Search
Brazil
Argentina
Bolivia
Chile
Colombia
Ecuador
Guyana
French Guiana
Falkland Islands (Malvinas)
Paraguay
Peru
Suriname
Uruguay
Venezuela
Germany
Austria
Belgium
Croatia
Denmark
Spain
Finland
France
Greece
the Netherlands
Hungary
Ireland
Iceland
Italy
Luxembourg
NorwayPoland
Portugal
the United Kingdom
the Czech Republic
Sweden
Switzerland
Turkey
Canada
the United States
Mexico
the Dominican RepublicTurkey
South Africa
Australia
Fiji
New Zealand
Papua New GuineaFlavors · Podláquia
Grated raw potato cake with fried bacon, onion, eggs and a little flour, baked in a pan until the crust is golden. It’s one of the most popular dishes of Podlaskie, the northeastern region of Poland, and is on the List of Traditional Products.
Traditional dish from Podláquia
Also known as: kartoflak, bugaj, rejbak, kugiel
Illustrative images. The pictures in this guide are illustrations based on the real place, not photographs, and may differ from it.
Click a photo to enlarge it.
Babka ziemniaczana — Podláquia, Poland
Babka ziemniaczana is a savory potato cake. The potato is grated raw and mixed with fried bacon, onion, eggs and a little flour; some cooks add mushrooms, which are common in the region’s forests. The batter is baked in a pan, usually rectangular, for about one to one and a half hours, until the top is dark brown and the interior is firm. The name comes from babka, a tall yeasted cake, because of the shape it resembles.
Podlaskie, bordering Belarus and Lithuania, is Poland’s most diverse region in terms of origins and religions, and its cuisine blends Polish, Lithuanian, Belarusian, Jewish and Tatar traditions. It is a peasant, potato-based cuisine: simple and hearty. Within it, babka ziemniaczana is one of the best-known dishes; it is served in ready-meal houses and restaurants. The simplest versions used only potato, onion, flour and eggs, and bacon was added when meat was available, especially after pig slaughtering.
The dish has many names in the region, such as kartoflak, bugaj, rejbak and kugiel, and many variations. The same mixture, stuffed into a pig casing, becomes kiszka ziemniaczana. In 2005, babka ziemniaczana was added to the Podlaskie voivodeship’s List of Traditional Products. In the region it is sold in restaurants and ready-meal houses in rectangular slices.
Podláquia
Babka ziemniaczana is one of the best-known dishes of Podlaskie peasant cuisine and is on the region’s List of Traditional Products.
Grated raw potato, fried bacon (słonina), onion, eggs and flour. Sometimes mushrooms.
Hot, in rectangular slices, with sour cream, mushroom or meat sauce, or with the bacon on top.
Everyday food, especially in autumn and winter.
Your questions
A savory cake of grated raw potato with fried bacon, onion, eggs and flour, baked in a pan until browned. It’s one of the most popular dishes of Podlaskie in northeastern Poland.
No. The name recalls babka, a sweet yeasted cake, but babka ziemniaczana is a savory dish, served hot in slices.
The mixture is the same—grated potato, onion and bacon. Babka is baked in a pan; kiszka is stuffed into a pig casing, like a sausage.
Flavors of Poland
Stew of sauerkraut and cabbage with various meats, smoked sausage and dried mushrooms, slowly cooked and reheated over days until the flavors meld. It is one of the dishes most connected to Polish identity and appears in the national poem Pan Tadeusz.
Round yeast dough pastry, fried, without a hole, filled with jam—traditionally rose petal or plum—and dusted with sugar or covered in icing. It’s the sweet of Tłusty Czwartek, the fatty Thursday before Lent, celebrated across the country.
Dumplings made from unleavened dough, boiled in water and sometimes browned in butter, with savory or sweet fillings. The ruskie, filled with potato and fresh cheese, are the most common, and the cabbage with mushrooms variety is served on Christmas Eve.
Vodka made entirely in Poland from rye, wheat, barley, oats, triticale or potatoes grown in the country. The name is a national geographical indication that applies to both neutral vodka and flavored vodkas that follow the rules.
A sour soup made with zakwas, a fermented rye-flour starter, served with white sausage, a boiled egg and horseradish. It is one of the most important dishes of the Polish Easter and is sometimes served inside a loaf of bread.
Smoked pork cooked with dried plums, pears and other fruits, served with a sweet-and-sour fruit sauce and dumplings. The name means Silesian heaven, and the dish is on the Lower Silesia Traditional Products List.
Braided bread ring first boiled in very hot water and then baked, topped with salt, poppy seeds, or sesame. It’s sold from street carts in Kraków and has a European Union protected geographical indication.
A round wheat dough disk topped with raw chopped onion and poppy seed, baked until the edge is golden. It originated in the Jewish bakeries of Lublin’s old town and has a European Union protected geographical indication.
Yeast-based cake covered with a buttery streusel, made plain or filled with white cheese, poppy seed or apple. It is the wedding cake of Opole Silesia and has a European Union protected geographical indication.
Flavored vodka with bison grass that grows in the clearings of the Białowieża and Knyszyn forests in Podlaskie. It has a light green-golden color and the smell of dry hay, and the official name is a protected geographical indication of the European Union.
Croissant in a crescent shape, made from yeast-leavened puff pastry, filled with white poppy seed paste with fruit and nuts, and topped with icing and chopped nuts. It is Poznań’s Saint Martin’s pastry, eaten on November 11, and has protected geographical indication.
Beef roulade stuffed with bacon, pickled cucumber and onion, cooked in sauce and served with kluski śląskie — potato dumplings with a little indentation in the middle — and red cabbage. It’s the Sunday lunch of Upper Silesia.
Long pastry made from leavened dough, fried and usually filled with seasoned ground meat with pepper. It originated in Szczecin in the early 1970s, made on a Soviet machine from 1969, and is on Poland’s List of Traditional Products.
Honey cake with pepper, cinnamon, cardamom, ginger and other spices, molded in wooden molds or cut into shapes. It has been made in Toruń without interruption since the Middle Ages and is on Poland’s national list of intangible cultural heritage.
Two-layer chocolate sponge cake with whipped cream in the middle, covered in chocolate and often topped with a cherry. It originated in Warsaw in the late 1940s, and the name is linked to the W-Z avenue, opened during the city’s reconstruction.
A very sour sauerkraut soup with smoked pork ribs or other smoked pork, served with boiled potato on the side or with bread. It’s the dish of the highlanders of Podhale, the Zakopane region at the foot of the Tatra Mountains.
