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Papua New GuineaFlavors · Poland
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.
Traditional dish from Poland
Also known as: żur, żurek wielkanocny
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Żurek — Poland
Żurek is a tart, full-bodied soup. Its base is zakwas, a mixture of rye flour and water that ferments for a few days, sometimes with garlic and bay leaf. The zakwas is added to a meat or vegetable broth and thickens the soup. White sausage, bacon, potato, mushrooms, horseradish and marjoram are often included, and the bowl is finished with half a boiled egg and, if desired, sour cream.
At Easter, żurek is made with white sausage — a fresh pork sausage seasoned with marjoram and garlic — and eggs, and it opens the Sunday meal. Many people serve it inside a round loaf with the interior hollowed out. It is one of the central dishes on the Easter table. For centuries, the meatless version was a fasting food, served alongside herring.
Żurek has regional variations. In parts of the country it is called żur, and there are recipes using other grains, buttermilk or mashed potato; barszcz biały, a sour wheat soup, is a close relative. Outside Easter, żurek appears year-round on the menus of restaurants and milk bars.
Poland
Żurek is made throughout the country and is one of the central dishes of the Polish Easter, with names and recipes that vary by region.
Zakwas made from rye flour, meat or vegetable broth, white or smoked sausage, bacon, boiled egg, potato, horseradish, garlic and marjoram. Sometimes mushrooms and sour cream.
Hot, in a deep plate or served inside a hollowed round loaf, with half a boiled egg and sausage slices.
Easter, especially for the Sunday meal; year-round in restaurants.
Your questions
A sour soup made with zakwas, a fermented rye-flour starter, served with sausage, a boiled egg and horseradish. It is one of the central dishes of the Polish Easter.
It is a festive way to serve it: a round loaf is hollowed out and used as a bowl. The soup is also served in a deep plate.
Both are similar sour soups. Żurek is made with a rye-based starter; barszcz biały with a wheat-based starter. Names vary from region to region.
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.
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.
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.
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.
