One of the first industry secrets I learned when I started working in food media was that a lot of famous chefs publish tweaked versions of their signature recipes in their cookbooks. Maybe theyâre just trying to make things easier for home cooks, but this move also protects restaurant secrets, and keeps specialized techniques close to the chest. I remember thinking how funny this was, because my grandmother did the same with our heirloom recipes. She wasnât famous (except perhaps for her sass), but she was the best cook of the family. And sadly, her notecard scribblings didnât leave much behind for us to follow; anything we wanted to recreate had to start from memory.
One memory Iâve been working from is little me finally being allowed on the familial pierogi assembly line. Weâd churn out hundreds of pierogi for everyone to freeze and store throughout the year. At first, there was a step stool, a few crimped pieces sent back for re-inspection, and then finally I was allowed to taste the riches of my hard work. The pierogi recipe itself is well-preserved thanks to the numerous hands that touched the process throughout the years, but itâs the after that Iâve been wading through.
After the dough scraps were cleared, after everything was tidied up, when there was still leftover cabbage filling. From what I remember, a fragrant bouquet of fennel- and onion-laced cabbage was tossed over egg noodles. There was probably dill, and most likely sour cream. This wasnât an official dish by any means, but the memory of the taste has been drawing me toward a more recognizable classic: Åazanki.
The ancient Slavic word âlas,â or forests, may suggest the origins of the Polish pasta dish. Why forests? Because some of the dishâs more modern ingredient additionsâmushrooms, dillâgrow in those environments. Beyond adding earthy depth of flavor, both the mushrooms and the herbs offer a lovely textural complement to the mix of pasta browned, squiggled cabbage, and little fatty jewels of kielbasa.
Some sources tell another story about Åazanki: When Bona Sforza dâAragona married into Polish royalty and became queen to Poland and Duchess to Lithuania in the 16th century, her Italian cooks fused dishes from Polish and Italian cuisines. Åazanki equals lasagna, sort of. The basis of Åazanki is a Polish-Lithuanian (with a touch of Belarusian) hybrid of the Middle Ages that highlighted hand-cut, hand-stretched rye or buckwheat noodles, garnished with just a touch of animal fat. Since then, some iterations of Åazanki have skipped the hand-stretched noodles and instead cut otherwise traditionally long pastas into square chunks.
Bolstered by fresh fronds of dill, Åazanki overflows with hardy cabbage (my recipe uses a whole head), meaty mushrooms, and kielbasa for good measure. Itâs rounded out with rich cream that I like to make even more flavorful with an infusion of mustard and fennel seeds. Itâs a dish that thrums with the recurring flavors of my childhood.
The beauty of any pasta is that you can futz with it until it works for you. Iâm famously dairy-freeâfamously, as in, I wonât stop complaining about it. If Iâm making this on my own, Iâll use a tahini sauce in lieu of the infused cream, combining ½ cup tahini, the juice of one lemon, a dollop of Dijon mustard, salt, pepper, and enough water to achieve a cream-like consistency. There are already mushrooms in this dish; making it vegetarian (or vegan if you also change out the cream and swap fresh pasta for dried) only requires eliminating the kielbasa and tossing another handful of mushrooms into the mix. If youâre dill-adverse, try out the wispy fennel fronds instead.
Whatever iteration appears in my kitchen, Åazanki reminds me of a goalpost of my cooking ethos: adaptability. Isnât that the crux of cooking for so many nowâand throughout history? A change of leavened dough for a flat counterpart in times of migration; a swap for store-bought because thatâs whatâs affordable and accessible; rotating the highlighted vegetable of the dish because of whatâs in season. These fluid recipes and adapted versions trickle down to us through word of mouth, hands-on learning, a familial assembly lineâor, if youâre lucky, something more tangible like a tattered note card or even a well-loved, dog-eared cookbook.
When I come across an âincompleteâ family recipe now, I see it less as a lack of information or ingredients, but more as an open window sweeping in history and memoryâand leaving room for the opportunity to be a better cook and create new dishes. Maybe not having concrete recipes from my childhood was a blessing after all.
+ There are no comments
Add yours