From a Polish County House Kitchen #6

Cooking my way through From a Polish Country House Kitchen

I can’t say that we’ve been having stew weather, but I wanted to try one of the game recipes.  The cookbook has three recipes for venison, and the combination of ingredients for the stew sounded so intriguing.  We have a little shop in Poznan that specializes in game meats, so I was happy to see they had the deer shoulder called for in the recipe.

Venison Stew surrounding a ridge of Mashed Potatoes with Celery Root – I was reminded when dicing up the shoulder that this was a cut consisting of  of many muscles with lots of connective tissue.  I was a little worried, but I needed have been.   We marinated the meat for 24 hours before putting the stew together.  Since I’m making this out of season, we weren’t able to find fennel, so I added a few anise seeds to keep that element of the flavor.  I’ve put a heart and stars on this page in the cookbook.  It was fabulous; the meat was so tender and and a great combination of flavors.  It went very well with mashed potatoes and celery root.  The potatoes were most popular with our youngest Polish guest, but she was adventuresome enough to try the venison, something that our daughters may not have done when they were 5.

Fresh sour pickles – preserved in brine, I can now really claim the name of my other blog, Polish Housewife.  Little cukes are souring on kitchen counters all over Poland right now.

Spicy Lithuanian Vodka – this may be Ed’s favorite of all the flavored vodkas I’ve made in recent years.  I now know that  Lithuanian recipes often include honey.  This is the recipe that sent me out in search of juniper berries, something that many recipes in the book require.

In the introduction, Anne Applebaum mentions the cookbooks that inspired and served as reference.  I was happy to see that I have the book she mentioned in relation to the several flavored vodkas – The Big Book of Tinctures!

Like bake-alongs I’ve done in the past, I’m not posting the recipes in From a Polish Country House Kitchen, but if you’d like your own copy, it’s available on Amazon.

Lois Britton

An accountant by trade and a food blogger since 2009, Lois Britton fell in love with Polish cuisine during the years she lived in Poznań, Poland. As the creator of PolishHousewife.com,  she loves connecting readers with traditional Polish recipes. Lois has a graduate certificate in Food Writing and Photography from the University of South Florida. She is the author of The Polish Housewife Cookbook, available on Amazon and on her website.