Hunter's Stew (Bigos)
vxdaBigos, or Hunter's Stew, is one of the most recognizable and traditional dishes in Polish, Belarusian, and Lithuanian cuisine. Discover my tried-and-true recipe for bigos with plenty of different meats, dried mushrooms, prunes, and perfectly selected spices.
Ingredients
- 1 kg fresh cabbage
- 2 kg sauerkraut
- 2 ½ cup water
- 80 g dried mushroom
- 500 ml water
- 500 g pork shoulder
- 300 g beef shoulder
- 500 g raw skinless bacon
- 500 g neck pork loin
- 50 g pork lard
- 180 g hunter's lightly smoked sausage
- 150 g raw smoked bacon
- 150 g cooked smoked bacon
- 400 g onion
- 50 g dried pitted plum
- 1 cup dry red wine
- 5 pcs allspice
- 1 tsp black pepper
- 5 pcs bay leaf
- 1 pcs clove
- 2 pcs juniper berry
Instructions
- 1
Soak the mushrooms. Place 80 grams of dried mushrooms in a larger dish and cover with two glasses of cold water. Cover and set aside for 12 hours.
- 2
Drain the mushrooms, but do not discard the water. We will add the mushroom soaking water to the bigos later. Chop the drained mushrooms into thin strips.
- 3
Squeeze two kilograms of sauerkraut thoroughly to remove the water and then chop it. Place the sauerkraut in a pot. Pour in two and a half glasses of regular tap or filtered water. Cover with a lid.
- 4
Chop a small head of white cabbage or half of a larger head (totaling one kilogram) and place it on a sieve in the sink. Scald the cabbage with boiling water from the kettle. Place the scalded cabbage in the pot with the sauerkraut. Cover the pot with a lid. Bring to a boil, then reduce the burner to low so that the cabbage simmers gently. Cook covered for one hour.
- 5
While the cabbage is cooking, prepare the meat. Cut the raw meats into small pieces: 500 g pork shoulder, 300 g beef shoulder, 500 g pork loin from the neck, 500 g raw bacon without the skin. Also, prepare 50 g of lard.
- 6
Melt the lard in a large frying pan, then add all the different types of chopped meat. Fry the meat over medium heat for 40 minutes, stirring every few minutes with a wooden spoon.
- 7
After one hour of cooking, transfer the cabbage along with the water to a very large pot. Add all the spices and herbs: 5 allspice berries, a teaspoon of black pepper, 5 bay leaves, 1 clove, 2 juniper berries. Also, pour in the water that was used to soak the mushrooms (if it is not bitter) and add the chopped mushrooms. Mix everything thoroughly.
- 8
Next, add the meat that was fried in the pan. Mix everything together and cover with a lid. Cook the bigos over very low heat, stirring so it does not burn.
- 9
Finally, prepare the onions and smoked meats. You will need two large onions, 150 grams each of raw and parboiled smoked bacon, and 180 g of smoked hunter's sausage (kiełbasa myśliwska). First, dice the parboiled bacon and place it in the pan after the meat. When the bacon fat has rendered, add the chopped onion. After five minutes of frying, add the diced raw smoked bacon. Fry everything for ten minutes.
- 10
After this time, transfer the entire contents of the pan to the pot with the simmering bigos. Dice the sausage and add it to the bigos. Also, finely chop at least 50 grams of dried prunes. Mix everything very thoroughly.
- 11
Cook the bigos over the lowest heat for four hours. If you plan to add red wine to the bigos, do it on the first or last day of cooking. Pour a glass of good red wine or Madeira into the bigos immediately after adding the last ingredients or two hours before turning off the bigos on the day you want to serve it.
- 12
At least every 30 minutes, check the bigos and stir it with a wooden spoon, as bigos tends to burn. The next day, reheat the bigos again for at least two hours. Bigos is ready to eat on the first day, but it gets better and better when reheated on the second, third, or even fourth day.