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