What to eat on a hot summer’s day? I can’t think of anything better and more refreshing than this chilled Polish beet soup (‘chlodnik).
First of all, this Polish classic is incredibly simple to make and very forgiving. You just can’t get it wrong. Because it’s chilled, you don’t have to serve it immediately which makes everything more relaxing. It can also easily be prepared the day before….
I love the traditional madeleines, with their vibrant golden colour. They are good any time, anywhere and I have to say they are very hard to beat. However, when I came across a recipe for madeleines that combines chocolate, hazelnuts and my favourite Seville orange marmalade, I knew I had to give it a go.
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For me, the best focaccia is always the simplest one, topped with flaky sea salt and extra virgin olive oil. However, this variation made with wild garlic is a delicious meal in itself. Don’t be tempted to add too many herbs to it – simplicity always pays off.
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It may look unassuming but this small plant with delicate leaves and wonderfully peppery flavour is a real powerhouse. Gram for gram, watercress contains more calcium than milk, as much vitamin C as oranges and more folate than bananas. It’s high in vitamin K and for people like myself with low iron levels, it has more absorbable iron than spinach. Combined with sweetness of pear, mighty walnuts and creamy and complex flavour of Stilton, this simple, speedy and nourishing soup will soon become your favourite. This recipe has been adapted from Magic Soup: Food for Health and Happiness by Nicole Pisani and Kate Adams. In order to retain that incredibly vivid green colour, the unique flavour and nutrition, the key is to add watercress during the last two minutes of cooking.
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“Small, misshapen, spotty and scabby, and full of pips, they do not inspire the cook. Nor are they remotely edible raw – they must be cooked. Yet when prepared properly they are a treasure” – John Wright describing crab apples in Hedgerow (Bloomsbury Publishing 2010).
I coulnd’t agree more. I would also include rosehips in the same category. The combination of those two foraged fruits produces the most wonderful flavour. I pair wild rosehips with crab apples to make jelly. The bad news is you probably won’t find fresh rosehips or crab apples in your local grocery, or even in a gourmet store. The good news though, is that these little gems seem to grow everywhere. Rosehips are one of the richest plant sources of vitamin C, and they are extremely high in antioxidants. The very high pectin content of crab apples means that the jelly always sets well. If you don’t have crab apples, you can replace them with cooking apples….
If the only ways of preparing potatoes you can think of are fried, boiled or baked, then you clearly have had little experience of Polish cuisine. We made the humble potato our national treasure and it’s at the core of an infinite number of traditional and regional dishes. These include potato pancakes (placki ziemniaczane), Silesian dumplings (kluski ślaskie), potato dumplings (pyzy), potato and cheese dumplings (pierogi ruskie), plum dumplings (knedle)….I could go on and on…The potato is the single ingredient that best represents Polish cuisine. Nutritious and versatile, it has also been our constant companion during the hardships of poverty and war, when resourcefulness was essential in order to survive.
Potato babka is a very traditional dish of the region that I’m from in the north-east of Poland and it requires relatively few ingredients. The only tricky part is grating. You can either grate the potatoes by hand, as fine as you can, or use an electric grater. Grating by hand can be a lot of work, especially when you’re feeding a lot of people. I don’t have an electric grater but I used a NutriBullet which I love and it does its job incredibly well.
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