The Polish Kaszanka

Hello everyone, today I will show you how to make a kaszanka. You may be wondering what is kaszanka.

Kaszanka is a polish sausage made of pig (liver, knuckle, jowl, etc.) and buckwheat often stuffed in a pig intestine.

It is usually flavored with onion, black pepper, and marjoram.

Kaszanka may be eaten cold, but traditionally it is either grilled or fried with some onions and then served with potato and sauerkraut.

Despite the look it is very delicious :)

So let's get started.

To make very tasty kaszanka we'll need:

Dishes:

• few pots
• meat grinder
• sieve
• big spoon

Meat:

• 1 kg of buckwheat
• 2 pig's trotters
• 0,5 kg of jowl
• 2 pig knuckles
• pig intestine (not needed but I will use it, if you don't have it you can follow this instructable but just skip steps including intestine)

Spices:

• bay leaves
• allspice
• pack of herbal pepper (30g)
• pack of marjoram(30g)
• half a pack of black pepper (15-20g)
• 35g of salt
• half a tablespoon of nutmeg

Optionally:

You can get some pig's liver but it is not necessary. I won't use it this time but I will explain how to prepare it.

Let's begin with putting all the meat inside quite big pot (or 2 pots if you don't have enough space like I did).

Use around 2.8L of water in total (it's because you should have 2,6L of broth on 1kg of buckwheat). Add some bay leaves and allspice. Cook this on low fire for 3-4 hours.

After cooking, pull the meat out and let it cool.

Now we pour the broth of meat through a sieve.

If the meat is cool enough we can peel it and grind it.

Peel the meat off the bones properly. And right after that grind it with electrical or manual grinder until you get smooth consistency.

Now we can add spices to our broth. At this point we should have around 2.6L of broth, it's quite important to get the right consistency later on.

Let's add:

• pack of herbal pepper (30g)
• pack of marjoram(30g)
• half a pack of black pepper (15-20g)
• 35g of salt
• half a tablespoon of nutmeg

And now mix these ingredients thoroughly.

Now let's add meat to our broth. It is not much of philosophy. Just add the grinded meat to the broth and keep mixing it together to get nice smooth consistency.

It'll take a while but it's definitely worth the effort.

Now we're facing the biggest challenge. Mixing broth with unboiled buckwheat. Add 1kg of buckwheat to the broth. But don't add it all at once! Add it gradually and mix it. You should boil buckwheat for around 1 hour and keep mixing it.

I advice you to drink some beer during the process (only if you are an adult though! :D)

After an hour you should get very nice kaszanka with smooth consistency.

Now leave it for cooling for 1 hour. If you don't want to use intestine that's it just put it to the fridge for 12-24 hours.

After it's prepared you should eat it in 3-4 days.

You can cook kaszanka on a pan or just grill it. If you didn't use intestine then you should grill it in aluminum foil. You don't need any cover on kaszanka while cooking on pan though. But if you used intestine then turn it often while grilling.

Smacznego!

If you want to use intestine follow next step.

Using the intestine sounds quite complicated but it's not. In Poland I bought intestine preserved with salt. This kind of intestine can last for one year!

1. Begin with soaking intestine with water for few hours.

2. After that clean it from salt using water (inside and outside)

3. Make a knot on the end of intestine

4. Fill around 10-15cm and tie it by rotating it few times

5. Fill it again

6. Repeat steps 4 and 5 until you're done

If you want to use pig's liver in this recipe then cook it in different pot for 20-30 minutes.

After that cut it to small pieces (like cubes 0,5 x 0,5 x 0,5 cm). And then add it in the Step 4 and of course mix it properly.

Liver in kaszanka adds original taste to this dish.