'Tis the seasonings
CHICAGO STYLE | How do local Polish butchers elevate sausage to an art form? With generous use of spices and more
To most Chicagoans, a Polish sausage is something you eat on a bun, smothered in grilled onions.
However, that Chicago-born sandwich, invented by a Macedonian immigrant on Maxwell Street in the 1940s, has little to do with real Polska kielbasa.
(John J. Kim/Sun-Times)
Nor does "kielbasa" (pronounced "kew-ba-sa" in Polish) mean a specific sausage. Across Poland, every region has its own recipes, says Gary Longo, director of research and development for Chicago's Bobak Sausage Co., which makes more than 100 meat products.
Under Communism, the Polish government tried to standardize meat production and, in 1964, reportedly issued a 760-page manual that detailed recipes for 119 "official" sausages.
When it comes to kielbasa, Chicago's blessed with scores of Polish delis and markets that make many of these sausages the old-fashioned way. "Chicago's Polish butchers elevate the humble pig to a smoked and cured art form," Saveur magazine wrote last year. Jan Lorys, director of the Polish Museum of America in Noble Square, says that for years, visitors from Poland used to take Chicago sausage back with them.
"We try to do Old World recipes," says one purveyor, Jaroslaw "Jarek" Budzinski, executive chef of Shop & Save Market, which make dozens of kinds of kielbasa. "We use only fresh herbs and spices, fresh garlic. We use really good wood for our smokehouse, applewood, cherrywood."
Budzinski, who emigrated from Warsaw 14 years ago, oversees the made-from-scratch prepared-food operations for the chain's three stores (Des Plaines, Niles and Schaumburg), including frequent catering jobs for the Polish Consulate. He says that the main difference between sausage in Chicago and Poland today will have to do with the meat. Polish pigs are usually free-range.
Pig is big in Polish sausage -- probably 90 percent start with pork. Some special sausages are made from veal or lamb; a few mix pork and beef. Today's sausage makers have adapted some traditional recipes to use chicken.
Like most sausages, kielbasa is seasoned meat stuffed into animal gut. The majority use natural pork casings, although skinny styles are swathed in lamb gut and larger ones may use beef or cellulose casings.
At that point, the sausage might be used fresh, cured, smoked, and air-dried or cooked by roasting, poaching or steaming. Many smoked sausages don't require refrigeration but can be hung in a cool, dry place. They'll harden with aging.
Sausage to sausage, kielbasy vary mainly in seasoning, the grind of meat and the style of smoking. The most basic Polish sausage, zwyczajna (common sausage), is flavored with salt, pepper, garlic and perhaps marjoram. Increase the amount of garlic or pepper and the sausage gets a different moniker.
Kielbasa names derive either from the place the sausage originated, such as krakowska, from Kracow, or some significant ingredient, like czosnkowa, garlic sausage. Although pretty much all Polish sausage has garlic in it. Other common seasonings include coriander seed, nutmeg, juniper berries and caraway seed.
Some kielbasy begin with very finely ground meat; others start with large chunks. The amount of fat varies, too.
According to Budzinski, sausage made from leaner meats, such as szynkowa (ham sausage), tend to be most popular in spring and summer, while in winter Poles eat richer, more strongly flavored links like swojska (old-fashioned sausage).
"Kielbasa is served as cold cuts usually," says Lorys, who notes that in Poland, people typically eat their main meal around 4 o'clock and have a light supper, often of sausage and bread, at 9 p.m.
Kielbasa also can be cooked in a variety of ways. In general, moister, less heavily smoked sausages work best for cooking.
"You can tell by the color," says Jane Szczurek, Polish-born assistant store manager for Bobak's factory store in Garfield Ridge. Heavy smoking gives sausage a dark color.
The interior of sausage is colored by the smoke, too. Often there will be a pinkish smoke ring near the casing and a grayish center. (Sausages with a uniformly pink color have usually been treated with sodium nitrite.)
"I eat them scrambled with eggs for breakfast," Szczurek says. "I can boil it or I can make a hot dog. Or I can slice it in a sandwich or eat it as a snack. You can put it in a stew."
The hearty Polish hunter's stew, bigos, contains two or three kinds of sausage plus bacon and roast pork, Budzinski says. Sausage can be used in soups, as well.
And, he says, "With sausage, it's very important to have really, really good bread. I prefer rye bread."
Leah A. Zeldes is a local free-lance writer.