This is an exciting, easy dish to use to dupe your friends into thinking that you can cook exotic and delicious things. I dumped this one on my roommates last second, and they tolerated it with sub-par enthusiasm, but at least they sort-of picked at it. I, personally, absolutely loved it.
First off, you’ll need to gather the things. I have to tell you that, having grown up in a Polish family in a Polish-strong part of the country, it was pretty annoying to have to hunt for decent sauerkraut and kielbasa that isn’t from Hillshire Farm. I settled on a jar of domestic kraut, ugh, and the dreaded HF beef kielbasa. It isn’t as good as our homemade pork kielbasa, but it did the job. That’s probably why it didn’t end up as fabulous as I had hoped.
IT WAS BETTER.
Just kidding, but I’d give it an 8.5. I impressed myself.
But seriously, here’s the ingredients you’ll need to make the best lazy Polska-esque dish ever:
2 things of kielbasa, or Hillshire Farms’ imitation of kielbasa, which is essentially a hot dog in the shape of a horseshoe
1 pre-packaged, styrofoam-wrapped container of pre-cut sweet peppers and onion from the deli (you could also get sweet peppers and onion yourself and cut them, if you have the sort of excessive leisure time for such things)
1 fat potato
some oregano
some salt
some pepper
some EVOO
vodka (Sobieski, or Stoli if you live in a region that lacks quality alcohol. Down here in south Georgia, I’m stuck with Popov)
Cut the potato into thinnish chunks so that it cooks fairly quickly. Slice your horseshoe hotdog into slices, and dump the concoction into a frying pan with your pile of deli veg. Drizzle too much olive oil on it (because fat) and mix some of the herbs and salts in there. Turn the heat on high. In an ideal world, you could put a lid on the frying pan and let it all simmer and steam together, but four interns can’t be expected to have full sets of cookware, so I just used a plate to contain the heat and then utilized salad tongs to slowly turn and mix the mess so that it didn’t burn too badly. All in all this system worked very well. Put as much or as little oregano and spices as you wish. Take a shot.
After the potatoes seem to be decently cooked (I prefer them a little crunchy, more out of lack of patience than palate preference, but it’s not bad), remove from heat. Take a shot. Let cool, and then dump on a plate.
Open the kraut. Try to open the kraut. Ferociously attack the lid of the kraut jar. Take a shot. Ask your stronger roommate to open the kraut. Ask your Internship Husband to open the jar for you, because this is his job. He successfully loosens it, but in reality, it was a group effort, so he doesn’t get a sandwich. Take two shots.
Now that you’re sufficiently woozy, anything is delicious. Dump your mess onto a plate, apply way too much kraut on top of the mess, and enjoy.
Take a shot.
Photo credit: Alena Ivakhnenko
