One of my most favourite dishes of all times. I make them at home sometimes, but at Mum’s they taste like heaven.

The stuffing is made of beef, chicken or turkey’s meat, boiled for hours, preferably when broth was made the day before.  The meat is finely minced together with any veg or mushrooms from the broth, and seasoned.

The dough is made the same way as for kluski śląskie, the only difference is the flour, plain flour this time.  To remind; boiled potatoes squeezed through the ricer, one egg and the amount of plain flour equal to the quarter of the amount of potatoes. Worked quickly, it doesn’t like to wait around.

Unhealthy as it is, it’s served with fried słoninka. Yum!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This is so unsophisticated, that it’s not even funny. Zapiekanki can be made out of many things, it’s a good way of using left over veg and stuff from the fridge. In my experience it tastes best in Poland, at Mum and Dad’s allotment, baked over the fire in an old pan.

For me the perfect zapiekanka must have 2 key ingredients; potatoes and bacon. Tonight I used potatoes, one sweet potato, some carrots, a parsnip, boiled it all and left to cool. I pan fried some pancetta cubes along with some cup mushrooms and a large red onion, as well as one sad looking pak choi ( and it does not have much to do with the fact that we’re going on holidays in 2 days and need to empty the fridge).

Cooled veggies get chopped and layered in the baking dish with the fried stuff, some grated cheese, spring onions, some dried herbs and seasoning. A drizzle of olive oil and into the oven for about 30 minutes, just to give it all a crunch and melt the cheese nicely.

Warning- it’s very filling. Lovely, simple winter supper.

Ps. It’s snowing again, BIG, good luck to Heathrow…..

I’m still enjoying being ” in between jobs” and having time to cook things I normally enjoy only  at my Mum’s, as standing in the kitchen for 2 hours is not always appealing after a day’s work.

So today it’s gołąbki- pigeons, if you like. Lots of work, but very lovely meal at the end of it.

First the stuffing; plain boiled rice, minced pork- in equal amounts, dry and quickly boiled and then chopped porcini mushrooms, 2 handfuls of them I’d say and save the liquid, it will be used in the sauce. 2-3 chopped and fried shallots,  a clove of garlic and lots of seasoning, mixed together and that’s the stuffing.

Next it’s the cabbage leaves that need to be quickly softened in boiling water , otherwise they’d be difficult to fold.  The hard bit in the middle of each leaf has to be cut flat for the same reason.

To make a gołąbek, you spread a wilted leaf flat, place some stuffing in the middle, flatted it and wrap up tight. When all done, place gołąbki in a pan bedded with some spare cabbage leaves, some olive oil and that liquid from the mushrooms. That stops them catching on the surface of the pan. Ready little things, in the pan nice and tight and then covered and slowly cooked, about an hour, check for the liquid and top up if necessary.

Last thing to do is a nice and simple tomato sauce ( although there are people like Moka who only like them in mushroom sauce) , a shallot, some garlic, fresh herbs, passata, red wine if there’s any around- there always is.

And that’s it, a pile of washing up to do while gołąbki are cooking.