Polish-Inspired Cucumber Salad
Eastern Europe is famed for its pickles. It’s the home of all imaginable vinegary vegetables—from classic gherkins to pickled beetroot and cauliflower, there are so many great pickles to eat in Poland. This salad celebrates the humble cucumber in its raw and pickled state and adds fragrant dill to the mix—an herb that’s used a lot in Eastern Europe. It’s a super-quick and easy salad, which I like to serve at barbecues.
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Kasha Varnishkes with Mushroom Gravy
Kasha varnishkes are a classic Jewish dish from Russia and Eastern Europe made with bow-tie pasta and buckwheat groats. Buckwheat has a marvelous earthy flavor—and nine essential amino acids.
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Cabbage, Kielbasa and Rice Soup
Good sausage is an excellent time-saver, because the links are already spiced and seasoned. The slices of Polish kielbasa in this soup add a wonderfully smoky, peppery, garlicky flavor.
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Beet and Red Cabbage Borscht
Alison Attenborough and Jamie Kimm always make borscht around the holidays. One year, they had roasted fennel left over after a day of food styling and decided to add it to the soup pot; they've been making borscht with fennel ever since. They like their soup really sweet and sour, but you can adjust the vinegar and honey to your taste.
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Kielbasa Sausage Pierogi with Caramelized Onions
Slow caramelized onions and savory chunks of kielbasa sausage make these popular and delicious pierogi hard to pass up.
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Boiled Potatoes with Sage Butter
Sage lovers will adore this recipe, which is superb for breakfast or brunch, especially with a side of eggs.
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Lager-Steamed Mussels with Mustard, Kielbasa and Dill
F&W’s Grace Parisi shares a classic recipe for mussels in white wine, then creates amazing alternatives with clam broth, sake and, in this recipe, lager.
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Beef, Beet and Cabbage Borscht
This was all I ever wanted to eat growing up, and I still crave it more than I care to admit. This Eastern European cabbage soup is really more of a schi than a borscht, but why quibble over names? In America in the ’60s, unless you were Russian, this was borscht. Funny how that works. It’s a meal in a bowl to be sure, but small portions are a great starter. I have been making this for decades; it’s a battle-tested classic. —Andrew Zimmern
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Brown Butter-Seared Potato and Cheese Pierogi
Seared with fragrant brown butter and stuffed with potato and cheese, these pierogi are perfect as an appetizer or main course.
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