Polish spring brunch for 4

spring cream cheese spread / wiosenna przyprawa z sera smietankowego

freshly baked potato bread / swierzy chleb kartoflany

egg sunny side up/ sadzone oczka z jajek

sausage / kielbasa

homemade sausage / kielbasa domowa

savoy cabbage polonaise / kapusta wloska po polsku

wild stawberries with whipped cream / poziomki z bita smietana

This basic sausage- and-egg meal is given distinction by virtue of the spring cream cheese spread on freshly baked potato bread and delightful wild strawberries.

*****

SPRING CREAM CHEESE SPREAD

1/2 cup sour cream

1 cup cottage cheese

salt to taste

1 peeled and sliced cucumber

2 tablespoons chopped green onion

lettuce leaves

6 radishes , sliced

Beat the sour cream and cottage cheese until blended. In a seperate bowl salt the slced cucumber and drain. Combine the cucumber with the cheese mixture and chopped onion. Arrange on lettuce leaves. Garnish with the sliced radishes and serve with homemade potato bread.

FRESHLY BAKED POTATO BREAD

swiezy chleb kartoflany

1 package active dry yeast

1/4 cup potato cooking water*

2  1/2 cups potato cooking water*

1 cup cooked and mashed potatoes*

2 tablespoons butter

2 tablespoons sugar

1 teaspoon salt

6 cups flour, sifted

*reserve these items from a prior day`s mashed potatoes


Soften the yeast in the warmed 1/4 cup potato water. Mix the other 2 1/2 cups potato water with the mashed potatoes, butter, sugar, and salt. Blend well. Add half of the flour while beating continuosly. Add the yeast, then stir in the remaining flour. Knead the dough on a floured board until smooth.
Put dough in greased cointainer; butter top of dough and cover. Let it rise an a warm spot until doubled in bulk. Punch it down and divide in half. Shape into 2 loaves and place in buttered bread pans. Cover again and let rise until double in volume.
Bake at 375 F for 35 to 40 minutes.

SAUSAGE

kielbasa

1 sausage ring

water to cover

1/2 cup chopped shallots

2 tablespoons butter

Pierce the sausage casing with a fork to prevent its spliting. Simmer the sausage for 30 minutes in water to cover, then drain, and saute with the shallots and the butter until the shallots brown lightly.

****

Making sausages is one of the oldest methods of preparing and preserving meat. As early as 1500 bc the babylonias were already mastering the art. Rome thought so highly of sausage that it was de rigueur to serve it at every feast and banquet. Sausages were so often a part of the menus at infamous orgies that finally they were forbidden, along with the decadent Roman life style, by later reformers.

The prohibition only served to make the sausages more desirable to the people.

After the Crusades, when Europe first tasted Eastern spices, all sorts of new recipes for new flavoures of sausage were devised. Eventually each nationality refind its own tastes. Following is a recipe for homemade Polish sasuage.

HOME-MADE SAUSAGE

kielbasa domowa

3 pounds raw pork shoulder, chopped, or coarsely ground

3/4 pound raw beef chunk, coarsely ground

sausage casings

1 tablespoon pepper or to taste

1/4 teaspoon marjoram

3 cloves garlic, chopped

2 teaspoons honey

Combine all the ingredients except casings, and mix well. Saute until well done and stuff into casings, forming foot-long links. Refrigerate for 4 days to cure.

SAVOY CABBAGE POLONAISE

kapusta wloska po polsku

1 medium-sized savoy cabbage

salt to taste

water to cover cabbage

3 tablespoons butter

3 tablespoons dried bread crumbs

Remove the wilted leaves of the cabbage and cut into 6 to 8 wedges. Cook uncovered in the salted , boiling water for 10 to 15 minutes. Drain. Melt the butter over low heat, and brown the bread crumbs in it. Drizzle the sauted bread crumbs over the top of the cabbage wedges.

WILD STRAWBERRIES WITH WHIPPED SOUR CREAM

poziomki z bita smietana

1/2 cup vanilla sugar

2 pints wild strawberries

2 cups sour cream

Whip the vanilla sugar and sour cream with an electric mixer as if whipping sweet cream. Gently wash and hull the berries. Serve the cream over the wild strawberries.

VANILLA SUGAR

Insert one vanilla bean into each pound of sugar. Let stand for two weeks in an airtight container.