Polish łazanki with cabbage and sausage: a one-pan winter dinner
Small pasta squares tossed with cabbage braised with a dried mushroom, smoked sausage and bacon: half sauerkraut, half fresh, so it is tangy but not sharp. A dish associated with the cooking of Poland's old eastern borderlands, made in many homes in winter whenever there is a piece of sausage and a jar of sauerkraut in the fridge. Best fried in the pan with crisped edges.
Your own work in that: 20 min.
- Mushrooms soaking 30 min
- Cabbage braising 30 min
- Pasta 10 min
- Combining 10 min
Step by step
0 / 6 done
Soak the mushrooms
Cover the mushrooms with 150 ml warm water and leave 30 minutes. Then slice into strips and keep the soaking water: it goes into the cabbage.
Ingredients: 300 g sauerkraut · 300 g white cabbage · 3 pcs dried forest mushrooms · 1 tsp caraway seeds · 1 pcs bay leaf · 150 ml water
Mushrooms and their water: all the aroma
Braise the cabbage
Squeeze and chop the sauerkraut, shred the fresh cabbage finely. Put both in a pot with the mushrooms, their soaking water, the caraway and bay leaf. Braise covered over low heat 30 minutes, stirring now and then, until the fresh cabbage is soft; leave the lid off for the last 5 minutes so the liquid nearly evaporates.
TipSauerkraut and fresh cabbage together are the golden mean: all sauerkraut is sour and firm, all fresh is bland. Rinse very sour sauerkraut.
Half and half, with mushroom and caraway
Fry the bacon, sausage and onion
Dice the bacon and render in a large pan over low heat until crisp. Add the sausage in half-moons and the diced onion, fry over medium heat 6–7 minutes, until the onion is golden and the sausage browned at the edges.
Ingredients: 400 g łazanki pasta squares · 300 g smoked Polish sausage · 100 g smoked bacon · 1 pcs onion · 1 tsp dried marjoram · ½ tsp black pepper · ½ tsp salt
Bacon rendered, sausage and onion golden
Cook the pasta
Cook the pasta in salted water a minute less than the packet says, drain. It finishes in the pan with the cabbage.
A minute less, it finishes in the pan
Combine in the pan
Tip the cabbage into the pan with the meat, mix, add the marjoram crushed between your palms and the pepper. Add the pasta, toss and fry over high heat 5 minutes, stirring only twice so the cabbage and pasta catch in places. Taste, add salt.
TipThe crisped edges are the best part of łazanki. A large pan and infrequent stirring make the difference between a stewed dish and a fried one.
High heat, stir rarely
Serve
At once, in deep plates, with a brined pickle on the side. Even better the next day, fried up in butter.
Crisped edges, hot
Before you start
Meat-free
No sausage or bacon: 300 g button mushrooms fried in oil with the onion and 6 dried mushrooms instead of 3. In many homes, especially in eastern Poland, this version goes on the Christmas Eve table.
With buckwheat instead of pasta
300 g cooked buckwheat instead of the pasta squares: more filling, less known, just as good.
Homemade łazanki
A pierogi-style dough (300 g flour, an egg, 100 ml water) rolled thin and cut into 2 cm squares, boiled 3 minutes. The difference in flavour is clear.
Nutrition
per 100 gStep photos are computer-generated from the recipe.
