Bigos

01 -Friday 04- 08

This was my first attempt at making bigos on my own with whatever I had in the kitchen. Bigos is a Polish sauerkraut dish that is usually made with pork meat and sometimes mushrooms, like for Christmas Eve. I am trying not to eat meat again so I chose mushroom and onion.

a can of sauerkraut
half an onion
6 mushrooms or however many you want
olive oil
water
bay leaves
wheat germ
vinegar
salt
pepper


first I started with sauteing the slices of mushrooms and diced onions in olive oil. While that was doing its thing I drizzled some olive oil in a sauce pan and allowed that heat up. Next is a step that can make a big difference in how your bigos comes out, rinse out the sauerkraut to the sourness that you prefer, if your bigos doesn't come out too well this might be why. Drop the sauerkraut in the oiled sauce pan and I like to let the sauerkraut on the bottom brown just a little. Add water level to the sauerkraut, bay leaves and the mushroom onion mix. Cover and let that simmer until the water is almost all gone, then add salt and pepper to taste and fill with water again. Its important to season before adding all that water again since the water will dilute the salt and you might end up with a salty sour dish instead of savory. If you have pepper corns I'd use that instead and then garnish with crushed pepper. I usually season with a lot of pepper because it adds a nice bite. after the water has almost evaportated for a second time add wheat germ, maybe 1/2 a cup, a splash of vinegar and season to taste if needed. If you like a dryer bigos like I do, you can let the rest of the water evaporate, but sometimes a soggier bigos is good, especially over rice!

Well, this try at bigos with what I had went well. I actually used rice vinegar because thats all I had! Hmmm I also wanted to add carrots towards the end, grated carrots, but I didn't know where they were hiding. Stu wont eat my bigos becase it has mushrooms and onions, he won't even taste the sauerkraut because he says it will have a mushroom onion flavor. So I want the next thing I make more edible to him.