Kuchnia Polska · The Polish Table

Polish Cooking Without Vegetable Oil

Step into the old kitchens of Poland, where pierogi glisten with browned butter, kotlet schabowy crackles in home rendered lard, and every pot of żurek begins with slow cooked bacon fat. Honest ingredients and deep flavor, the way the countryside has always cooked.

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Smalec✦ Masło✦ Słonina
An elegantly plated Polish dish on a dark wooden table
✦ Pierogi ze Skwarkami
From the recipe collection
Smalec

Lard First

Polish kitchens were built on smalec, lard rendered slowly at home until it turns snow white. Cutlets, placki, and Sunday roasts in this collection begin with it, never with a refined seed oil.

Masło

Golden Butter

Good butter from the dairy browns to a nutty gold that dresses pierogi, blooms in soups, and enriches every cake and chałka on the Polish table. No vegetable oil can imitate it.

Nigdy

Never Vegetable Oil

No seed oils, no shortcuts. Only lard, butter, and bacon fat from słonina, the traditional fats that Polish home kitchens have trusted for generations.

✦
From Our Kitchen

Polish Home Recipes

Six beloved dishes from the tables of the Polish countryside, each cooked with the honest fats that bring out the best in every ingredient.

Gospoda Kotlet schabowy, a golden breaded pork cutlet resting on a warm plate

Kotlet Schabowy

Breaded pork cutlet fried in lard

40 min·4 servings·Easy

The proud centerpiece of the Polish Sunday dinner. A pork loin cutlet pounded thin, wrapped in a golden crumb, and fried the old way in smalec until it puffs and crisps.

Ingredients

  • 4 boneless pork loin cutlets, about 150 g each
  • Salt and freshly ground black pepper
  • 100 g plain flour
  • 2 eggs
  • 2 tbsp whole milk
  • 150 g fine dry breadcrumbs
  • 200 g smalec (lard), for frying
  • 1 tbsp butter, to finish
  • Lemon wedges, to serve
  • Mizeria (cucumbers in sour cream), to serve (optional)

Instructions

  1. Pound each cutlet between sheets of parchment until about 5 mm thin, then season both sides with salt and pepper.
  2. Set up three shallow dishes: flour, eggs beaten with the milk, and breadcrumbs.
  3. Dust each cutlet in flour, pull it through the egg, then press it gently into the crumbs so the crust can blister as it fries.
  4. Melt the smalec in a wide heavy pan until a crumb sizzles instantly, about 170°C.
  5. Fry the cutlets one or two at a time, 2 to 3 minutes per side, until deep gold and cooked through.
  6. Drop the butter into the pan for the last minute and baste the cutlets with the foaming fat.
  7. Drain briefly on a rack and serve at once with lemon and a cool spoonful of mizeria.
Mazury Pan-fried fish fillet glazed with browned butter and fresh herbs

Karp Smażony na Maśle

Pan fried carp in browned butter

30 min·2 servings·Easy

The beloved fish of Poland's lakes and holiday tables. Carp fillets cooked gently in butter that is allowed to brown until it smells of hazelnuts, finished with lemon and parsley.

Ingredients

  • 4 carp fillets, skin on (or trout fillets)
  • Salt and white pepper
  • 2 tbsp plain flour, for dusting
  • 120 g butter, divided
  • 1 tbsp smalec (lard)
  • Juice of half a lemon
  • 3 tbsp parsley, chopped
  • 1 small clove garlic, crushed (optional)
  • Lemon wedges, to serve
  • Boiled potatoes with dill, to serve

Instructions

  1. Pat the fillets very dry, season both sides, and dust lightly with flour.
  2. Warm the smalec with 40 g of the butter in a wide pan over medium heat.
  3. Lay the fillets in skin side down and cook 4 minutes until the skin is golden, then turn and cook 2 to 3 minutes more until the flesh flakes. Lift onto warm plates.
  4. Wipe the pan, add the remaining butter, and let it foam and turn a deep hazelnut brown, swirling constantly.
  5. Pull the pan off the heat, add the lemon juice and garlic, and let it hiss.
  6. Stir in the parsley and spoon the brown butter generously over the fish. Serve with dill potatoes and lemon.
Pierogarnia Pierogi ruskie, soft filled dumplings finished in butter with golden onions

Pierogi Ruskie

Potato and cheese dumplings in butter

1 hr 30 min·4 servings·Medium

Poland's most loved dumpling. Tender pockets of potato and farmer cheese, boiled until they float, then finished in foaming butter with golden onions and crisp skwarki.

Ingredients

  • 400 g plain flour, plus more for rolling
  • 1 egg
  • 200 ml warm water
  • 1 tbsp soft butter, for the dough
  • 500 g floury potatoes, boiled and mashed
  • 250 g twaróg (farmer cheese), crumbled
  • 2 onions, finely chopped
  • 100 g butter, divided
  • 80 g słonina or thick bacon, diced small
  • Salt and plenty of black pepper

Instructions

  1. Knead the flour, egg, warm water, and soft butter into a smooth, supple dough. Cover and rest 30 minutes.
  2. Fry half the onions in 40 g butter until deep gold, then mix with the mashed potato and twaróg. Season boldly.
  3. Roll the dough thin and cut rounds about 8 cm across.
  4. Fill each round with a spoonful of filling, fold, and pinch the edges into a tight seam.
  5. Boil the pierogi in batches in well salted water until they float, then 2 minutes more.
  6. Meanwhile render the słonina slowly in a wide pan until the skwarki are crisp, then add the remaining butter and onions.
  7. Toss the drained pierogi in the foaming fat until the edges catch a little gold, and serve with the skwarki spooned over.
Wielkanoc Zurek, a rustic bowl of sour rye soup with sausage and egg

Żurek

Sour rye soup with white sausage

1 hr·6 servings·Medium

The soul of the Polish Easter table, eaten happily all year. A tangy sour rye broth built on bacon fat, with white sausage, potatoes, marjoram, and halved eggs in every bowl.

Ingredients

  • 100 g słonina or smoked bacon, diced
  • 1 onion, chopped
  • 2 cloves garlic, crushed
  • 4 white sausages (biała kiełbasa)
  • 1.5 litres light meat or vegetable broth
  • 400 ml żur (fermented sour rye starter)
  • 3 potatoes, peeled and cubed
  • 1 bay leaf and 3 allspice berries
  • 2 tsp dried marjoram, plus more to serve
  • 4 eggs, hard boiled and halved

Instructions

  1. Render the słonina slowly in a heavy pot until the fat runs and the pieces turn golden.
  2. Soften the onion in the bacon fat, then add the garlic for a final minute.
  3. Pour in the broth, add the sausages, bay leaf, and allspice, and simmer gently 20 minutes.
  4. Lift out the sausages, slice them thickly, and return them to the pot with the potatoes. Cook until tender.
  5. Stir the żur well and pour it in, then simmer 10 minutes until the soup thickens slightly and tastes brightly sour.
  6. Season with marjoram, salt, and pepper, letting the flavors settle a few minutes.
  7. Serve hot with a halved egg in each bowl and an extra pinch of marjoram on top.
Piekarnia Chalka, a golden braided loaf resting on a bakery board

Chałka

Braided Polish butter bread

3 hr·1 loaf·Medium

The golden braid of the Polish bakery. A soft yeasted dough enriched with butter, milk, and egg yolks, plaited and baked until it shines, then eaten thickly buttered.

Ingredients

  • 500 g bread flour
  • 7 g instant yeast
  • 70 g sugar
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 220 ml warm whole milk
  • 100 g soft butter, plus more to serve
  • 2 egg yolks
  • 1 whole egg, beaten, for the glaze
  • 1 tbsp whole milk, for the glaze
  • Pearl sugar or poppy seeds, to finish (optional)

Instructions

  1. Whisk the flour, yeast, sugar, and salt, then add the warm milk, soft butter, and egg yolks and knead 10 minutes to a silky dough.
  2. Cover and let it rise about 1 hour 30 minutes until doubled.
  3. Divide into four ropes, roll each about 40 cm long, and braid them snugly, tucking the ends under.
  4. Lift the braid onto a lined tray and let it rise again 45 minutes until puffy.
  5. Brush with the egg beaten with milk and scatter with pearl sugar or poppy seeds.
  6. Bake at 180°C (355°F) for 25 to 30 minutes until deep golden and hollow sounding underneath.
  7. Cool on a rack, then slice and serve with good butter.
Kawiarnia Szarlotka, a rustic Polish apple cake dusted with sugar

Szarlotka

Polish apple cake in butter pastry

1 hr 40 min·8 servings·Medium

The apple cake of every Polish café and grandmother's table. Cinnamon scented apples tucked between two layers of tender all butter pastry, dusted with sugar while still warm.

Ingredients

  • 350 g plain flour
  • 200 g cold butter, cubed
  • 100 g icing sugar, plus more to dust
  • 2 egg yolks
  • 2 tbsp sour cream
  • 1 tsp baking powder
  • 1.2 kg tart apples (Antonovka or Granny Smith)
  • 3 tbsp sugar, for the apples
  • 1 tsp ground cinnamon
  • 1 tbsp lemon juice

Instructions

  1. Rub the flour, cold butter, and icing sugar to fine crumbs, then bind with the yolks, sour cream, and baking powder into a soft pastry. Chill 30 minutes.
  2. Peel and coarsely grate or thinly slice the apples, then cook them with the sugar, cinnamon, and lemon juice until just tender and thick. Cool.
  3. Press two thirds of the pastry into a lined 24 cm square tin and prick with a fork.
  4. Bake the base at 180°C (355°F) for 15 minutes until pale gold.
  5. Spread the apples evenly over the base.
  6. Coarsely grate the remaining chilled pastry over the top so it falls in soft crumbles.
  7. Bake 35 to 40 minutes more until golden, cool slightly, and dust generously with icing sugar.
A cook working at a warm stove in a busy home kitchen
Our Kitchen

The Kitchen Behind Qicone Kuchnia

Qicone Kuchnia is a small home kitchen devoted to the cooking of Poland, where dinner begins with a steaming bowl of soup, ends with something dusted in sugar, and is never, ever rushed. We write these recipes down the way they are still cooked in family kitchens from Kraków to the Mazury lakes, patiently, precisely, and always with a generous hand on the butter.

Our only house rule is an old one: smalec rendered slowly at home, butter from the dairy, słonina cut thick for skwarki, and nothing else. Vegetable oil never comes through our door, because it never sat on the tables we learned from.

Smacznego, may it feed you well.