originals: Spanish fondue carbonara or whatever

When I was a kid, because that's how I now see myself when I was in my early 20s - as a kid, the connection between my mood and cooking was much simpler. When I was happy and satisfied, I made tons of crepes, when I was sad and frustrated I baked bread everyday. I'd spend hours in silence, crying and kneading, before I was finally diagnosed with severe depression. In the meantime cooking became more of a source of joy than just a way to cope with stress. I started cooking for others. I started cooking for men, finding yet another way to pleasure them. In the last years I understood to full extent what it means to put love into what you cook. I grew, I bloomed, as a person and as a chef.

Now I hit a wall. With no-one to cook for and no strength to get up from bed I lost 20 lbs, because I simply can't be bothered. There's this expression in Polish, loosely translated to "to eat through one's reason," or something - that's what I do now. I explain to myself that I need to eat. Cooking is mostly out of the question. That makes days like today special.

I'm still browsing through recipes, a lot, and bookmarking, a lot. Mark Bittman's Cacio e Pepe spent some time among my saved links and today it seemed like a good thing to try. Simple enough, comfort-foody enough. I forced myself to go shopping in the cold (-14 degrees), dragged myself back to the apartment and, I don't know, something just happened. That small, barely noticeable magic, when you look at the ingredients around you and just allow yourself to be silly and have fun.

In my fridge, there was an open bottle of my favourite white, vino turbio (cloudy wine), that I just brought back from Spain. Why use water, when you can use fresh, tangy, slightly yeasty wine? The cheese and the wine mixed together immediately reminded me of fondue, and I simply can't have fondue without a ton of nutmeg. So there it went. Freshly ground pepper, freshly grated nutmeg, a touch of cayenne for that extra kick, not that it needed one. Bittman wrote to use good olive oil, and there it was, on the table, a 5l bottle of the most amazing Spanish olive oil so delicious, I could drink it just like that, from a glass. I couldn't wait for the pasta to finish cooking, I checked it every five seconds. I started thinking of something more to add to the sauce to stop doing that. Egg-yolk, why, yes, please. As far as I'm concerned egg-yolks should go into everything.

Believe me, the result was stunning.

"We're completely different in the way that we cook. She's always looking for new recipes and trying them out, I just go through the fridge and the pantry, see what we have and try to figure out what to make from it." That's what he often said about us. Now he's gone. So I guess I have to do both.

almost tinga de pollo and mango guacamole

Of course the day I decided to go Mexican had to be the day when my fiancé, who works in a Mexican restaurant, went on a week-long road trip to shoot a movie. So there was no response when I asked him "how do you make tinga de pollo at work?". So I had to rely on a recipe from Epicurious and, unfortunately, the limited supplies of the Polish suburbia.

This recipe is pretty good, but I call what came out from that "almost" tinga de pollo, because I couldn't find chipotle en adobo within a 5km radius from my parents' house and I had to use marinated jalapeños. It still turned out great. I served it with mango guacamole, which is totally amazing, especially with such great ingredients as we had:

• 1 super ripe avocado
• 1 ripe mango, diced
• 1 small chili pepper
• juice from 1 lime
• chopped fresh cilantro

Using a spoon scoop the avocado out from its skin and squash it in a bowl using a fork. Add the rest of ingredients, mix thourougly. The end.

- who asked for the Ruskies? - no-one, they came uninvited

It could seem that unemployment (self-employment, as we're calling it in Poland) would result in an increased frequency of posts on this blog, but, truth be told, the lack of structure to run away from has proven to be just that - lack of structure. But I didn't stay away from the kitchen. I just lacked the concentration to write about it.

This is the first of two posts documenting an experiment I made, and it's about the base. Lack of jobs equals lack of money, so I was trying to come up with something cheap that will last for many days. I thought of the cheapest kind of pierogi - the ruskies. The great thing about pierogi is that once you make a shitload of them, you can freeze them before cooking and eat them for weeks to come.

The recipe is pretty simple and the results are great. The unique thing about this kind of pierogi is the dough. It's a bit like magic, watching how gluten works and stuff:

• 1 glass of all-purpose flour
• 3 tbs of vegetable oil
• salt
• 1/2 cup of boiling water

See? Cheap, it doesn't even need egg. Mix the flour with the salt, add the oil, mix a little and then add the boiling water and, watching the amazing transformation, work the dough until it becomes a smooth, even ball, no clumps etc. It can be hard at the beginning (hooooot), but push through it!

The filling is more time consuming (unless you have a batch of cooked potatoes - the ruskies are a great leftover dish), so, actually, it's good to start with that. (The amounts are for a rather small batch).

• 200 g fat quark (the Polish type - twaróg)
• 200 g cooked, pureed potatoes
• 100 g onions, chopped rather finely
• 3 tbs butter
• some salt, lots of freshly ground black pepper

In a heavy pan melt the butter and slowly cook the onion until it's translucent and golden. In a large bowl combine the potatoes and the quark, then add the onion (try to get as much of the melted butter from the pan as possible, the filling will be a bit smoother and tastier then).

The rest is simple, turn on a good show on your laptop, roll out the dough (it's good to divide it in four parts, rather than roll it out all at once, and always remember about sprinkling some flour on the table and the rolling pin), cut out circles with a regular glass and make pierogis until you're have no more filling. Cook in salted, boiling water until they all float to the surface. Serve with fried chopped onion (like you used for the filling).

That's it when it comes to the ruskies. The next post will be about my own, new version, that I don't know how to call. Yet.

(The title is the punchline from a Polish communist era joke. It goes something like this: a cook in a bistro calls out "uskie!" - no one answers - after a while she calls again "ruskie!!!" - still no answer - after a couple of times she yells "who asked for the Ruskies?!?" and finally someone answers "no one did, they came uninvited")

comfort food: kołduny

Sometimes you realize you did stuff wrong, that choices that were supposed to make your life better have all just gone to shit, you may never have the chance to do what you love and you can't even post anything to your blog more often than once in a month. At times like this, you need comfort food. For me, comfort food is not just about how it makes you feel when you eat it. The whole cooking process can be comforting too. That's why for me kołduny are the best comfort food known to mankind.

It may seem like I'm going sentimental, but I have to mention there's also some family tradition when it comes to this dish. First with my grandma and my aunts, then just with my Mom, we used to spend a whole day on this. We'd sit all together, make the first batch, trying to make the kołduny as small as possible and bragging about our skills, then we'd cook the first batch, eat it, suffer from overeating and start the next batch. Repeat until the filling is gone. There's something about forming the tiny dumplings that makes it a lot like occupational therapy.

The most amazing and important thing about the kołduny is the filling. Like in the Ukrainian pelmeni, you use raw meat filling. In this case it's lamb - the ultimate base of comfort food - not only extremely delicious, but also rich in things that actually improve your mood and make you healthier.

filling:
• 500g ground lamb
• marjoram
• salt
• pepper

The filling is quite simple, but you have to rely on your own taste here. I'd advice to use at least half glass of marjoram. You just have to taste it until it's good - add some of the spices, mix with a fork or with your hand, taste, repeat until you're satisfied. Try not to eat everything at once.

After you're done with the filling, cover it and put it in the refridgerator. Then make the dough, you'll find the recipe here. Let it rest a while in the frige too, and then cut out a small bit and roll it out thinly - the thinner the better, as it can't overwhelm the filling, it's just there to catch the fluids.

Now comes the occupational therapy part. You'll need a shot glass and an espresso spoon. Cut out circles of dough with the hot glass, put in the filling with an espresso spoon. Then fold it in half, close it squeezing the exces dough together with your fingers and, for decorative purposes, add "waves" by pinching it together along the side a few times, as close as you can.

When you're done with the first batch, boil some salted water in a short, but wide, pot. When it's boiling, throw the kołduny in and boil them until they float to the top, then just a minute more. Now, this is VERY IMPORTANT. DON'T DISCARD THE WATER. It turns into a perfect broth - serve the kołduny in it. Keep the rest of the broth and cook the next batches in it - it will be ever more flavourfull. Of course you can add some water every next time.

If you don't think you can eat all of them at once, you can freeze them before boiling. They'll be just fine.