Pasta approved by an Italian

There’s something to national stereotypes.You know — Germans mean potatoes, Poles mean onions. And Italians? Pasta. One of our teachers is Italian. And whenever he visits, I serve pasta. Most often it’s spinach pasta — a recipe approved and loved by a real Italian (not the kind you see in tourist brochures). Ingredients 1 tsp coriander 1 tsp cumin … Read more

Old Polish Style Crust

If you’re not a Buddhist — and specifically not from the Tibetan tradition — you probably don’t know this, but Fat Thursday (the Polish pre-Lenten feast day of indulgent sweets and fried pastries) always falls about a week before the Tibetan New Year, Losar, which this year lands on February 18. We’re already slowly getting … Read more

Ultimate Gemuse Boulion

“In water, fish screw,” as folk wisdom says — so in vegan or plant-based cooking, there’s no place for water. Because that wouldn’t be vegan. Seriously, though: cooking soups, sauces, etc., using juice, oat milk, or broth instead of plain water lifts them to a whole new level. I developed this broth over several years, starting in … Read more

Potato Spring Rolls

If there were a single image that could represent both Poles and Germans at once, it would be an image of potatoes. Which is actually a bit strange, because in both countries potatoes appeared on the table relatively recently — less than 200 years ago. They largely replaced groats, and, to some extent, bread as … Read more

Oat Borscht

For about fifteen hundred years, borscht has been one of the foundations of Polish and, more broadly, East Slavic cuisine. Originally made from fermented leaves of Heracleum sphondylium (which gave the dish its name), it later came to mean soups prepared on various types of sour starters — that is, fermented vegetables. Today the most … Read more

Sunflower Seed Sauce

  Once very popular in traditional folk cooking, today these ingredients are truly underappreciated and underused. Various grains, seeds, and nuts — from sunflower seeds to hemp (with their phenomenal protein content), pumpkin seeds, and walnuts. On the one hand, they no longer play the role they once did, when even a hundred years ago, nuts and seeds … Read more

Polish Christmas Eve Kitchen

Born and raised in Poland, I’ve only been living in Germany for a few years now. Nothing illustrates the phenomenon of Polish Christmas Eve (Wigilia) better than the reactions of my German friends when I tell them about the traditional and widely practiced Polish Christmas Eve. The most unique and shocking tradition for other nations … Read more

Stuffed Pumpkin

Stuffed vegetables are my personal comfort food — not just for the taste itself, but for the memories they bring back of the best thing from my    INGREDIENTS 50 g TVP (soy protein granules)Marinade for the TVP: 2 tbsp soy sauce 1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce 1 tbsp Crema di Balsamico Filling: 100 g millet … Read more

Jack -o’-Dumplings

The vegetable most closely associated today with the celebration of Dziady, Samhain, Halloween — call it what you will — is the pumpkin.   INGREDIENTS Filling: 300 g pumpkin purée 100 g sunflower seeds 1 tsp smoked paprika ½ tsp cumin ½ tsp ground coriander seeds 3 tbsp nutritional yeast 1 clove garlic salt Dough: … Read more