Due to a strange combination of circumstances, I recently found myself at a menu tasting for a soon to open Polish food truck called Halinka's Polish Eatery. I'm about 99% sure I was the only person in attendance who wasn't already personally known to the owner/chef, Magda, but it was a good time. Got to meet some nice folks and eat free food, but then I had to give feedback in public in front of other people, so that kind of sucked. Like, really fucking sucked. Pretty sure my face my was red the entire time. This is the price we pay for food sometimes.
Our first course was a cabbage and mushroom pierogi with a side of beets. Apparently when the food truck gets going, the pierogis will be steamed, then finished either on a grill or in a skillet with some butter. However, due to facility constraints where we were trying the dishes, Magda had to serve them just steamed. Anyway, to the food: the cabbage and mushroom pierogis were fucking amazing. There was a tremendous depth of flavor in the cabbage and mushrooms; like, I could really just engorge myself on those little bastards. The beets themselves were a little bland for my taste, so by themselves they weren't spectacular. However, I just threw some beets onto the pierogi and it all sang. Some of the older Polish ladies who were there seemed to indicate that horseradish is a common ingredient in Polish cuisine. Some horseradish would have made those beets fucking amazing.
Our second course and second pierogi was potato and cheese. I'm not sure what kind of cheese, and when I Googled "polish cheese," I learned that Poland is the 6th largest cheese producer in the world, so I can't even guess which kind it was. Anyway, these pierogis were a sharp let-down after the first batch. It was like biting into a marshmallow; there was no real distinction in texture throughout the entire thing. The flavor was pretty good, quite delicate, and I think just a side of the cheesy potatoes would be pretty good, but it didn't quite sing for me as a main course. The green onions on top gave a nice little crunch to break things up, and, if they were grilled or cooked in a skillet with butter (as mentioned above), the crispiness that would impart might help with the experience. But that cabbage on the side? Holy fuck. That was so goddamn good. The flavor and the texture were both absolute perfection. I've eaten quite a bit of cabbage with varied preparations and recipes in all sorts of places: this was the best. I can not stress enough: if I had the recipe for this cabbage, I'd be eating it often.
The third course and last pierogi was the "mixed meat" pierogi topped with bacon with a side of peppers and onions. As our table was eating them, a few folks were trying to figure out what the meat was. I told them I thought it was beef with something else in there, maybe pork, maybe turkey. Turns out it was beef and pork. People should listen to me. I'm right about things sometimes. That's beside the point. So these pierogis were pretty good (still not as good as that first batch), and the bacon was a great topping for it. The peppers and onions on the side were a little lacking in the flavor, but stacked onto the pierogi, it was a great compliment, essentially like eating a bacon burger with grilled peppers and onions without having to worry about buns. Incidentally, it was also during this pierogi that I realized that it and the potato and cheese were both probably better than I was giving them credit for; it was just that I was implicitly comparing them to the cabbage and mushroom so they didn't seem as good. For real: that shit was amazing.
Our last course was a sharp contrast to the pierogis: a Polish sausage sandwich with grilled peppers and onions. This wasn't your Kroger Polish sausage, though; it was a smoked sausage called Welenka, and it was exploding with flavor. Some of the other folks didn't seem to enjoy it as much as I did, and I'm pretty sure I'm the only person who ate the bun. Some of those cretins put ketchup on there, some put yellow mustard, and some put relish. Side note: ketchup is pretty much a sin. There. I said it. Anyway, as I stated that night, if I were to put a condiment on there, it would have to be some kind of spicy whole grain mustard. That fucking sausage, though. It really didn't need anything else on there.
So at this point, you may be wondering where I'm going with all of this. Like I said earlier this week, I am not a restaurant critic. Going through the first three plates, my mind started wandering, and, once I had that sausage, I finally hit my idea on the head: a new dish I'm going to have to figure out how to make. On its surface, it's simple: a cabbage roll filled with rice, beets, mushroom, and Welenka. There will definitely be some cumin in the rice to help meld with the smokiness of the sausage, but I'm going to have to figure out how to cook the cabbage leaves in such a way to get them seasoned like the side from course 2 while still just lightly steaming them so they'll hold their structure while still being able to be used as a wrap. My current thought process for that is to make a marinade for the cabbage leaves, let them sit in there for a day or so, then steaming them. For the beets, I'll likely oven roast one for a little while to let it caramelize before crushing it and mixing it into the cooked rice, sausage, and mushroom. So yeah, be looking forward to those experiments soon. Also, if you're in the Memphis area when Halinka's opens up, get some of those cabbage and mushroom pierogis. You're fucking welcome.
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