for lots of vegan variety. 

Vegan Pierogi

A traditional side dish is, of course, sauerkraut. I’ve never had much success with fermenting foods so here I decided to sub a side of Christmas red cabbage accompanied by some celeriac mash. The traditional 12-course menu continues with a Gotabki  (the a has a little cedilla, but I’ve not got the font) – these are stuffed cabbage rolls in a tomato sauce, definitely something to try in future.

Then, the traditional Polish Christmas meal moves on to the sweet courses starting with Kutia¸a mix of wheat grains, poppy seeds, honey, and candied fruits, followed by Polish gingerbread, dried fruit compote and finally cake: either a cheesecake or a traditional poppy seed cake. The Polish cuisine is big on cheesecakes; it must be in the genes.

As there were just two of us I opted to make just the dried fruit compote, which perfumed the kitchen with warming Christmas scents of cinnamon, orange and clove and a poppy seed cake. Although the spiced poppy seed filling was delicious I wasn’t completely satisfied with the vegan version of the yeasted pastry I used, but a version made later in the week using the bread-mix I usually use for cinnamon rolls proved to be much better. The Christmas meal certainly whetted my appetite to research and try out some more Polish recipes, including some great salads.