Super healthy Polish sauerkraut soup

Sauerkraut doesn't sound terribly sexy I know. Yet it's one of the healthiest things you can eat due to its vitamin C, mineral and probiotic content. The juice from the cabbage is a brilliant hangover remedy, my dad assures me, although I haven't tried it myself. I do, however, crave this wintery soup from time to time.

I have limited the amount of pork that goes in to just some good quality lardons (from Ginger Pig of course) and used a beef rib for the stock. Since I've been working on the book I have realized how vague my recipes can be. It's because I see cooking as something that's adaptable and not an exact art, yet I can see that being vague often confuses perfectly simple matters, therefore it's something I've been working on and I hope my recipes now reflect this.

Recipe

2 litres water

500g sauerkraut

1 beef rib

150g lardons

2 potatoes, peeled and chopped

1 carrot

1 parsnip

1 onion, peeled and charred over stove

1 celery stick with leaves

2 bay leaves

5 allspice berries

5 whole peppercorns

1 teaspoon cumin

White and black pepper

Cook the rib with the carrot, parsnip, celery and onion with the bay leaves, allspice and peppercorns in the water for at least 1 hour, preferably 1.5 hours.

Remove the vegetables and beef, add the potatoes and sauerkraut. Add the cumin. Cook for a further 30min.

Meanwhile, fry the lardons on a frying pan until slightly crispy. Add these to the soup for the final 10min.

Season with black and white pepper. The soup doesn't need salt as the sauerkraut is already salty.

Leftovers kulebiak recipe

Life has taken a strange turn for me, and I'm in a situation that I've never been in before, trying to feel my way through it... I can't quite describe it to you as it's still in the process of changing and fluctuating and I'm not really sure what is happening or even what I want to happen. I'm finding comfort in Eastbourne.

Our house here stands on a hill next to the Downs national park with a view to the sea in the distance. I always find that nature both soothes and teaches me. One day the sun's so warm and strong that the wild flowers on the downs give off a heady smell that I can't get enough of and reminds me of Greece; the very next day could look the same, but as soon as you step outside you realize that it's fresh, cool and windy. One day the sea is dark and serious, on another it's so soft that appears to not even be there, melting into the sky. So I ask myself, why would we expect anything else from life? All we can do is be authentic, speak our truth and accept the current situation. Accepting is the hard part, I find. Cooking always helps to take me away from the past and into the present moment, especially cooking leftovers, which is, of course, the art of improvisation. We stuffed this "kulebiak" pie with mushrooms, onions, kale and a yellow pepper, all fried on olive oil with soya sauce and little bit of white wine, then cooled and finally mixed with grated cheddar cheese and an egg, to stick it all together.

 You can stuff "kulebiak" with any leftovers you like. We've used onion, mushrooms, spinach and soft cheese with garlic and herbs before and this worked out beautifully too. The general idea is to fry the onion first (or garlic if you have no onion), then add any other leftover ingredients and flavours - soya sauce, wine, cream, chilli sauce, anything you like really. Remember to season, the allow to cool before mixing with hard or soft cheese and an egg, or even just some egg white. The important constant is the dough, which is very easy to make. Simply combine all the ingredients down there with your hands until they form a soft ball. Split it into two balls and put it in the fridge for 1 hour, before rolling them both out. Cut out two equal rectangles and save the remaining dough for decoration. I made odd looking flowers and leaves to go on top, but it really didn't matter: anything looks good on top of a "kulebiak". Put your stuffing on one sheet of dough and the other sheet on top, pressing the edges down firmly with a fork. Use a little egg and cream to stick your decorations on and pain the entire kulebiak before putting it in the oven for 40min at 200 degrees C. Enjoy while it's still warm, washed down with borsht.

Ingredients:

400g flour
150g unsalted butter
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
Teaspoon of salt
180ml water from the fridge

1 egg and 1 teaspoon of cream for glazing

Filling:

Whatever you like

Prune sauce for venison and the joys of experimentation

Experimentation is always fun, as long as you keep your mind open, your ideas flexible and some degree of control over what you're doing. If you see something's not quite working out, why not change direction? This is what I did with this venison (and I was very pleased with the result).

My lilac tea (yes, from the pretty bush), which was meant to flavour the sauce, turned out bitter and disgusting. I know what I did wrong now- too many stems- but rather than go ahead with the original plan, I grabbed what was available and I felt would work with the taste of venison meat: prunes and red wine. I wasn't wrong. So now I'd like to share my discovery with you. This is how you make prune sauce for venison: soak the prunes in warm water if you have time. While they're soaking fry the venison steaks, and let them rest in a warm place for at least 10min, but no longer than 15min. Melt some butter on a frying pan and add the prunes, cover in red wine. Turn the heat down and allow to simmer, stirring occasionally. After about 10min, once the prunes have disintegrated and the sauce has reduced, push it through a sieve. Put it back on the frying pan and season with salt and pepper. Add a splash of wine if it's too thick. After about 2min it's ready to serve with your venison steaks.

Semolina and chocolate dessert

Has anyone ever been more tired than me? I might be emotional if I had the energy, but it's ran out. Don't worry I haven't got some strange, undiagnosed illness, it all makes sense and I will tell you why I'm so very tired soon. In the meantime, I need to write and cook, write and cook, and even though those are the things I love doing most, it doesn't always come easily. Some days are a fountain of perfectly chosen words, metaphors and ideas, while others are... Blank. And part of writing a book appears to be not letting the blank days get you down. Sugar helps these days. I spent so many years trying to avoid it, but now I just don't care. These semolina desserts topped with chocolate sauce and pecans are nutritious, refreshing and energising all at the same time. Perfect.

First, you need to blend the semolina well with a couple of tablespoons of cold water. Bring your milk to the boil and stir the semolina into it. Allow to simmer and thicken. Once it's gloopy, take it off the heat and cool completely. While its cooling make the chocolate sauce by heating the butter, sugar and cocoa powder along with 3 tablespoons of water in a pan, and stirring until smooth. Toast the pecans on a frying pan - it makes them so much tastier. Once the semolina is cool put it in a blender and slowly add the lemon juice, sugar, vanilla essence and butter, blending all the time. When you have a paste pour it into your serving bowls, top with chocolate sauce and pecans and chill for at least half an hour. Semolina, or "kasza manna" as it's known in Poland, is often eaten for breakfast so I think these little pots would also make a lovely start to the day.

Ingredients

8 tablespoons semolina

400ml milk

125g sugar

125g butter

1 teaspoon vanilla essence

Juice of half a lemon

2 tablespoons raw cacao powder

100g butter

100g sugar

Pecans

Rhubarb cake with meringue topping

I'm a big believer in openness. So much so that sometimes I worry that I overshare on this blog and try to tone down my natural tendencies. Yet I have been given some feedback recently from a few different people and apparently you, the reader, likes to get personal. Don't worry, I won't hit you with a bomb of over-personal information right away (or perhaps you'd enjoy that) but I can commit to slowly opening up once more, perhaps a bit more like I used to when I first started this blog. When I examine my approach, there was no conscious change, yet I think that with time I started holding back a little bit with the fear of being seen as an emotional car crash. I love receiving feedback because it alters my perspective. It gives me a chance to let go of any fears I have and grow more into  myself, even if sometimes that might be slightly dramatic or over-emotional. I am Slavic after all. And talking of those Slavic roots, here we have a cake based on my gran's old recipe, only with seasonal rhubarb...

There were a couple of mishaps while making this: firstly, I misunderstand my mum when she was reading the recipe aloud and put too much butter in the dough, so it was too soft. Secondly, my mum put it on too a high a temperature in the oven. No matter. It was delicious nevertheless. Here however I give you the correct quantities and temperature, so that yours will be even better still.

Ingredients 

500g plain flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

2 egg yolks

350g of  caster sugar
2 tablespoons sour cream

800g rhubarb

150g raisins

1 teaspoon vanilla essence 

4 egg whites, beaten to stiff peaks

- Make dough out of the flour, baking powder, 125g of sugar, sour cream and egg yolks

- Take a handful of dough and put in the freezer

- Put the remainder of the dough in a plastic bag in the fridge

- Peel the rhubarb, cut into chunks

- Mix the rhubarb with the raisins and 100g of sugar
- Butter a baking tray and roll the dough out to fit the bottom
- Place this in a pre-heated oven for 10min at 180 degrees C
- Add the rhubarb mix and put it back in the oven for another 10min
- Beat the egg whites until they form stiff peaks.
- Add vanilla essence and the remaining sugar tot he whites and keep blitzing until the mixture thickens
- Pour this over the top of the rhubarb.
- take the small dough ball out of the freezer and grate over the top
- Bake int he oven altogether for a further 35min at a reduced heat (about 160 degrees C)

Herrings in Soured Cream with Apple

The human condition is a strange one. The closer we get to what we want the more anxious we become. The stakes get higher as we realise that we have more to loose than before. Recently, I have had to remind myself constantly to enjoy the present moment. That despite the pressure, I'm actually spending time doing what I love to do. Writing, cooking, eating... Being able to do this full time is a precious gift and a blessing. And this is the sort of fresh-tasting Polish-style stuff I've been making and eating in the past couple of weeks.

That up there is Rye Pumpkin-seed Sourdough bread, a Beetroot and Potato Salad with Horseradish, Dill and Soured Cream and the famous Herrings in Soured Cream. If you haven't eaten herrings before, then you should try them because they are one of the few sustainable fish left. And once you fall in love with the humble herring, it will grow and grow on you. Here, their saltiness is balanced out by sweet apple. Once you have peeled and chopped the apple, squeeze the lemon over it to stop it from browning while prepping the other ingredients. Then just mix everything together and refrigerate for half an hour before eating with either rye bread or new potatoes.

Ingredients

Matjas Herrings in Oil, chopped

150ml soured cream

1 Tablespoon Mayonnaise 

1 Tablespoon Fresh Dill

1 Apple, peeled and chopped

2 gherkins, chopped into cubes

1 shallot, chopped finely

Chicken and vegetable soup with gherkin "croutons"

My vegetarianism lasted about 6 weeks. It wasn't the taste of meat that knocked me off the wagon, it was something much bigger and more exciting - my book-to-be. There is a very good chance that I may get it published soon. The point being that this book would not survive my vegetarianism. I had to make a choice so I made it: vegetarianism can wait. Something that I haven't given up on is my monthly focus. March will be all about... decluttering. My home and my mind, one step at a time. Every day I declutter a tiny area of my flat - a shelf, a box, a draw... And how do I declutter my mind? Every morning I meditate and set my intention for the day. That's all. Simple, like all the best things in life. And talking of simple...since I'm eating meat again I made this chicken and vegetable soup last night. We'd spent the whole day cooking for the homeless and needed something nourishing.

 I used 3 chicken drumsticks as well as leek, celery and carrots to make a stock. Then I added the pearl barley, cabbage and potatoes. You need to allow this to simmer until everything is soft now - about 40min - before frying the cubes of gherkin on a separate pan until golden. While they're frying, season the soup with salt and black and white pepper until it tastes right to you. You may a tablespoon or two of brine from the gherkins too at this point. Turn the heat off. Pour the double cream into a bowl and whisk a tablespoon of soup into it, then another, then slowly start stirring the cream into the soup. Mix half the gherkin bits into it and use the remainder as "croutons".

In Poland we have a much loved gherkin soup, which gave me the idea to use gherkins in this way. This is a very simple soup yet the gherkins give it a fun twist. They're mini bombs of flavour in your mouth, exploding with a zesty juiciness and cutting through the the taste of  the other ingredients.

Ingredients (5-6 portions)

3 chicken drumsticks

100g pearl barley

2-3 potatoes

2 carrots, cubed

2 celery stick, chopped

1 leek, chopped

1/2 white cabbage 

Sea salt

White and black pepper

8-10 gherkins

Large pan of water

Polish carnival cakes: fat faworki

OK, so they're not really called "fat faworki", just "faworki", but mine turned out a little on the fat side and "fat faworki" has a certain ring to it, you have to admit. Crispy, soft and flaky all at once, they were rather delicious and did a very good job of impressing all the right people, so I can't complain. And yet... my faworki are still a way off from my gran's paper thin, melt-in-your-mouth ones. Nothing beats the taste of childhood.

These are traditionally eaten at carnival time, which is now, so it really is the ideal time to make them. They are very simple, as you can see. You sieve the flour into a bowl and add the other dough ingredients - crème fraîche, egg yolks, butter and icing sugar. I added moisture with the lemon vodka, just because that was on hand, but you could use a another spirit, or even vinegar or lemon juice. Kneed the dough for a couple of minutes, then roll it out on a lightly floured surface, as thin as you can get it. Cut the dough in rectangular shapes, about 9cm in length and 4cm in width, and put a slit in the middle of about 3cm. Now weave one end through the slit, in order to achieve the desired shape, like mine up there. We deep fry these in the rapeseed oil, about 30sec each side, or until golden. Make sure the oil is super hot - it should start sizzling as soon as the dough hits it. Sprinkle with icing sugar while still warm.

Ingredients

250g plain flour
50g salted butter
3 tablespoons crème fraîche
3 egg yolks
1 tablespoon icing sugar and more to serve
2 tablespoons strong spirit, like vodka 
500ml rapeseed oil for frying

Spelt and rye onion bread

My mum has three brothers and they all love to cook. Last week I was in Poland working on an important project. To celebrate my sending everything off on time, my godfather Wojtek (my mum's youngest brother) came round and taught me this way of making proper bread. We made one spelt and one rye one then, whereas this time I combined the two flours and left out the plain flour. This has made it even healthier and taste-wise, it worked beautifully. It's not too heavy at all, if that's what you're wondering.

Wojtek gave me some fermented dough, which I managed to smuggle through security in my hand luggage on the way back to London. In order to make "proper"  bread, you see, we need to use this rather than yeast. The only way you can get it is if you know someone that already has some spare and they give you a bit to use in your dough. Then every time you make bread (it needs to contain a lot of rye flour to make good leaven), you take 2 tablespoons of dough,  put it in a jar and allow it to ferment for a week in the fridge, you then need to make bread again the following week. It's quite a process even though the actual bread making is incredibly simple: Combine all the dry ingredients down there. Fry the onions in some oil, until they're golden like this:

Add the warm water to the fermented dough jar, shake it as vigorously as you can (my weak wrist action appeared to be a source of great amusement to my mentor) and pour that into the dry ingredients. Mix it in, then keep adding more water and stirring until you get the consistency of thick batter... Something like peanut butter maybe... Transfer that into the baking tray, which has been buttered and floured. Now allow to rest for 10 hours in a warm place. On a radiator perhaps? After exactly 10 hours, bake at about 150 degrees C, for 1 hour.

If you live in the UK (I'm sorry I realise that most of my readers are actually in the US), then do let me know if you fancy making some, because I'd be more than happy to send you some of my fermented dough and pass on the bread love.

Ingredients:

200g rye flour
200g spelt flour
2 tablespoons fermented dough
1 mug of warm water (aprox)
1 onion, chopped 
1 tablespoon sunflower oil
1 tablespoon salt
1 tablespoon linseeds
1 tablespoon oats
3 tablespoons wheatgerm

Butter for greasing tray

Pearl barley, wild mushrooms, blue cheese, gherkins

There is nothing more thrilling than the feeling of cultural progress. This was my elated thought as I picked up a packet of fresh wild mushrooms in my local Tesco's. Yes, the UK is now officially eating wild mushrooms, like the rest of our European neighbours. This is progress indeed. If we are moving towards a more advanced state in the tastebud department then I believe other areas will follow. We will surely soon be more understanding, compassionate and tolerant in all areas of our lives, n'est pas?

I fried these mushrooms up on some butter with a fresh shallot and dried oregano. I cooked the pearl barley in vegetable stock, adding the chilli sauce and crème fraîche near the end of the cooking time. I seasoned both. When serving, I piled the browned mushrooms on to the creamy pearl barley, topped off with blue cheese cubes and decorated with gherkin slices. Easy and delicious.

Ingredients

Pearl barley
Stock cube
Crème fraîche
West Indian chilli sauce
Wild mushrooms
Shallot
Dried oregano
Blue cheese, cubes
Gherkins, sliced
Knob of butter
Salt and pepper

Super easy Polish poppy seed cake

John Lennon was right when he wrote that "life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans". At this point I ask myself if any plan is worth making. Perhaps life has nothing to do with plans after all, perhaps the only reason we plan is to create an illusion of control? What control do we truly have? How to be, how to think... Even this I have to question. I may choose to be strong, and think positive thoughts in the face of adversity, yet if other feelings creep in, what can I do? Either fight them, pretend I feel differently or, according to teachers like David Hawkins and Eckhart Tolle I can accept them in the knowledge that they too will pass. Whilst doing that, however, I may not be being particularly strong or positive, thereby breaking my resolution, and letting go of any control I have over the situation. However disagreeable and unpleasant that sounds, deep down I know that the path of acceptance is the one for me and that my trust in life is what keeps me sane. Sometimes. From my musings you may have figured out that the Christmas period has been taxing over here... Yet within this unavoidable brutality of life, there are still moments of comfort and softeness and it's with the wish of more of these, in all of our lives, that I give you this Polish poppy seed cake. Poppy seeds are generally known to have a calming, soothing effect on the mind and body...

A "proper" Polish poppy seed cake is an endevour, but this is a super easy version. If you go to a shop and buy the pre-prepared poppy seed mixture in a tin - called " masa makowa" - then all you need to do is add three egg yolks and 3 beaten-until-stiff egg whites, empty the lot into a greased baking tray and bake in a pre-heated oven at about 180 degrees C for 40 minutes. If you can't find this mixture, or would rather undertake the longer journey for the pure joy of it (it is quite joyous in a Slavic-Christmas kind of way), then you need to get all those ingredients down there. Soak the poppy seeds overnight in boiling water. Blend them on a very high setting until they produce a white-ish juice, then start adding all the other ingredients apart from the egg whites, keep blending. Finally, stir the egg whites into the mixture and bake as before. To finish, once the cake has cooled down, we make icing out of icing sugar and fresh lemon juice and pour it over the cake

Ingredients

1/2kg poppy seeds

1 tablespoon honey

200g caster sugar

1 tablespoon butter

100g raisins

100g dessicated coconut

100g chopped walnuts

50g candied orange peel

2 eggs, separated, whites beaten

1 teaspoon vanilla essence

1 teaspoon almond essence

Icing sugar

Fresh lemon juice

Grandma's sorrel and yoghurt soup

Whenever I eat sorrel now it reminds me of this lovely day, a couple of years ago, when my grans were still alive. It was just ordinary summer's day then, mooching about, cooking, sunbathing... yet it will always live on in my memory as something extraordinary and special, a reminder that all things pass and to cherish the moments we have with our loved ones. This sorrel soup is different to the cold one I made that day

Once you've got hold of the sorrel, either by foraging or by buying some in an online shop like this one, the soup is very simple to make. It tastes just like the one my Babcia Ziuta used to make, yet the recipe comes not from her but from this lady's grandma

That's the lady who sold us the sorrel at the market. We always wash the sorrel thoroughly first. Fry it in a large knob of butter until it wilts. Allow it to cool for about 20min, then blend. The old method is to push it through a sieve with a wooden spoon, but blending is much easier, so I suggest to do that. Put it in the biggest pan you can find and fill half-way with cold water. Bring to the boil, then turn the heat down and simmer for half an hour. Near the end of the cooking time, we season the soup with salt and pepper and thicken with plain flour, stirring all the time. Bring it back to the boil for 5min, allowing the flour to do it's job.

Before adding the yoghurt, we allow the soup to cool down a little bit again, for about 20-30min. The lady's grandma would have used thick cream rather than yoghurt I expect but the lady uses yoghurt and it works very well. Not to mention being healthier. So you do it like this: put the yoghurt you intend to use in a large cup and add a tablespoon of soup, stir it in. Add another tablespoon and stir it in. Repeat about 5 times. Finally, pour the whole thing into the soup and stir vigorously. Heat the soup a little before serving. Hard boiled eggs inside each bowl are a necessary addition, the potatoes with dill are optional but highly desirable

Ingredients

1 large bag of sorrel
50g butter
3 tablespoons flour
150ml greek yoghurt
Salt and white pepper
Hard boiled eggs

A big, fat Polish salad with wild girolle mushrooms

Intense weather. August in Poland is hot, close and stormy.  I kind of like it. Intensity is a bit underrated in the UK I feel. The UK is all about cool, while Poland is a land of extremes. Perhaps the weather is more important in the formation of national attitudes than we realize. In this intense heat it's difficult to eat warm food, so I made a big, fat salad for dinner yesterday, making use of the local "girolle" mushrooms and adding crunchy goat's cheese croutons. I should have poached an egg and put that on top, but I didn't think of it at the time. It was delicious none the less and an unusual way to eat these wild mushrooms that start popping up around now

The base is a mixture of salad leaves with fresh dill - Warsaw style. The croutons are simply Polish bread, grilled on both sides with a hard goat's cheese grated over one of them. The girolles are fried with plenty of garlic, salt and white pepper. The vinaigrette is flaxeed oil/olive oil mixed with some lemon juice, cider apple vinegar, salt and white pepper again. White pepper gives a salad a distinct East European flavour

Another Polish dumpling recipe

Potatoes, rice, pasta, sweet potatoes, new potatoes, rice again... If you would welcome another carb onto your dinner plate, then look no further than these simple dumplings

They are called "kluski kładzione", which translates as "laid dumplings" (more or less) because we "lay" them onto the water (that's why the lack of uniformity). Language is like a window into another world, therefore my tendency is always to try and explain, yet often translating Polish to English makes very little sense. The way that these languages are formed and used, the imagery surrounding them, the associations... they really are like two different planets

Here are those dumplings replacing potatoes or rice with a dinner of lamb and cucumber salad. They are fantastic with any kind of sauce or gravy...

And here they are again, showing off their versatility as a pudding, fried on some butter with a dash of cinnamon and a spoonful of honey

Ingredients

300g plain flour

2 eggs

Pinch of salt

Water

Blend these ingredients together, by hand of in a blender, to create a batter that's similar to pancake batter but much thicker and stickier - this batter does not come off the spoon easily. Bring a pan of salted water to the boil. Take a spoon and put it in a cup of freshly boiled water for about 3min. Use the spoon to take a bit of the batter and place it into the water. You need to do this quickly and efficiently, yet without splash back. You may need to cook them in two batches. When they swim to the top, give them a couple of minutes extra and remove

Sweet pumpkin and walnut dumplings

It dawned on me today, as I was sitting cross-legged on a quiet, sunny spot on the South Downs, my unkempt hair falling across my bare, shiny face, that I turn into a complete crusty when I'm in Eastbourne. It's something about being so near to the Downs I think, and with these massive windows we have in our house it's like I become a part of this windswept, weird landscape. There is not that much to do here, yet I am quite happy whiling away the hours cooking, walking and chatting to my parents. This morning my mum and I made pumpkin dumplings

I'm making yet another attempt at generally avoiding sugar and, yet again, my mum has tempted me away from my goal with these gorgeous little mouthfuls of sweet, nutty pumpkin dough. They are a different take on the Polish "lazy dumplings", where we use white curd cheese instead of squash. Actually, yes this is a good point - you can use both pumpkin and orange squash for this - in Polish-speak they are considered the same thing

Halve the pumpkin or squash, take out the seeds, pour over a little olive oil and bake in a very hot oven for about 40min, until you can easily take the flesh out with a spoon. You only need half for this recipe, it makes plenty of dumplings (enough for 4 people). So, allow it too cool a little then scoop the flesh out, add the flour, egg, half the cinnamon and the caster sugar and make the dough. If it's too sticky, add some more flour. Right at the end work the crushed walnuts into the dough and roll it between your hands into a flat, snake shape like that up there. Cut it diagonally and cook in a pan of boiling, slightly salted water. When they pop to the top, give them one more minute, then remove them with one of those spoons with lots of holes in (what are they called again?), allowing as much of the water to drain as possible. Cook them in a large pan and in rounds, not all at once. Once done, place on a large plate with some butter over the top, so that they don't all stick together. You can eat them immediately with brown sugar and more cinnamon, or re-fry later. Both ways are equally delicious

Ingredients

Half a pumpkin or large squash, pureed

400g plain flour

1 egg

4 tablespoons caster sugar

100g walnuts, crushed 

2 teaspoons cinnamon

Pinch of salt

Brown sugar to serve

Butter to serve

Russian buckwheat blinis with sour cream, salmon and dill

There is a Russian saying that "life begins and ends with a blini", which shows the true value of these mini pancakes in that part of the world. I'm not trying to suggest that blinis are given to babies in Russia, I expect that the saying indicates that when you eat your first blini, this is when "real life" begins. A life of social gatherings, full of family and friends, a life where you can make your own choices, have a voice that's heard and taken seriously. I don't know about you, but when I was a child, I couldn't wait for this life to begin, I always wanted to be a part of that infinitely interesting adult world. Today, I gave blinis a new context when I made them for brunch here in London, which I think it suits them perfectly

You need buckwheat flour to make proper blinis. Sift this, along with the plain flour and a large pinch of salt, into a large bowl. Meanwhile, heat the milk gently (I need to use goat's milk because of my lactose allergy - it works well in this recipe), add the sugar and make the yeast with it. Allow to stand in a warm place for 10min before using. Whisk the eggs as much as you can into the flour, then add a tablespoon of melted butter and keep whisking. Finally, add the yeasty milk and whisk that it. Cover with a wet towel and allow to stand in a warm place for an hour. I usually turn the oven on for 5min, then turn it off and put the bowl in there. Fry the blinis in more butter, and place in a warm oven to keep warm before you serve them, but don't wait too long as they have a tendency to go hard. Serve with smoked salmon, sour cream and dill, sprinkled with a touch of black pepper. Or caviar if that's how you roll

Ingredients (makes 14-16 blinis)

100g buckwheat flour

100g plain flour

2 eggs

Large pinch of salt

100 g butter

300ml milk

25g dried yeast

1 teaspoon sugar

100g good quality smoked salmon

250g sour cream

Handful chopped dill

Black pepper

Polish chicken and tomato soup

In Poland, and throughout most of Eastern Europe, soups will probably be made with animal stock. If you are a vegetarian - beware - you may think you are safe ordering a vegetable soup, and the maker of it may not even consider the bones that the stock has been cooked on and happily tell you that you are eating a vegetarian soup. Because, you know, there's no "proper" meat in it, just a few bones... sometimes, it's easier to believe people, but the truth is always there if you delve a bit deeper. This applies not only to soups but also to life. I've realized that all you need to do is really want it, and commit to honesty within yourself, then the truth will always come to you. I'm talking from a lot of experience here...

You start off by cooking the chicken carcasses along with the vegetables and bay leaf (if you have one) in a big pan filled with cold water and a bit of sea salt for about 2 hours. Cook the rice separately. Remove the chicken carcasses and all the vegetables. Take any remaining meat off the carcasses and put it back into the soup, chop the carrot and put it back in too, discard the remaining vegetables. Add the tomato puree and season well with salt, pepper and a little bit of sugar. Add the cream and heat for a little while longer. Taste and decide if it needs anything else. Pour the soup over the rice and consume hot, perhaps with a sprinkling of hot chilli sauce if you fancy it (this is not a Polish thing, but a Zuza thing)

Ingredients

2 good quality (organic) chicken carcasses
1 parsnip
1 large carrot
2 celery stalks
Bay leaf (optional)
150ml single cream
1 tub of tomato puree
Rice
Sea salt
Black pepper
Large pinch of sugar
Chilli sauce if you fancy it

Beetroot stuffed with lamb and rice

January has started to make sense to me. It is a month which I would suggest we all fill with friends and plans: sharing food and hugs with the ones we love, while dreaming of what the year ahead may hold. Coming up with new ideas and discussing them at length with people who love to dream is one of my favourite things in life. Luckily, my unexpected lodger for the month also appears to like doing this, as does my love, so I feel grateful to be spending most of my January with these people, who inspire me and fill me with hope. What comes of all our plans is another matter altogether, but the great thing about this month is that we don't have to worry about that just yet - it's only January - time to simply think, try some things out tentatively, start feeling for the changes we would like to make, and find projects that we would like to pursue. One of my New Year's resolutions is to do recipe testing more frequently - I am writing a cookbook, and I have many old recipes that need honing and perfecting... and as in life, you never know how you're going to do that until you actually start doing it. These spiced-lamb beetroot symbolize a step toward my final goal. In this higher purpose, they are not only tasty, but also extremely important beetroot

Cook the beetroot in boiling water for about 40min. Peel and scoop out the insides. Meanwhile, fry the minced lamb in a small knob of butter with the garlic, and use a fork to break up the mince. Add the spices, season and finally add the cooked rice. Continue cooking while squashing with the fork. Stuff the beets with the mixture and cover with breadcrumbs. Place in a baking tray, drizzle with 

 olive oil and bake for about 30min

Ingredients

6 large beetroot

150g minced lamb

150g cooked white rice

1 teaspoon cumin

1 teaspoon cinnamon

2 tablespoons breadbrumbs

Knob of butter (about 25g)

Olive oil
Garlic clove or two

Salt and pepper

Sour cream to serve

"Dobra Kasza Nasza" in Zakopane

Kasha ("kasza" in Polish), or grains, are such a common food stuff here that actually we have sayings about them. For example, a person may be described as someone who "doesn't let anyone blow on their kasha", meaning that they don't let anyone boss them around, or "take the piss" as we would charmingly say in the UK. There are many varieties of kasha and all are available in this restaurant in Zakopane, recommended to me by my old childhood friend, Iza, who writes this blog

Zakopane is the Winter capital of Poland, somewhere we have spent the past couple of Christmases, and a place that's popular all year round with tourists: full of cosy, wooden restaurants and hearty "mountain" food. If you are a keen skier or snowboarder, used to the likes of the Alps, you may not feel completely satisfied with the conditions here - the Tatra mountains, being a national park, have but one slope you can ski down (this was closed due to wind this year), so the main ski area is Białka Tatrzańska, a 30min drive away, in the direction of Kraków; apart from this it's just an odd slope here and there. However, it is well worth a visit, any time of the year, if only for the atmosphere. If you do find yourself in this magical little town, you may get tired of all the "mountain" food after a couple of days and this is why I would recommend "Dobra Kasza Nasza" - it's different to all the other restaurants in Zakopane, in food and ambiance alike

I would also strongly recommend the "kwaśnica" for starters, the Polish sauerkraut soup that in other parts of Poland goes by the name of "kapuśniak". The ribs are a tasty main if you're hungry, otherwise go for one of the baked kashas. I ordered the millet and pumpkin one you see up there, which was nice (not a very descriptive word, I know - it would be inaccurate to use anything stronger, yet it was "quite nice"). I would however go for something else next time, probably buckwheat based, as this is the kasha that I most associate with Poland and that I miss when I am out of the country. They also have a couple of delicious unpasteurized beers on tap

Polish wild mushroom soup with crunchy macaroni

I love the smell of dried, wild mushrooms so much that when I open the box, I can barely tear them away from my nose. Recently, my mum asked my auntie whether she'd taken any of her wild mushrooms that were standing in the kitchen, to which my aunt's response was "No, I was just smelling them", so I guess this fascination is common. The smell is pungent, musky and sweet all at the same time, almost sexual in a dark, unexplained way

So I used these mushrooms to make a very simple, clear, wild mushroom soup. As it contains macaroni, it is quite substantial so you can have it for dinner, however, I also used some of the vegetables from the stock to make a Russian salad too, for starters

First, wash and rehydrate the mushrooms, rinse and cover in boiling water twice. Make the second bowl quite large, and keep them in there for a good few hours, then keep this brown, flavoursome water. To make the vegetable stock, cook a large peeled carrot, a parsnip, an onion, a potato (if you are making the salad, otherwise, forget it) and some celery in a massive pan of salted water. Remove the carrot, parsnip and potato after 30min if you are making the salad. Continue cooking the other stuff for another half an hour. Combine the two stocks: the mushroom and the vegetable, season well with salt and pepper, and bring it back to the boil. Chop the mushrooms and add them to the pan. Cook for another 20min, and meanwhile make the macaroni. Once it is ready, drain and then fry it in some butter until crunchy. Serve the two together