Gołąbki - stuffed cabbage leaves

Gołąbki is my no.1 favourite Polish dish. They're cabbage leaves stuffed with a mixture of meat and rice, served with tomato sauce. The preparation is a bit time-consuming, but at the same time it's very simple and usually yields enough for more than 1 dinner. Gołąbki can sit in the fridge for a few days, and they freeze well too. Each Polish family has their own recipe - here's my take on it!

Ingredients for 12 gołąbki:

1 white cabbage - the largest you can find!

1kg minced pork

200g rice

Salt, pepper, marjoram

Optional: chopped & fried onion and garlic.

Cook the rice, let it cool down and mix it in a large bowl with the raw meat and the spices. Be generous with the marjoram, you really want to be able to taste it. Divide the mixture into 12 portions.

Meanwhile, take any damaged outer leaves off the cabbage. Put the cabbage in a large pan and cover with boiling water - set this on medium heat and leave for about 20min. This will soften the leaves and allow you to take them off the cabbage head one by one, without breaking them. You will need about 12 nice, whole leaves to make your gołąbki. Keep any damaged leaves aside - you will need them later as well.

Once you have your leaves ready, take a sharp knife and slice off the thickest bits of the stem on each leaf. This will make the leaves more flexible for wrapping and easier to eat.

Put a portion of the meat mixture at the bottom of each leaf, fold in the sides and roll it up like a burrito. Repeat until you run out of leaves and meat mixture. If your cabbage leaves are not very large, you may end up with more than 12 gołąbki.

To cook, line the bottom of a large pan with any leftover/damaged leaves you have left. Place your gołąbki in the pan quite tightly, in two or three layers. You may have to cook them in batches or use two pans at a time, depending on the size of your pan. Cover them with water, put the lid on and cook on low/medium heat for about 1.5 hrs.

Meanwhile, make tomato sauce - I made mine by melting some butter in a pan, adding a tablespoon of flour, mixing well, ten pouring in a box of tomato passata and some stock until the consistency was to my liking; I then added some herbs and spices. You can use a ready-made jar of tomato/spaghetti sauce as well.

When your gołąbki are cooked, served them hot with a good splash of tomato sauce. 

Mum's potato pancake - a quick and filling dinner for two!

Here's an absolutely delightful recipe my Mum shared with me recently. It's cheap, it's easy and it's very filling - a perfect dinner for two after a long day at work! Both S and I were surprised how good it tasted, and we will definitely be making it again. This potato pancake is crispy on the outside and soft and fluffy in the middle, and the pizza-like topping is an explosion of flavours.

Ingredients for the potato pancake:
3 large or 4 medium potatoes
2 eggs
2 tablespoons of flour
1/2 tsp turmeric
Salt & pepper
Oil for frying

Ingredients for the topping:
You can use any combination of these - a great way to use fridge leftovers!
Bell pepper
Mushrooms
Smoked sausage or ham
Onion
Garlic
Peas/beans/corn
Tomatoes
Grated cheese
A little oil or butter for frying

Grate the raw potatoes and transfer them, juice and all, into a bowl. Add all the other ingredients and mix well with a spoon.
Heat the oil in a large pan. Pour the pancake mixture onto the hot oil and fry on medium heat until the underside starts getting brown.
In a separate pan, heat some oil or butter and fry your selection of topping ingredients (all chopped small), except the cheese.
Flip the pancake using another frying pan or a large plate. Cover with the topping mix and sprinkle on some grated cheese. Cover and continue to cook until the cheese has melted. Cut in half and serve (I served it with the pickle I wrote about in the previous post). Delicious!

Quick fridge pickle - Danish style

The Danish Agurkesalat is one of my favourite ways to serve cucumbers. I make it quite often and serve right away, but last night for the first time I made it for the fridge - it should keep for about a week and the flavour is actually supposed to improve over time.

Here's how I made it:

Ingredients:
1 English cucumber
1/2 cup white vinegar
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup water
1/2 tsp salt

Optional flavourings:
Whole black peppercorns
Mustard seeds
Dill
Garlic
Chilli

The recipe is very simple. All you need to do is put the vinegar, sugar and water in a saucepan over low heat and wait for the sugar to dissolve (stirring helps). Don't boil the liquid. Meanwhile, slice the cucumber thinly, sprinkle with salt and transfer to a jar (I doubled this recipe and made two jars). When the liquid cools down, pour it into the jar along with any flavourings of your choice. Put the lid on and place the jar in the fridge. Serve after a minimum of 3 hours. Keeps in the fridge for up to 1 week.

Spring is creeping up on us!

This time of the year is soo exciting to me, a brand new gardener. I can see sings of spring popping up all over the garden and it just blows my mind, seeing all these little things waking up from their winter sleep.

The little patch in front of my house is full of things planted by the previous owners and I keep getting one surprise after another. The other day I discovered the oddest-looking furry little plant, which my Mum identified as lungwort. I've read up on it and it seems to have a lot of wonderful properties, so I'm all excited about trying lungwort tea some time this year! 

There are different flowers popping up here & there and I can only guess what they are. My edibles are doing ok - there are loads of tiny buds on my Japanese quinces; my garlic and onions are still looking strong and my rhubarb is definitely growing. These days I'm in the garden at least once a day, marvelling at all the changes!

I don't know what this plant is, but looks like it's going to have yellow flowers very soon.

Heather is looking absolutely beautiful.

Daffodils have grown so much over the past couple of weeks!

I will definitely have some rhubarb this year :-)

The sage is thriving - I've harvested quite a bit over the winter months but it's still producing new leaves.

Garlic seems to be doing alright.

Lungwort - isn't it the most peculiar looking plant?

I think these are crocuses but I wouldn't bet my life on it...

Seeds

Spring is still far away, but it doesn't stop me getting excited about my little seed collection. We recently visited my parents and I received a few seed packets from my mum; I have also bought some myself. It's not a huge selection as I don't want to get overwhelmed; besides I only have so much space to work with.

I have (more than pictured above):

Carrots (2 varieties)

Chard

Lemon balm

Wild strawberries

Caraway

Nigella

Parsley (collected from my mum's own plants last year)

Peppers (mix of sweet and hot)

Aubergine

Lovage

Corn

Bush beans

Chives

Dill

Butternut squash

Courgette

Kale

Foxgloves

Daisies

Tomatoes

Some of them can be sown indoors right now in February, which I did this morning. I also ordered broadbean seeds, but they haven't arrived yet - I think I will plant half of them indoors and half directly in the raised bed and see what happens. 

This is my first year of gardening and I still have loads to learn; being impatient doesn't help, so I try to control myself. I wish I could sow everything already! Here in Scotland though the last frost can appear as late as mid-May, so I need to be careful.

I already have a fair amount of things growing in the garden that I have planted since autumn; my rhubarb is doing exceptionally well and is a pleasure to watch. The garlic, onions and strawberries look good; all the fruit bushes and trees on the other hand still look dead so I have no idea how they are doing. Time will tell!