Hunter's Stew (Bigos)

Soak the mushrooms. Place 80 grams of dried mushrooms in a large bowl and cover with two cups of cold water. Cover and set aside for 12 hours.

Drain the mushrooms, but reserve the water. The mushroom soaking water will be added to the bigos later. Chop the drained mushrooms into thin strips.

Squeeze out the water from two kilograms of sauerkraut and then chop it. Place the sauerkraut in a pot. Pour in two and a half cups of plain tap water or filtered water. Cover with a lid.

Chop a small head of white cabbage or half of a larger head (totaling one kilogram) and place it in a sieve in the sink. Scald the cabbage with boiling water from a kettle. Place the scalded cabbage in the pot with the sauerkraut. Cover the pot. Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat to low so the cabbage simmers gently. Cook for one hour, covered.

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, skinless bacon. Also prepare 50 g of lard.

Melt the lard in a large skillet, then add all the cut-up meats. Fry the meat over medium heat for 40 minutes, stirring every few minutes with a wooden spoon.

After an hour of cooking, transfer the cabbage and its water to a very large pot. Add all the spices and herbs: 5 allspice berries, 1 teaspoon of black pepper, 5 bay leaves, 1 clove, 2 juniper berries. Pour in the water that was used to soak the mushrooms (if it's not bitter) and add the chopped mushrooms. Mix everything thoroughly.

Next, add the meat that was fried in the skillet. Mix well and cover with a lid. Cook the bigos over very low heat, stirring occasionally to prevent burning.

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 skillet after the meat. Once the bacon has rendered its fat, add the chopped onion. After five minutes of frying, add the diced raw smoked bacon. Fry for ten minutes.

After this time, transfer the entire contents of the skillet to the pot with the simmering bigos. Dice the sausage and add it to the bigos. Finely chop at least 50 grams of dried prunes. Mix everything very thoroughly.

Cook the bigos over the lowest heat for four hours. If you plan to add red wine to the bigos, do so on the first or last day of cooking the bigos. 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.

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.