"So good, so good, so good!"

The perspective in this photograph makes it appear as though I ate enough egg noodles for an entire family. This is not the case. Well, it was the case earlier in the week, but this portion was actually totally acceptable in size. It is even blessed by fresh spinach and cumin, a recent triumphal find from the nearby Asian market.

What is excellent about this meal is everything. The hearty noodles, the caramelized onions, and the Potocka Kiełbasa. The Potocki family is one of the legendary aristocratic families of Poland, and it is unclear to me whether or not the name of this sausage references the elite excellency of the family or its place of origin (Potok). The internet will not tell me. It's kind of irrelevant, though, because my attempt to grill this in a pan with the onions (yes that means butter and pork fat!) produced something worthy of the elaborate plumage of the coat of arms most associated with it. Smoky, woody, but not salty, so that my chilled Żywiec actually lightened up the meal.

Indian food!

Though I am firmly invested in the belief that sausage makes pork a fascinating meat, I was pretty excited that the British Isles offer some terrific Indian food. At a buffet one evening, there was a whole tray of lamb sausage with onions, peppers, and spices that I'm sure I have yet to taste in Poland.

The surprise sausage! And look at those: chick peas, too! I'm wistful just thinking about about the layers of flavor in these dishes.

Sausage on the Move

I've been traveling around, mostly to various concert venues across Warsaw. Often these are churches, and I'm here to settle one question for all time: no, there is not sausage sold outside of Polish masses.

There is one thing we can always count on, though: full English breakfast and the "banger" that comes with it. I'm a big fan of the energy eggs provide with a morning meal, always. The sausage is shifty, though. Do we fill it with flour to save on the meat, soak up the fat, and help create a crispy shell? Or, is this meal a tribute to protein: eggs, beans, sausage, ham?

Doesn't matter, I've only ever eaten this meal in hotels, and on this trip the sausage was dry, but tasty. And, it had less salt than the ham. Thankfully.

Stormy weather

The sun has shone down on Warsaw frequently this fall. So, usually, I trot about town in the late afternoon, making sure to wiggle after a day of sitting and reading. I peek at food stands and pause in parks. In other words, I generally enjoy the brisk weather but am somewhat aimless. In the height of discovery, the sun tends to set, a couple of rain drops fall, and I realize that I've got a place to be: home. These earlier and earlier evenings encourage meals that percolate for a while, and so I've taken to making stews and soups. (Plus there's nothing like a cold eggplant curry for lunch at the archive to inspire you to get back to work!)

Good thing sausage tastes mighty delicious in soup. I bought a smoked sausage, chopped it up, and browned it. The whole apartment smelled like a campfire, and my roommate even had an allergic reaction to this suffocating aroma. Tantalizing, though: what would it taste like? The smokiest beef jerky? I crafted a split pea soup around the idea that this was a salty, strongly flavored sausage. All in all, I would say my white sausage experience leaves me over-cooking things a bit...but this sausage packs a punch. It ended up being a much-needed textural counterpoint to the soup. And crunchy, too. The triumph of my work was drizzling balsamic on this soup, the sweetness made the meatiness of the sausage make sense.

Not Polish Sausage

Fusion restaurants embrace the idea that all ethnic food is good and "fuse" different countries' flavors to make what they presume is the food that triumphed in the survival of the fittest. In many countries in which I've lived, usually that's Asian food, what with the flavors that one cannot find at home being the most attractive. However, one day wandering through Praga, we found a fusion Mediterranean place. Well, I'm not sure they would have called it that. But wooing us in with moussaka (MICROWAVED, boo) as a lunch deal and then offering an appetizer platter with salami! Fun! Made me want to buy some of the not fresh pasta on the wall.

The amazing thing about Poland is that I would never order this particular sausage from abroad again [watch out for future posts on Czech, Serbian, and Ukrainian, though]. Because, delicious and peppery as it is, it was exactly what I expected. Fresh mozzarella, though, might be worth the price of the whole platter.

Biała Kiełbasa II: What's in a Name

I insist: I am not an inept cook. In fact, beyond never giving myself food poisoning, I am usually quite sure that something I have created is awful, when it is merely ugly and delicious. I walked home after my triumphant, grammatically-correct purchase of sausage (which left me, of course, dreaming of buying all sorts of meat products, the names of which I know in neither Polish or English. And of course, the physiology of which is probably mysterious as well. But I was empowered! And ready to cook!) I thought I'd planned the best meal ever: lots of peppery broccoli with a wee bit of fennel, and then sausage with my Strong and Old Polish Mustard, chosen at random from the local shop.

But I put the kiełbasa in a pan and covered it with water, just like I would any other raw sausage in the world. Because, at the end of the day, don't we all want a little bit of that crispy brown fat from the pan on the sides of the sausage link! Yes. We do. But this sausage would not, did not cook. For 15 minutes it looked like it does in this photo, refusing to claim the "whiteness" that defines it! I poured water over it, drank a beer, listened to music. Finally, I covered it and waited, resigning myself to over-cooked sausage. Why?! Why would cooking leave me in this time when I can't even order a drink anywhere without revealing my cultural discomfort!

Actually, I'm being dramatic because that steaming pan of sausage conjures up the urgency that I felt while watching the meat luxuriate in its water bath. It was fine, turns out white sausage doesn't really look white, even when it's definitely cooked. And! It was still totally "knusprig" and juicy, even if I could never focus for the intense hunger the long cooking process added. So there.

Kiełbasa Biała

Ok, ok. I've got a home. I bought furniture for it. Now it's time to share some images of the domesticated sausage. On the way home the other day, I stopped by a butcher just on the other side of a nearby church. I was excited to begin the process of figuring out how much meat weighs in kilos. This is critical for keeping myself nourished and preventing the purchase of enough meat for a village. Even if that meat would still only cost 3 USD.

Silly me, because buying sausage doesn't happen by the kilo, of course! This is why the link was invented. With a twist of one's hand, portion size is dictated! These two links of white sausage -- this means fresh (not dried) and lean meat with only light peppering -- were quite a project. But don't they look healthier next to broccoli?