Kaszanka
Polish buckwheat and blood sausage fried with onions and apple until crisp, served with mustard, ready in 45 minutes.
Photograph credit: Kaszanka by Mariuszjbie · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons · this resized copy is shared under the same licence
What is in kaszanka? Pork blood, buckwheat groats, offal, onions and marjoram, packed into a casing, and the result is a dense, earthy sausage that tastes of grain and spice. It is a staple of Polish winter, eaten at a barbecue, at breakfast or at the end of a pig slaughter.
Kaszanka is sold ready made, in rings, and just needs frying. Cut it in thick slices, or leave it whole and prick it. Fry sliced onions slowly in lard for 15 minutes until deep gold, and push them to the side. Fry the sausage on a medium heat, turning it often, for 8 minutes until the casing is crisp. Overcooking makes it dry and crumbly. Add sliced apple for the last 3 minutes.
Sprinkle with marjoram and serve with the onions and apple, mustard and rye bread. A few pickled cucumbers on the side cut the richness. At a barbecue, the sausage is grilled over a fire, in its casing, and served on a paper plate. It is best hot, and tastes of crisp edges and soft centre.
How to Make Kaszanka
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Fry the onions in the lard over medium low heat for 15 minutes until deep gold. Push to the side.
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Fry the kaszanka slices for 4 minutes on each side until the edges are crisp.
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Add the apples for the last 3 minutes.
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Sprinkle with the marjoram and pepper and serve with the mustard and bread.
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Worth Getting Right
- Fry on medium heat to avoid drying it.
- Brown the onions slowly.
- Serve with mustard and pickles.
What to Serve With It
Mustard · Pickled cucumbers · Rye bread · Beer
Sides from the same cuisine on this site: Kopytka, Polish Cucumber Salad, Kluski Slaskie.
Storage
Best fresh.
The Numbers per Serving
No nutrition figures are given for this recipe: they cannot be worked out reliably from its ingredient list (most of the energy comes from foods with no recorded source). Why some recipes have none.
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Compiled by Turab
Checked by script for timings, diet labels and nutrition arithmetic. How the recipes are checked. Found a mistake? Tell us.
First published ; last changed .
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