Cookbook Wild Honey and Rye · Family Food · Lockdown · Meat/Poultry · Polish Heritage · Recipe · Wild Honey and Rye
Polish Meatballs with Mushroom Sauce
This is one of my favourite recipes from my cookbook Wild Honey and Rye for Polish Meatballs in a Mushroom Sauce, which you can find on page 118.
I serve my meatballs with a light cucumber, sour cream and dill salad and a grated beetroot salad. There’s no need for potatoes, although my Mama would serve hers with potatoes (the apple mashed potatoes on page 85 or the new potatoes with butter and dill on page 89) both work really well. Small meatballs in Poland are known as kotleciki or pulpety, larger ones are called kotlety mielone.
Wild Honey and Rye: Modern Polish Recipes is available in the UK here, published by Pavilion Books.
The first American edition is also available for in the US here and will be published by Interlink Books in March 2018.
Thank you for all your support!
Meatballs with Mushroom Sauce and a Cucumber Salad
This recipe, in Polish called Kotleciki mielone z sosem grzybowym i mizerią, was one of the first recipes I asked my Mama to write down for me when I was leaving for university. Polish meatballs were a dish she would very often make for supper, served with mashed potatoes and grated beetroot or with a cucumber and sour cream salad on the side. Traditionally, Polish meatballs are coated in breadcrumbs or flour, but I leave mine as they are to lighten them up a little. This is a wonderfully comforting, family dish.
Ingredients
For the meatballs:
- 125 ml/ 1/2 cup beef stock
- 2 tbsp vegetable oil plus more for frying
- 1 red onion finely chopped
- 400 g/14oz minced beef
- 400 g/14oz minced pork
- 1 egg beaten
- 1 tsp mustard
- 1 tsp dried parsley
- 2 slices bread preferably sourdough rye, soaked in water
- Freshly ground black pepper
For the mushroom sauce:
- 1 tsp butter
- 1 small onion peeled and finely chopped
- 250 g / 2 1/2 cups white mushrooms cleaned and sliced
- ½ lemon juiced
- ½ vegetable or chicken stock cube
- 250 ml/ 1 cup single or light cream
For the Mizeria cucumber salad:
- 1 large cucumber peeled and sliced
- 1 tbsp sea salt
- 125 ml/ 1/2 cup sour cream
- Small bunch fresh dill finely chopped
For the beetroot salad:
- 4 large cooked beets grated
- 1/2 red onion finely chopped
- Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
- 1/2 lemon juiced or 1 tsp white wine vinegar
- 1 tbsp light olive oil
- 2 tbsp fresh dill chopped
- Pinch of sugar optional
Instructions
- For the meatballs, firstly, make up the beef stock cube with hot water and leave to cool. Fry the red onion in a splash of oil for 5 minutes until softened. Leave to cool.
- In a large bowl, combine the mince, egg, mustard and parsley. Pour in the cooled beef stock and tip in the onions. Tear or crumble the soaked bread into small pieces, add to the meat. Season the mixture with pepper and combine everything thoroughly with a clean fork.
- Keep a separate, smaller bowl of cold water by your side to wet your hands. Take small amounts of the mixture, roughly a tablespoonful, and shape into small balls – about the size of golf balls. Flatten slightly and arrange on a board. Between making each meatball, dip your hands in the cold water, to prevent stickiness. You should have enough mixture for 12 meatballs.
- Heat a wide-based frying pan (preferably non-stick) with 2 tablespoons vegetable oil. In batches, fry the meatballs for 4 minutes, until golden all over. Remove onto a clean plate and continue with the rest.
- Once they are browned, put the meatballs back into the pan, add 2 tablespoons cold water, shake the pan around a little, cover with a tight-fitting lid or foil, and simmer on a low heat to cook for 10 minutes.
- For the mushroom sauce, in a separate frying pan, cook the onion in the butter for 5 minutes until soft. Add the mushrooms, squeeze over the lemon juice and cook for a further 5 minutes. Crumble in the stock cube, add half a cup of water and simmer for 2 minutes. Add the cream and stir well. Set to one side or pour over the meatballs in the pan to keep warm.
- For the cucumber salad, place the cucumber into a sieve or colander and sprinkle over the salt. Leave it to drain for 20 minutes – the salt will bring out lots of water and the cucumber will turn slightly darker in colour. Drain well, using clean hands to squeeze out any excess water and transfer the cucumber slices to a clean bowl. Stir through the sour cream and the fresh dill.
- For the beetroot salad, mix the grated beetroot with the red onion, salt, and pepper. Add the lemon juice or vinegar, olive oil, and dill and mix well. Taste the salad and, if you like, sweeten it slightly with a pinch of sugar. Serve straight away with the meatballs, sauce and cucumber salad.
Notes
Recipes extracted from Wild Honey and Rye: Modern Polish Recipes by Ren Behan, published by Pavilion Books, with permission. Recipe image credit: Yuki Sugiura.
You may also like:
The Happy Launch of Wild Honey and Rye – read here.
5 Polish Recipes from Wild Honey and Rye
With thanks to Pavilion Books for the permission to share this recipe from Wild Honey and Rye: Modern Polish Recipes.
Looks yummy! where can I find the recipe?
Amazing, everything looks soooo good Ren!
I loved every single recipe from your book and it is great it will be now also available in the US… I have some relatives that will be very happy to hear the news.
Oh my this is a plateful of food I would love to devour. Super well done on you fabulous book Ren, you certainly deserved a good break after all that hard work-)
All of us UK food bloggers are so so proud of your success, and wish you well for a happy and productive 2018! I’m really chuffed to have had the chance to introduce you and your take on modern Polish to my Food To Glow readers. We loe the Millet Kaszotto!
I love your recipes – haven’t tried the meatballs yet however have had some of your salads! Always delicious,
That was such a lovely read Ren, and lovely to see how much support you have received from the blogging community!
And I’m so excited for your that your book is going to be published in the US soon, you must be thrilled!