What's so great about this dish? Bigus (bigos) can be prepared from any meat, sausage or sausages, take fresh or sauerkraut (or both together), if desired, add your favorite spices, tomato paste or tomatoes. As you can see, when preparing bigos, each housewife can give free rein to her imagination and cook her own, special bigos.
Today we will cook bigus from fresh cabbage with meat. You can use your favorite spices, I used some paprika and hot peppers. Meat - pork, but it is quite possible to take beef.
Spasser on vegetable oil, first chopped onion for 1-2 minutes, then add grated carrots to it.
While the vegetables are browning, cut the washed and dried meat into medium pieces, add it to the onions and carrots. At this stage, you can add pepper and spices, I prefer salt later.
Stir, cover and fry the meat with vegetables for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. In the meantime, chop the cabbage. Let's add it to the pan.
Pour water about half the height (250-300 ml), salt, cover with a lid and simmer over low heat for 30-40 minutes, making sure that the water does not boil away (add more water if necessary). Finely chop the tomato, after removing the skin from it. If there is no tomato, you can add tomato juice or 1-2 tablespoons of tomato paste. The tomato gives the right sourness to the bigos. I added more garlic and a few rings of hot pepper.
Stir, cover with a lid and stew the cabbage with meat for another 5-7 minutes, you can add a bay leaf. Here is our bigos from fresh cabbage and ready, please to the table! Fragrant, satisfying, rich bigus from fresh cabbage with meat will appeal to your family. Add your favorite herbs and serve. I have fresh Chinese garlic leaves straight from the garden, very fragrant!
As you can see, cooking bigus is not at all difficult, and the dish turns out great! Bon appetit!
Bigus (bigos) is a traditional Polish dish consisting of fresh and sauerkraut with meat and, of course, smoked meats. Now there are a huge number of different recipes for this dish. As is the case with us, each Polish housewife prepares bigus in her own way, using various tricks and culinary secrets accumulated with experience.
We have tried to bring to your attention classic recipe bigus with cabbage and pork, which can be an excellent base for experiments. There is no strictness in the recipe: if desired, you can supplement or slightly modify the composition of the products. However, fresh and sauerkraut, meat and smoked products should remain unchanged, since these ingredients are the main ingredients for the Polish dish.
Ingredients: 
- fresh cabbage - 600 g;
- carrots - 1 pc.;
- pork - 400 g;
- smoked sausage (or other smoked meats) - 200 g;
- sauerkraut - 400 g;
- tomato paste - 1 tbsp. spoon;
- cumin - ½ tbsp. spoons;
- allspice - 2-3 peas;
- vegetable oil - 2-3 tbsp. spoons;
- prunes - 50-70 g;
- salt - to taste;
- dry white wine (or water) - 150 ml.
Bigus classic recipe with cabbage and pork
- We wash the pork pulp, dry it and cut into medium-sized pieces. We cover the bottom of a volumetric refractory stewpan with a thin layer of oil, heat it up. We spread the prepared meat on a hot surface.
- Stirring, fry the pork over moderate heat. As soon as all the moisture released by the meat has evaporated, and the pieces begin to brown, lightly sprinkle them with salt. Next, load the carrots grated with large chips.
- After 3-5 minutes, add sausage, cut into small cubes. At this stage, be sure to control the temperature and do not forget to mix the contents of the saucepan! Our task is to fry the ingredients well, but at the same time prevent them from burning!
- After 2-3 minutes after adding the sausage, we supplement the ingredients with tomato paste mixed with dry wine or plain drinking water. Add cumin, a few peppercorns and / or other spices of your choice.
- Finely chop fresh white cabbage and load into a saucepan.
- Next, add sour. Reduce the heat to a minimum, cover the saucepan with a lid and simmer the components of the bigus for about 30 minutes. There is no need to add additional water, because thanks to sauerkraut and fresh cabbage, juice will be enough.
- After the specified time, we take a sample, if necessary, add salt. We cut the washed prunes into small pieces and add to the almost ready dish. Mix everything and continue to simmer the ingredients over low heat under the lid for another 10 minutes.
- Serve classic bigus with meat and cabbage hot, topped with slices of fresh bread, herbs and/or vegetables. Hearty, warming dish with piquant sourness and seductive aroma can be served as an independent second course or as a hearty snack.
Classic bigus with meat and cabbage is ready! Bon appetit!
Very tasty, hearty, rich second course, called "bigus". Now it’s impossible to determine for sure who was the first to invent this recipe, to whom to give the palm - Poland, the Baltic countries or Belarus and Ukraine. The recipe has spread to different corners, overgrown with new additions. Something was added, something did not take root from the ingredients. In the classic primary source, sauerkraut and fresh cabbage and several types of meat (pork, beef, chicken, etc.), red wine and prunes, and necessarily spices are used. Even this food can, if properly prepared, be stored in a cold room for a very long time - in earthenware, filled with lard. It's all prelude. Let's get acquainted with the recipe step by step and not in words, but in deeds. Let's cook our bigus.
Bigus recipe from fresh cabbage with meat
For the first time I came across the name "bigus" in the book of G. Senkevich "Pan Volodievsky". In the Polish manner, it is pronounced "bigosh". Never heard of this before, much less tried it. There was a desire to cook. Of course, I'm oh so far from the Polish original. There are so many nuances. I know this firsthand, I already have a recipe, Polish friends shared it. But there you have to spend almost half a day in the kitchen. For a long time. As a result, I did it in a simple way, but I was pleasantly pleased with the result. I submit to your judgment.
Ingredients:
- pork - 300g;
- onion - 1 pc;
- carrots - 1 pc;
- cabbage - 0.5 kg;
- tomato - 1 pc;
- tomato paste - 1 tsp;
- vegetable oil - 50 ml;
- salt, spices - to taste.
How to cook bigus from fresh cabbage
Bigus from fresh cabbage with potatoes
This dish can be prepared all year round, all products are available. Nothing new needs to be invented. It is advisable to use a variety - white-headed, it is sweetish. That will give the food an exquisite zest. And, of course, smoked meat. But if this is not available, it's okay, we will cook from what we have, it is better that it be chilled. Of course, you can take frozen, what you have at hand. Do not forget to defrost gradually in the refrigerator first.
What do we need:
- pork pulp - 250g;
- cabbage - 350g;
- potatoes - 2-3 tubers;
- carrots - 1 pc;
- onion - 1 pc;
- tomato sauce or paste - 1 tbsp;
- oil - 70 ml;
- salt, pepper - to taste.
How to cook bigus from fresh cabbage with potatoes
- Prepare the products: wash the forks under running water, remove the top leaves. We will “undress” the onion from the integumentary leaves, remove the roots. Wash and clean the carrots. Remove the skin from the potato.
- Cut the onion into cubes. We chop the carrots on a grater with large holes. Divide the fork into 4 parts and chop into “noodles”. It can also be in large pieces.
- Prepare the meat: remove the veins and films, wash, dry. Let's cut into pieces.
- We cut the potatoes into cubes, it is desirable that its size coincides with the pieces of meat.
- In a thick-walled dish, heat up the oil, fry the onions and carrots. Stir often, they should not burn.
- Put the meat on top of the vegetable mixture and continue to fry for 5-7 minutes.
- The meat is browned - pour in the potatoes, mix, fry again.
- The next step is to put the fried mixture into the pan in which the products will be stewed, add the chopped cabbage, mix everything gently. Cover with a lid and cook on moderate heat for 40 minutes. When everything is a little extinguished, salt, pepper and put the tomato. Be sure to stir, the dish tends to burn.
Bigus with fresh cabbage sausage recipe with photo
Does it happen to you that you are planning to cook something delicious, but you don’t have the necessary product? Of course, no one is immune from this. But this is not a reason to give up your favorite dish. It can and should be replaced with something if the products are interchangeable. As in this recipe - there is no meat, but there are sausages. So, it will be a little different, but, nevertheless, also tasty.
Grocery list:
- cabbage - 500g;
- sausage, frankfurters, sausages, etc. - 250gr;
- onion - 1 pc;
- tomato paste - 1 tsp;
- sunflower oil - 4 tablespoons;
- salt.
Cooking bigus from fresh cabbage with sausages or sausage
As you can see, there is nothing difficult to prepare. These are simplified options, so to speak, to save time. In this recipe, such a dish is cooked in the oven for at least 2 hours. Although the Poles cook for several days, they say the dish should “ripen”. But we working, often do not have enough time. And thanks to these available recipes, we can prepare a delicious, nutritious meal. Your choice of meat and variety of cabbage is up to you. They say you can add color, but I didn’t cook, I don’t know how it tastes. The advantage of bigus is that from simple ingredients an unforgettable combination of meat and vegetables is obtained. And if it is smoked or smoked ribs, believe me, such a dish will not be ashamed to be served on the festive table, pleasantly surprising the guests. The crunchy side dish will please the most fastidious eater.
Bigos or bigus is a traditional dish of Poland, Russia, Lithuania, Ukraine and Belarus. This dish is considered to be primordially Polish, but if you look into the origins of history, then the bigus recipe was imported from Lithuania to Poland, and not vice versa.
There are hundreds of options for preparing a delicious dish, while many are completely different from each other. But mostly sauerkraut bigus is also cooked with pork, or with other meat, sausage, potatoes, stewed or fresh cabbage is added.
In the spring, when our body is deficient in vitamin C after winter, a sauerkraut salad recipe helps replenish it.
But no matter how hard we try to keep our cabbage at even the optimum temperature for it, it still becomes a little sour by the end of winter. But this is not a problem, because sauerkraut makes excellent cabbage soup, bigus, lazy cabbage rolls, pies, etc. The bigus recipe from sauerkraut or fresh cabbage resembles a little hodgepodge if you add different types meat.
In bigus from fresh cabbage (and not only from the one we learned), you can add ingredients that you like, it can be: herbs, wine, mushrooms, prunes, you can make a combination of fresh and sauerkraut will also be very appetizing. The main thing is to use your imagination and take into account your taste preferences.
Already the finished dish has a thick texture, a slightly sour taste and the smell of smoked meat. Due to the fact that bigus does not lose its taste, it is often prepared in reserve in a large bowl and frozen as a result.
How to cook bigus with meat from fresh or sauerkraut?
- Bigus with fresh cabbage pork
To prepare this delicious dish, take and finely chop 100 g of lard, heat it in a saucepan with a couple of spoons vegetable oil. We put a bay leaf and allspice to it. We simmer the fat until the liquid evaporates and wait until the pieces are browned.
After that, pour 50 ml of tomato juice (or tomato paste + water) into our preparation, salt and simmer for another five minutes. Shredding a kilogram white cabbage and add it to the rest of the ingredients in a saucepan. Mix well and simmer until all vegetables are medium soft. Add chopped herbs and garlic to taste. Cooking for another five minutes. Serve the dish very hot.
- Bigus from fresh cabbage with potatoes
Stew half a kilo of beef in a cauldron in a small amount of water over low heat until the water evaporates. After that, add a little vegetable oil and fry our meat a little. Finely chop an onion and two carrots and put it to the meat. Fry the mixture for five minutes. Randomly cut three potatoes and put in a cauldron for five minutes.
Now add 200 g of fresh chopped cabbage and wait five minutes, after which it is the turn of sauerkraut, put 300 g and simmer for ten minutes.
Add finely chopped (one at a time) bell pepper and tomatoes when potatoes and cabbage become soft. At the end, add chopped herbs and salt. Served with fresh or pickled vegetables.
- Bigus with sausage
We wash one kg of sauerkraut to get rid of excess sourness. After that, put it in a saucepan and add a glass of water, coarsely grated carrots, your favorite spices, salt and a couple of tablespoons of vegetable oil. We simmer everything on low heat. We cut into cubes two sausages or smoked sausages. Fry it in a pan along with chopped champignons (300 g) and two onions. Add to vegetables and simmer until soft. At the end, add spices.
In the old days, in the time of our forefathers, in a cold pantry there was always masonry or a clay pot with bigus. It turns out that the longer it is infused in a cold place and the more often it is heated, the more aromatic and appetizing the dish becomes.
The most delicious it will be on the third day. Previously, a recipe for thick and fatty bigus with meat from fresh cabbage was included in the mandatory list of products for long-distance adventures, such as hunting. And this dish was especially desired at Christmas and Easter.
Now this dish is publicly available and you can use it every day for no reason. Ease of preparation is a bigus plus. And the ability to vary the ingredients makes it unique every time. Bon appetit!
Today, right here and now, you will learn how to cook delicious bigus, or bigos, as you like, from fresh cabbage, what ingredients are needed in cooking and how to make it truly balanced and authentic.
How to cook bigus from fresh cabbage - principles
Cooking bigus has four basic principles, without which the dish will be just stewed cabbage, but not what we need.
- The first principle is the need to combine fresh and sauerkraut. This combination helps to balance the flavors and add sourness.
- Bigus is not bigus if it does not contain prunes. It is he who creates the balance between sour and sweet taste. And since the dish contains meat ingredients, this combination of flavors is simply delicious.
- Prunes are sorted out, however, they will only add the base of the sweet taste, but to fully balance you will have to add a huge amount of it. Well, or just add sugar, which will add sweetness and will not take up space.
- The last but very important point is Madeira. Without Madeira, or at least sherry, bigus will be empty, it will lack some kind of subtle flavor note.
The analysis of the principles is over, only the principles of cooking remain, which are not necessary to follow.
- There must be meat in the bigus. Which one is up to you. It is preferable to use a large meat set containing both regular raw meat and smoked meats. An excellent choice would be hunting sausages or smoked pork ham. From ordinary meat, pork neck or brisket is suitable, as well as beef.
- Use tomato paste for richer color and flavor. It is best to add it to the meat, in the process of frying.
- It is better to cut the ingredients into a medium cube, cabbage into short strips, this does not affect the taste, but it will be much more convenient to eat.
- Use only the bare minimum of spices. Namely, salt, black pepper, allspice and bay leaf. No thyme or rosemary, save them for steaks and the like.
Bigus is a dish for which you need to use only the basic principles of cooking. By following them, you can do everything else as you please. They wanted - they added potatoes, they wanted - mushrooms. Use this possibility of various variations, and you will never get tired of bigus!
Bigus with fresh cabbage, step by step recipe with photo
We use:
- Three hundred grams of fresh and sauerkraut white cabbage
- Three hundred grams of young pork
- Two large onions
- A large spoonful of butter
- A quarter cup of brown sugar
- Freshly ground pepper
- Salt
- Clove of garlic
- Two half-smoked sausages
- Two hundred grams of hot smoked chicken meat
- One and a half glasses tomato sauce or paste
Cooking process:
Lubricate the bottom of the pan with oil, put the squeezed sauerkraut and chopped fresh cabbage there, stew for about twenty minutes.
We cut the pork into cubes.
Onion cut into smaller pieces.
Melt a piece of butter in another saucepan and sauté the onion on it.
Add meat to the onion. Keep it until half cooked, stirring occasionally.
After cooking the pork until half cooked, add sugar to the dish, pepper and squeeze the garlic.
We cut sausages and chicken breasts in the same way as pork and add straight to the pan.
Five minutes later, we lay the pre-stewed cabbage to the meat. Add sauce. Simmer at a low temperature, without covering the dish with a lid for about an hour.
Bigus from cabbage with meat
Required products:
- Fresh cabbage head - 0.5 kg
- Sauerkraut - ¼ kg
- Pork neck - 0.3 kg
- Beef shoulder - 0.3 kg
- Hunting sausages - 150 gr
- Onion - small onion
- Pitted prunes - one hundred grams
- Wine "Madera" - 150 ml
- Sugar - a tablespoon
- Salt / pepper / spices - at the discretion
Cut fresh and sauerkraut into thin strips, three to four centimeters long and put in a saucepan on the stove, adding water along the way.
Fry the pork neck, beef shoulder with chopped onions. Cut the meat into slices one and a half to two centimeters per side. Send the fried meat with onions to the cabbage and salt.
Separately fry smoked hunting sausages. After frying, dry them from oil on a paper towel or towel and mix with cabbage.
Add the washed, pitted prunes, chopped into quarters, sugar and mix.
Add half a glass of Madeira and simmer for about an hour and a half. After a while, stir the bigus and pour in the remaining wine. Remove the pan from the stove and leave the dish to reach under the lid.
Bigus with pork
Pork allows you to make bigos fat, rich and fragrant. There is a great variety of meat products from pork and its cuts, which will allow you to collect a rich meat set without using more expensive beef.
Ingredients:
- Pork neck - 0.3kg
- Half-smoked bacon - 200 g
- Smoked brisket - 0.2 kg
- Fresh cabbage and sauerkraut - 400 grams each
- Prunes - 100-120 grams
- Onion - one medium onion
- Tomato paste - a couple of tablespoons
- Madeira - 150 ml
- Salt / spices / bay leaf - to taste
Cut fresh cabbage with sauerkraut, squeeze lightly and send it to “steam” in a saucepan, adding a little water.
Leaving cabbage to the mercy of water molecules suffering from temperature, you can do meat.
Cut the pork neck, smoked brisket and bacon into small pieces. Saute bacon and onion in a skillet. You don't need to add any oil, the bacon will provide enough fat for frying.
Add the neck pieces to the fried onion and bacon, followed by the loin. Onions fried in the first place will release substances into fat, allowing the meat to “close” faster and not release juice. At the exit, you will get juicy pieces inside with a golden crust.
Reduce the heat and put a couple of tablespoons of tomato paste to the meat. Stir and hold on the stove for a couple of minutes, allowing the taste of meat and tomato to combine. Do not forget to salt the meat and season with ground pepper.
Combine half-stewed cabbage, meat and prunes, mix and add water. Throw in a couple of peas of allspice, salt and mix. After extinguishing for half an hour, add dessert wine and again under the lid, now for an hour.
Ten minutes before the end of cooking, “refresh” the taste of the wine by adding its rest. Do not forget a bay leaf, ten minutes of its presence in the pan is enough to saturate it with aroma.
Bigus recipe with potatoes
Someone will say that there is no place for potatoes or other similar products in bigus. But let me. Bigus is essentially a combination of a properly prepared base and additional ingredients, limited only by the culinary imagination. Well, or common sense, no one will put pineapple in bigus.
Ingredients:
- Smoked loin - 0.3 kg
- Beef - 0.4 kg
- Onion or shallot - small onion
- Prunes - one hundred grams
- Sauerkraut and fresh - 350-400 grams of both
- Tomato paste - 2 tbsp
- Spices and salt - to taste
Let the onion and add chopped smoked loin and beef to it. Fry until meat is golden brown. Before removing from heat, pour in a couple of tablespoons of tomato paste.
Crumble both types of cabbage into strips, place in a saucepan and simmer with the addition of water. After 15-20 minutes of stewing, add meat, prunes, salt and pepper, add water if necessary, and lay out potatoes cut into medium cubes. Simmer no more than 40-50 minutes. Over time, add Madeira or sherry, mix, add spices. Simmer until potatoes are cooked.
Delicious bigus from fresh cabbage in a slow cooker
The slow cooker is a miracle of engineering genius in the field of cooking. How much can you cook in it. What about bigus? Everything is just great, because stews as well as possible it turns out in a multicooker.
Bigus ingredients in a slow cooker:
- Cabbage, fresh and sauerkraut - 350 grams each
- Pork or veal - 0.3 kg
- Smoked brisket - 100 grams
- Dessert wine - three quarters of a glass
- Carrots - 70 grams
- Onion - 70 grams
- Prunes - one hundred grams
- Vegetable oil - 2 large spoons
- Spices and table salt - at the discretion
- Parsley - small bunch
Prepare sauerkraut and fresh cabbage, cut meat, smoked meats, onions and carrots. Heat the bowl of the multicooker, fry the carrots, onions and meat in it.
Add cabbage to the meat, season, add some water and simmer for forty minutes in the appropriate mode. Add prunes and wine, mix and leave to simmer for another 40-50 minutes.
Serve the ready bigus with finely chopped parsley.
Bigus with chicken
Chicken bigos can be attributed to, more or less, dietary options, due to the lower fat content in chicken meat. The best option for cooking there will be a set for chakhokhbili. It combines the optimal amount of meat and fat, which will allow you to prepare a dish rich in taste.
Ingredients:
- Chakhokhbili chicken set - 0.4 kg
- Fresh cabbage head - 0.3 kg
- Sauerkraut - 0.2 kg
- Onion - medium bulb
- Dried prunes - 80-100 grams
- Sherry or Madeira - two thirds of a glass
- Spices, salt and lavrushka - optional
Fry the chopped chicken pieces over high heat until golden brown. Remove the browned chicken from the pan, and fry the onion and prepared cabbage in the allocated fat. Salt it and add pepper.
Put the cabbage warmed in oil in a saucepan, add warm water and simmer for half an hour. After the time has passed, put the chicken in the pan, season with pepper and salt, and also add the prunes. After mixing everything, leave to stew for 20-25 minutes. Stir the semi-finished bigus, pour in half a glass of wine. Simmer another fifteen minutes.
Bigus with rice
Bigus with rice is a rather unusual version of the main dish. Rice creates a certain texture, unusual for bigus, and is also able to remove excess sour taste.
We use:
- Fresh cabbage - 0.2 kg
- Sauerkraut - 0.2 kg
- Long grain rice - 150 grams
- Pork neck - 0.35 kg
- Smoked sausages - 150 grams
- Shallots or onions - medium onion
- Carrots - 70 grams
- Dried prunes - 80-100 grams
- Wine "Madera" - 100 ml
- Spices with salt of your choice
Fry the chopped pork neck and smoked sausages until golden and put in a separate container. Fry the onions and carrots in the remaining fat. Throw washed rice to them and fry it until it looks like risotto.
Combine meat, rice with frying in a saucepan, add a glass and a half of water, put chopped cabbage and simmer under the lid until half cooked.
Pour in half a glass of Madeira, chopped prunes, and also season with pepper and bay leaf, salt. Simmer until fully cooked. Sprinkle with chopped herbs when serving.
Cooking bigus with sausage
Bigus with sausage is saturated with the taste of spices and spices that make up the sausages, and is also quite fatty, which is combined with the saltiness of meat products.
Ingredients:
- Sauerkraut - 150 grams
- Fresh cabbage - 0.3 kg
- Boiled sausage, structured - 150 grams
- Hot smoked sausage -150 grams
- Ham or meat nut - 100 grams
- Onion - 50 grams
- Prunes - 70-80 grams
- Sherry / Madeira - 80 ml
- Sugar -1-1.5 large heaped spoons
- Vegetable oil - a couple of tablespoons
- Spices and salt - optional
It is desirable to prepare such a variant of bigus from several types of sausages that have different textures, the main meat ingredient and different types of cooking. It is worth taking a structural boiled sausage or sausages, as well as a couple of types of smoked sausages. You can add nutmeg. With salt in such a bigus, you should be more careful, because there is quite a lot of it in sausages.
Fry the diced sausages until crispy and drain on paper towels. Warm the fresh chopped cabbage in the fat left in the pan and transfer to a wide saucepan, mixing with sauerkraut. Add water and simmer for 40 minutes.
After a while, add the fried sausage, browned onion and chopped prunes. Mix well to blend the flavors. After another 20 minutes of stewing, add wine.
Taste the dish. If salt from sausages is not enough, then add. Is the dish quite salty or is the acid overpowering the rest of the ingredients? Sugar will help.
After stewing the dish for about an hour and a half, add allspice and parsley, let it simmer for about ten minutes, and you can serve it for dinner.
Bigus with cabbage and minced meat
Well and properly made minced meat can turn your bigus into a work of culinary art. Chopped pork meat is perfect, even the neck, even the shoulder blade. It will also be desirable to use smoked bacon, which will add fat and juiciness to the minced meat.
Ingredients:
- Pork shoulder - 400 grams
- Half-smoked bacon - 100 grams
- Fresh cabbage - 300 grams
- Sauerkraut - 150 grams
- Turnip - one head
- Celery stalk - 40-50 grams
- Tomato paste - tablespoon
- Dessert wine - 100 ml
- Dried prunes - 100 grams
- Vegetable oil - 40 ml
- Spices and salt - optional
It is advisable to do the stuffing yourself, and not in any meat grinder or in a blender, but with a knife. So you save the fibers of the meat and its texture, in fact, the minced meat will turn out juicier and tastier. Grind the bacon along with the meat.
Heat the pan at the highest temperature, add a little vegetable oil and spread the minced meat in a thin layer. Fry it until crispy. Use a large frying pan, it will allow you to save space between the pieces of minced meat and fry it better.
Add salt to the fried minced meat, pepper. Drain the cooked meat on a paper towel or sieve, let the excess fat go.
Chop the cabbage, stew it for 40 minutes with the addition of browned onions, tomato paste and water. Then mix the minced meat with cabbage, season as needed, put the chopped prunes into the pan, mix and pour in the wine.
Having collected all the ingredients under one lid, simmer them for about 20 minutes. Before the end of cooking, pour in a couple more large spoons of dessert wine, refresh its taste. It is worth adding a chopped stalk of celery. It will serve as a crunchy component of the dish and dilute its consistency.
How to cook bigus with beef and cabbage
For bigus with beef, an excellent choice would be a shoulder hour, meat from a hip cut. It is not worth taking expensive cuts and parts, because it is impractical to stew meat suitable for an excellent steak.
Take such pieces of meat, in which there are a lot of inclusions of fat. Thanks to such inclusions, the meat will turn out soft and juicy. It is not advisable to take pieces with fat on the surface, it will have to be cut off and thrown away.
A combination of beef with any smoked meat will help improve the taste of the dish. Hunting sausages will come in handy.
Dish Ingredients:
- Beef shoulder, or cutout from the hip part - 400 grams
- Hunting sausages - 200 grams
- Fresh cabbage - 400 grams
- Sauerkraut - 250 grams
- Dried prunes - 100 grams
- Onion - 50 grams
- Fresh parsley - medium bunch
- Madeira - 150 ml
- Sunflower oil - a couple of large spoons
- Spices and salt - at your discretion
Cut the beef into cubes, one and a half to two centimeters per side. Cut the sausages diagonally into segments 3-4 centimeters long.
Fry onions, with the addition of oil, add beef to it. Fry it until it turns golden.
Fry the sausages to a crust in a separate pan and “dry” from excess fat.
Place chopped and mashed, fresh cabbage in a saucepan, and send sauerkraut to it. Pour in water and simmer for about half an hour.
After the time has elapsed, combine the cabbage with meat and sausages. Put the chopped prunes into the pan, season and salt the ingredients. Don't forget the wine. It will take 2/3 cup. It is worth using the same Madeira or sherry, in extreme cases, red port.
After adding wine, close the pan with a lid and simmer for forty minutes. When this time has passed, pour in the remaining third of the wine, check the dish for taste. Salt and season more if needed.
Serve ready-made bigos with beef exclusively hot. You can decorate with chopped parsley. It will not only give a beautiful look, but will also be combined to taste with the rest of the ingredients.
Cooking bigus without meat
Bigus without meat is quite rare to be found on anyone's table. The dish was originally invented as a combination of meat, cabbage and spices. But under certain factors, some culinary specialists have come to the mind and not a meat option. And to be precise, up to several.
Here you have bigos with mushrooms, and with potatoes, and with beans and beans. Is it worth mentioning the classic recipe, from which the meat was simply “taken out”.
Bigus with mushrooms
Mushrooms are one of the foods that can easily replace meat in many recipes. They have their own distinct, distinct taste. The content of useful substances, nutrients and vitamins is only partly inferior to meat.
The choice of mushrooms can be stopped at budget, but tasty champignons. Oyster mushrooms, boletus or porcini mushrooms can serve as an alternative.
Ingredients:
- Fresh cabbage - 400 grams
- Mushrooms (oyster mushrooms, porcini, champignons) - 350 grams
- Prunes - 70 grams
- Onion - 100 grams
- Celery stalk - 100 grams
- Carrots - 100 grams
- Tomato paste - 2 large spoons
- Madera -120 ml
- Seasonings and salt - optional
Rinse the mushrooms under running water, cut into thick slices and send to stew in a saucepan, pouring a little water. Simmer them separately for no more than five minutes.
Chop the cabbage, remember it so that it becomes softer, and send it to the mushrooms. Do the same with the celery stalk, after peeling and dicing it.
Spasser the flour in vegetable oil, mix onion straws, carrots and tomato paste with it, fry and put on mushrooms and cabbage.
Add a little sherry, chopped prunes and cover with a lid, leave to simmer for 20 minutes.
Season the almost ready bigos with spices, salt and let it simmer until cooked on the switched off hot burner.
Bigus without meat
Bigus without meat, in fact, is a stewed cabbage, at first glance. But the notes of dessert wine, the combination of fresh and sour cabbage, as well as the sweetness of prunes make it clear that not everything is so simple in this dish.
Ingredients:
- Fresh cabbage - 450 grams
- Sauerkraut - 200 grams
- Onion - one head
- Carrots - 70 grams
- Tomato paste - large spoon
- Dried prunes - 100 grams
- Dessert wine or red port - 100 ml
- Salt, spices - to your taste
- Sunflower oil - a couple of tablespoons
Throw chopped cabbage into a saucepan, cover with water and simmer for 10-15 minutes. During this time, chop the onion and carrots, fry in oil. When the onion becomes golden, add a spoonful of tomato paste, mix and send to the cabbage.
Rinse the prunes and check for pits. Cut it into quarters or just chop finely. Throw it in a saucepan.
After mixing the ingredients, pour in two-thirds of the volume of wine and leave to simmer for 20-25 minutes. Before the end of cooking, pour in the rest of the wine, season and allow the dish to “reach” on a furnished fire for 5-6 minutes.
When preparing bigus, show your imagination, use any ingredients you like. But do not forget to follow the basic rules, precisely because of which bigos is itself.
It is worth noting that this Polish dish keeps quite well due to its acidic environment. And in which case, bigos can easily be turned into good old cabbage soup by adding rich broth to the pan and warming up all the ingredients.
When preparing bigos with meat ingredients, do not skimp on them. It is from the combination of meat, smoked meats and fat that most of the taste and aroma is formed.
