WARSAW: My Experience with “Polish Your Cooking”

Looking for a unique Polish experience? There is the #1 attraction in Warsaw that will let you indulge your own Polish cooking. Polish cuisine has never been easier with the help from chef Michal and his recipes.

I attended the short cooking course with my International Week team in Warsaw, it was a part of the program. I wasn’t so much excited about it because I disliked cooking and I knew my cooking wasn’t that good. But after the course, I thought “well, I can really cook.” Let’s follow my experience at “Polish Your Cooking” class.

Let’s cook … and eat the ingredients

Firstly, he introduced the 2 courses that we were going to cook: a recipe with Obolon beer and a recipe with Polish dumpling – Pierogi. Three groups were formed. “Beer bliny with salmon” was assigned to my group while the other received Zucchini in beer tempura & White sausage in beer stew.

We struggled a bit with the pliny (mini pancake) because they were either too big or too thin, some got overcooked. But the salmon was a highlight, because you can eat it raw. Some lazy boys enjoyed eating them without touching a single utensil. I was one of them, yet, I tried to help the girls out. But who can resist fresh salmon?

The beer was another “enjoyable” input to the dish (or the people who cook it), we didn’t let our ingredients wasted, not a single drop. The Obolon beer was a bit high in alcohol, 9.9 degree, so some people were a bit “up there” after our first session.

When the food was done, it was a clean sweep. All the participants were hungry, thanks to the cooking and drinking effort. Some dish was left un-photographed.

After the feasting, three members from each group are called out for some spices competition led by our favorite – or likely our only – chef, Michal.

Mastering Pierogi 

Other cooks returned to their stage and commenced their Pierogi Adventure – discovering Polish cuisine. Generally, the Pierogi or Polish dumpling are like other Chinese dim sum. But with different shape and bigger size. The stuffing is a notable feature while it can contain from potato to mushroom and cabbage. The meat is pretty general.

The most labor process of cooking Pierogi was making the flour. Our team fault was to make it too thick which would cause the stuffing under-cooked as warned by chef Michal.

Wrapping those Pierogi was a fun and familiar thing to me because most of the popular dish in Vietnam requires me to wrap them. But instead of using veggie, I used flour.

After the wrapping process, boiling and waiting continued.

Pierogi is quite plain in taste, so what did we have to do to spice them up? Well, my Turkish friend, Nazli, knew all about it. She put on some pepper and rosemary for seasoning and even decoration. Afterwards when the dish was finally there on the table, chef Michal presented us the glorious bacon to eat with. And there we went, Pierogi became our obsession.

At the end of the day, we all finished our dish with pleasure. Our team won a cherry vodka bottle for being the best Pierogi with meat stuffing.

Here are two recipes that I tried during “Polish Your Cooking”

Beer bliny with Salmon
Ingredients (for 4 servings):
 75ml Obolon Biale beer
 75g buckwheat flour
 75g wheat flour
 1 egg
 100ml whipping cream (30%)
 salt
 pepper
 100g salmon
Preparation:
1. Mix the flours together
2. Whisk the eggs in
3. Pour the beer in and stir until smooth
4. Heat the oil up on medium heat
5. Fry 5-6cm diameter bliny, 1-2 minutes from each side
6. Drain on paper towels and cool down (the hot ones will melt the cream)
7. Whip the cream to soft peaks
8. Slice the salmon in to pieces
9. Put a spoonful of cream on top of bliny, add a little bit of salmon and decorate with
parsley

Pierogi with meat
Ingredients:
 Half of a medium sized onion
 1 garlic clove
 2 table spoons of broth
 100g of ground beef
 100g of ground pork
 Spices: salt, pepper, herbal pepper
Preparation:
1. Chop the garlic and onions into small pieces
2. Add the meet and mix it all up with a pinch of pepper, herbal pepper and salt
3. Have fun forming Pierogi!

For more information on the class, you can also visit http://www.polishyourcooking.com whenever you drop by Warsaw. It is a amusing and beneficial for your cooking skill activity which helps you to bond with your friends and colleagues.