Zapiekanka
A halved baguette covered in fried mushrooms and cheese, grilled until melting, and finished with a stripe of ketchup — Poland ate this all through the 1980s and never stopped.
Photograph credit: Zapiekanka Warszawa by Аимаина хикари · CC0 · Wikimedia Commons
Storing and Planning Ahead
Best within minutes of coming out. The mushroom mixture refrigerates 3 days and makes assembly a five-minute job.
Making Zapiekanka
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Heat the oil and cook the onion 4 minutes over medium heat.
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Add the mushrooms and cook 8 to 10 minutes over medium-high, stirring, until all the liquid has gone and they start to brown. This is the step people rush.
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Add the garlic, marjoram, salt and pepper and cook 1 minute more. Cool slightly.
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Heat the grill and lay the baguette halves cut side up on a tray.
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Grill the bread alone for 2 minutes to dry the surface.
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Spread the mushrooms over and cover thickly with the grated cheese.
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Grill 4 to 5 minutes until the cheese is fully melted and blistered in places.
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Zigzag the ketchup over, scatter the chives, and cut each half into two.
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Tips for Success
- Cook the water out of the mushrooms. A wet mushroom mixture ruins the bread.
- Toast the cut bread before topping it — two minutes, and it stays crisp underneath.
- The ketchup goes on after grilling, not before.
Behind the Recipe
The mushrooms have to be cooked down properly first, until they have given up their water and started to brown, or they release it under the grill and the bread goes soggy. The ketchup on top is not a joke or a shortcut — it is how it is served in Kraków, and the sweet acidity is what stops the whole thing being flat.
What to Put Next to It
A cold Żywiec · Pickled cucumbers · Eaten standing up, late
Changing the Recipe
- An eighth of a teaspoon of garlic powder per clove is the stand-in usually given when you are out of fresh garlic; it will not brown the same way, and it burns easily, so add it with the liquid.
What's in a Serving
No nutrition figures are given for this recipe: they cannot be worked out reliably from its ingredient list (some ingredient lines cannot be read). Why some recipes have none.
Your notes on this recipe
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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 .