Polish

My favorite dumplings, these are creamy, savory, and salty and, when served with the cooked onion garnish and some sour cream, irresistible. Like the cheese filled version on page 60, they may be boiled and served with melted butter, but I think they’re best when fried in butter and served with sour cream. In addition to the variation, you can stuff these with cooked cabbage, cooked mushrooms, sauerkraut, or almost anything else you can think of.

Whether the noodle and wrappers made from its dough moved west from China or east from Italy is anyone’s guess, but it wound up everywhere. There is barely a square mile of turf between Mongolia and Hungary that doesn’t boast some kind of dumpling, and the variety is staggering. (And, if you consider the ravioli and empanada dumplings, they are universal.) But though shape and filling vary wildly, the doughs are pretty much the same throughout the world: they’re made either with egg or without. These are mostly made with, making the dough essentially the same as that used for fresh pasta.

Babka is a rich, yeasted cross between bread and coffee cake with an equally rich Russian and Polish culinary heritage. The name is derived from the Russian baba, which means grandmother, an appropriate name for this wonderful comfort food. While it is mostly known as a popular Jewish bread filled with some combination of chocolate, cinnamon, almonds, even poppy seeds and sometimes topped with streusel, it can also be filled with raisins or soaked with rum, as in baba au rhum. The dough is rich enough that it can also be used for brioche and kugelhopf. In American bakeries, babka is most often formed as a twisted loaf with veins of the sweet filling running throughout, baked either in a loaf pan or freestanding. However, the Israeli version, known as kranz cake, uses a dramatic shaping technique that many of my recipe testers found appealing. This recipe is my favorite version, with both cinnamon and chocolate in the filling. Of course, you can leave out the chocolate and make a cinnamon sugar version, or leave out the cinnamon and make just a chocolate version, but I say, why leave out either? It’s easier to grind the chocolate chips or chunks if they’re frozen. After you grind them, you can add the cinnamon and butter and continue to process them all together. The streusel topping is also optional, but I highly recommend using it on the freestanding versions.

We got this recipe from our good buddy (and Bobby’s neighbor) Michael Peay. He remembers his mom always used to make more than he and his brothers ever could eat because their house was so popular with their friends, especially around dinnertime. This stew, full of good porky sausage and plenty of tender cabbage, was his favorite childhood meal.

No large sign—just a plaque next to a simple security button—tells you that this is the gate to a simple building housing the Cercle Bernard Lazare. The center was named in memory of Bernard Lazare, who, during the Dreyfus Affair, was a left-wing literary critic, anarchist, Zionist, and newspaper editor. He bravely defended Captain Dreyfus, and won over Jewish artists such as Camille Pissarro to the cause. The center sponsors Jewish cultural events, choosing not to advertise its location because of previous anti-Semitic attacks. When I entered this very bare-boned building, it was full of activity. Jeanine Franier came out of the kitchen to greet me, bringing along a waft of the delicious aromas from her oven. Every Thursday, before the center’s weekly lectures, she cooks. She believes that people listen to lecturers more attentively if they know a little food will be served. Regardless of what her staff cooks as a main course, this cheesecake from her Polish past is served for dessert. It has become an integral part of the lectures, and was published in the Cercle’s cookbook, called Quand Nos Boubés Font la Cuisine (When Grandmothers Cook), which she wrote in part as a fund-raising device, in part as a way of preserving a culture that is rapidly being forgotten. The cheesecake reminds me of many I ate all over France, including the one at Finkelsztajn’s Delicatessen in Paris. It tastes clearly of its delicate component parts, unlike the creamy block of cheesecake with a graham-cracker crust we find in the United States.

Prepared separately, the filling for these crispy cakes is folded inside for serving. Fry leftovers in a pan the next morning and top with a poached egg for a quick hash.

Various Central European countries have their own variations on these popular filled cookies, sometimes spelled kolache or kolace. Some are made with a yeast dough, others with cream cheese or even ice cream. The cream cheese dough is the most popular for the Polish version of these rich cookies.

Everyone's favorite Polish dumpling. Toothsome, warm, soft, and smothered in caramelized onions—yep, that's the stuff! In NYC, pierogi are a brunch staple. Our Polish diners are a disappearing breed, but you can live the life in your own kitchen. This is one of those time-consuming recipes that will change your life. If you make them once and know what to expect, the next time you make them won't be such a big deal. Because theh ingredients are so simple and unadulterated, choose good-quality, organic potatoes whose flavor packs the most punch.

This potato soup recipe was brought over from Poland by test kitchen director Ruth Cousineau's grandmother.

Like an eastern European take on ravioli, this embodiment of Polish comfort food is right at home in a lively tomato sauce with dill and caraway seeds.

Editor's note: This recipe is reprinted from The Second Avenue Deli Cookbook, by Sharon Lebewohl and Rena Bulkin. On Succoth, a joyous seven-day autumn harvest festival (a kind of Jewish Thanksgiving), stuffed foods—most notably holishkes, but also kreplach, stuffed peppers, and strudels—are served to symbolize abundance. Stuffed cabbage has been a staple of Jewish cooking since the fourteenth century, when it was introduced in Russia by Tartars. There are an infinity of recipes for it, both Eastern European and Middle Eastern; ours, in a sweet-and-sour sauce, is of Polish derivation. Note: When you're confronted with a bin of cabbages, you'll notice that some are quite light, whereas others have the heft of bowling balls. Choose the lightest ones for stuffing; their leaves peel off much more easily.

Chrusti
One of our test-kitchen assistants, Herta Guhl, sold us on these Polish fried dough cookies. A little powdered sugar makes them irresistible.

Fredricka Schwanka of Terryville, Connecticut, re-created her grandmother's recipe for these pastrylike cookies. This dough is extremely tender — if at any time during the filling process it gets too soft to work with, chill it on wax paper on a large baking sheet. You will have leftover filling, which is wonderful spread on toast or an English muffin.

These savory rugelach are made with a cream-cheese-based dough, which softens very quickly. If the dough becomes tricky to work with, chill it until firm, then continue with the recipe.

Sauerkraut gets a smoky taste from bacon and sausage in a recipe from Orbit, a Polish restaurant in Chicago.

To make this borscht into a full meal, serve the butter-braised oysters as a starter, or vice versa.

Gefilte fish is one of those recipes where touch and taste are essential ingredients. A basic recipe goes this way:"You put in this and add that." If you don't want to taste the raw fish, add a bit more seasoning than you normally would. What makes this recipe Galicianer (southern Polish) is the addition of sugar. For some reason the farther south in Poland, the more sugar would be added. A Lithuanian Jew would never sweeten with sugar but might add beets to the stock. I have added ground carrot and parsnip to the fish, something that is done in the Ukraine, because I like the slightly sweet taste and rougher texture. If you want a darker broth, do not peel the onions and leave them whole.

Chlodnik Polish cooks serve this soup (pronounced "hu-WOHD-neek") as a cooling first course for summer meals. It's a delicious alternative to gazpacho.

Though pierogies are a classic Polish dish, food editor Paul Grimes had them every Easter at his Russian grandmother's house. Pierogies are satisfyingly rich, so you'll only need to serve 2 or 3 per person as a first course; leftovers make a great breakfast.

A quintessential Polish comfort food, pierogies can be stuffed with potatoes, cheese, sauerkraut, or wild mushrooms. Here, dried porcini are combined with cremini mushrooms, adding a woodsy depth to the filling. Served with golden sautéed onions and sour cream, these dumplings make a delicious main dish.

"This delicious cookie was created by Anna Pieklo, a Polish immigrant who came to this country at the turn of the century," writes Diana Treese of St. Cloud, Florida. "My family is also Polish, and I love making these at Christmastime." Active time: 1 1/2 hr Start to finish: 2 1/2 hr

This cookie is popular in most of Eastern Europe. It features a tender pastry and, in this rendition, a delicious not-too-sweet cranberry and walnut filling. The cookies are formed by rolling up triangles of the pastry into small crescents.

In many parts of the country, pierogi, Eastern European dumplings, are sold fresh and frozen in supermarkets. Like premade egg rolls, they've become a convenience food for cooks with limited time. Served with the cabbage and bacon, they're all you need for dinner. These turnovers are typically deep-fried, or boiled and then panfried. Instead, we used a method often employed for cooking frozen Asian dumplings and found it works very well. If pierogi aren't sold in your supermarket, try a local Polish or Eastern European deli.