Today I made a Polish village food -lazanki. Cabbage is everywhere and is one of the cheapest food items you can find in Polish markets. My grand mother learnt how to make lazanki during the war when she was staying with one of the Polish village families. During the war they used just cabbage and pig fat but I made a more luxurious version by adding a local sausage, dried mushrooms, and onion.
Pasta lazanki is so quick and easy to make that I would never be able to justify buying it.
Ingredients:
1 small head of local green cabbage
0.5 large local onion
2 sausages (I used chili, garlic and rosemary sausage made by our local butcher)
1 tsp whole caraway seeds
2 tbsp butter
For lazanki pasta:
2 cup all purpose or bread flour
2 eggs (you can go anywhere between 1 to 3 eggs depending on your preference, or you can use egg substitute of your choice)
4-6 tbsp water
1. Chop onion and sausage and fry them with caraway seeds for a few minutes.
2. Chop cabbage and cook with butter on gas mark 3.
3. Add fried sausage and onion to the cabbage pot, stirr every 10 minutes. Turn heat to gas mark 2.8.
4. Set pot of water with salt to boil for lazanki.
5. Mix flour with eggs and slowly keep adding water to make a dough. The dough should be fairly smooth - it takes about 5 minutes of kneeding by hand.
6. Split into 2-3 parts and flatten it. If you have a pasta making machine you can use it or you can use rolling pin. Cut flat dough into squares or any other shape and size you like. To cut dough I use pizza cutter, but you can use pasta knife or regular knife, even cookie cutter.
6. Place cut lazanki in a boiling water and cook only to the point when they float up, it is almost instatenious. They should be still slightly hard when taken out. You don't want to overlook ithem as we will be cooking them for additional few minutes with cabbage. You don't have to cook them right away, you can store them for later. Just let them dry and then place them in the air tight container.
7. Add cooked lazanki pasta to the cabbage mix and let cook for another 3-5 minutes. Serve warm.
8. Enjoy!
