What Poles eat for Christmas Dinner

The actual Christmas dishes vary between regions and families, but certain items are found almost everywhere. The most important and essential part of the food eaten on Christmas Eve is fried carp. and beetroot soup served with tiny dumplings called "uszka" (ears) filled with wild mushrooms.

Here are the recipes for them.Maybe you will try to make it yourself.

POLISH CHRISTMAS

CHRISTMAS EVE DINNER

Christmas Eve is the most holy and meaningful day of the year in Poland. It is a day of waiting for and celebration of the birth of the Christ Child. Wigilia comes from the Latin word “VIGILIARE’’ which means to wait.
Early in the day, the women of the family start preparing the meal which traditionally consists of twelve meatless dishes symbolizing the Twelve Apostles.

Trip to Goatsbridge trout farm

 




On the last day before the Christmas break we went on a trip to Thomastown. We visited the Goatsbridge Trout Farm.

Mulitcultural cusines

Last Wednesday before our Christmas Holiday we had an  exciting day in the college. There are four foreign people in our group (including me). We were asked by Chef Quinn to prepare
one really traditional dish from each country. It was very hard for me to decide what to pick.
Finally I choose "GOLABKI" ( cabbage rolls). A showcase for Poland's favourite flavours these pork-stuffed rolls make a filing meal.

Here is a recipe for this simple and delicious dish:

Art of Desserts

Desserts are my favorite part of culinary arts because I used to work as a pastry chef. In that time I
 realized that I really enjoy baking and making desserts. I think that this is the direction I would like to head for in the future. Lately I got a fantastic book about desserts with recipes from around the world.

Italian week at WIT

One week at the course we cooked only  Italian food. I was really excited because I spent my last summer holidays in Italy. I had a great time and tried a lot of traditional dishes. They tasted completely different than I expected.

We prepared delicious appetizers                                                                                                              

Italian cuisine wouldn't  be the same without focaccia bread and pizza

                

Fermentation

A few weeks ago we learnt about the fermentation process in the food industry. It recently became very trendy. Our lecturer chef Michael Quinn asked me to teach classmates to make sauerkraut. I'm no fermentation expert but i remember my grandmother always making sauerkraut in autumn. It has been made in Poland for many years, using a traditional method. Here is a video showing how it was made in the past:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DdsO_CpdVnY

How to plate dishes?

At the end of every day we try are best to plate our dishes in the nicest way possible.I'm struggling with that. Here are a few photos of our effort.

Cow's toungs and pig ears .... ha, ha

I experience a lot of new flavors at the culinary course and some of them are a bit unusual.
For example a cow's tongue or pig ears.

Seafood demo

I would never imagne that I will have a chance to see the head cheff Eric from La Boheme in action.

That demo was amazing. I could see how passionate he is about food and cooking. I was really impressed and the food was delicious.

My culinary adventures at WIT

Two months of my culinary course have past since I put up my first photos.
I learn something new everyday ...

How to turn wegetables and glaze them?

Here you go ...

Yummy apple tart

Hi there, this is my first post ever.
Last month I uploaded a few photos about the autumn's treasures that I found in the forest. Autumn  is my favorite season because its full of flavors. I love wild mushrooms and other foods that you can use to stock up the pantry.
You can pickle them, you can make jams, chutneys and enjoy them during the winter. I especially love to bake apple tarts always adding a pinch of cinnamon. They taste different at this time of the year ....yummy

Autumn's Treasures