Snacking State-by-State: Pennsylvania I - (Chow Down at) Pig-Fil-A

I cross the Mason-Dixon for the next few weeks, heading into the Keystone State, the land of Philly cream cheese and Philly cheese steaks, of city chicken and all manner of Eastern European foods that sound kind of like halupki or halušky, of shoo fly pies and massive Amish buffets offering the kind of excess that Amish culture is absolutely not about!  And don't forget the Herr's, Hanover and local favorite Utz's potato chips.  All come from our neighbor to the immediate north.

Official Name: Commonwealth of Pennsylvania
State Nicknames: The Keystone State, The Quaker State
Admission to the US: December 12, 1787 (#2 - Delaware beat 'em to the punch)
Capital: Harrisburg (9th largest)
Other Important Cities: Philadelphia (largest), Pittsburgh (2nd largest), Allentown (3rd largest), Erie (4th largest)
Region: Northeast, Mid-Atlantic, Midwest; Middle Atlantic (US Census)
RAFT Nations: Maple Syrup; Clambake; Crabcake; Chestnut; Wild Rice
Bordered by: Maryland & the Mason-Dixon Line (south), West Virginia (southwest), Ohio (west), Lake Erie (northwest), New York (north & northeast), New Jersey & the Delaware River (east), Delaware (southeast)
Official State Foods and Edible Things: white-tailed deer (animal), milk (beverage), ruffed grouse (bird), chocolate chip cookie (cookie), brook trout (fish)
Some Famous and Typical Foods: German & Amish foods; Polish & Eastern European foods; pretzels, water ice, hoagies & Philly cheese steaks (particular to Philadelphia); city chicken, halupki & halušky, chipped ham, kielbasa (particular to Pittsburgh); scrapple; Hershey's chocolates; birch beer; Herr's Potato Chips, Hanover Pretzels & (yes) Utz Potato Chips; people (if you're an extra in a George Romero movie, that is - the big ones were all filmed near Pittsburgh)

Like many Marylanders, I do not find Pennsylvania particularly exotic.  My parents drove us to Amish country all the time when my sisters and I were kids.  Later on when I could drive myself, Philadelphia was a not infrequent destination for travel.  And though I've never been out towards Pittsburgh - not even to see our Ravens play the hated Steelers (How could I?  NFL tickets are too damn expensive these days) - I have watched rural southwestern PA, Monroeville and an underground storage facility somewhere in that area over and over again on my DVD player, as part of the George Romero Living Dead oeuvre.

It is the food of this last city, Pennsylvania's second largest, that I explore in this post.  Pittsburgh is home to some Midwestern classics (yes, Pitt is Midwestern, not Northeastern in its character) such as anything Polish, German, Slavic or Italian.  In particular, the pan-Eastern European halupki, or cabbage rolls, are a fairly common snack in the heavily Polish and Slovak Steel City.  Another Slavic classic is halušky, potato dumplings often served with cabbage.  Again, there are lots of recipes for this in Pittsburgher cookbooks and on the web.  I'm not making the cabbage rolls, but I am making the halušky with this family recipe from Luboš Brieda, proprietor and author of SlovakCooking.com.  He gives photo directions just like I am going to do below, and a good description of just how important this food is in his home country..

Halušky are what really defines Slovak cuisine. The name is typically translated to English as potato dumplings, but this is not quite right. Halušky are just that, halušky (pronounced halushky). Potato dumplings, in Slovak, are zemiakové knedľe. Halušky are somewhat similar to German spätzle. You can top them with just about anything. Few years back, my dad had a restaurant near Banská Bystrica’s town square where he served mostly halušky. I don’t remember exactly how many varieties were on the menu, but it must have been at least 20! [Brieda 2009]

The variety I make below is the cabbage variety.  Brieda doesn't include cabbage in his, but I found one on Pittsburgh's About.com page.  This one has a recipe for egg noodles, but I just ignored that part of it and stir fried the cabbage with some of Brieda's halušky.

The Recipe: Halušky

For Brieda's Slovak halušky and the more Polish recipe that adds cabbage from the About.com page (recipes on their respective page) you will need:

For the Slovak part of the recipe:
* potatoes (two Russets cost me about $1.40)
* flour (had it.  Yes I'm using a Southern flour instead of something more Northern like they might have in Pittsburgh.)
* salt (had it)

And for the Polish part:
* cabbage (had it)
* yellow onion (that too)
* butter (same)

This first part is the Slovak half of this recipe, from Brieda.  First grate raw peeled potatoes as finely as possible.

 (I should've used a finer grater, but in the end it worked out fine).

Put a large pot of water on the stove, salt it, and start boiling .

Back to the potatoes.  Mix a few cups of flour and some salt with it and knead it with your hands.

You will get something like this.  Let it sit for about half an hour.

Here's the most difficult part.  You need to cut little chunks of the potato mixture on a wooden board and drop them into the boiling water.  Brieda has a short film of his grandmother doing this very fast on his page for this recipe.  It took her about two minutes to get through this dough.  It took him about ten.  Not factoring in stoppage time (I did this in batches) it took me maybe about five to eight minutes once I got the hang of it.

At first the dumplings didn't look quite right.  I figured out that I had to press down the potato dough pieces a little bit, enough to smoosh them together so they stayed in one piece.  I boiled them for about five minutes.

These were the biggest  halušky by far, with most being about a couple of inches long and less than an inch wide.  They puff up when you boil 'em.

Now for the Polish half of this recipe, from Pittsburgh's About.com food page.  Shred a head of cabbage (even a small one was too much for me, so I just shredded half of one).

Chop a yellow onion and fry it in butter until soft.

Add the cabbage to the pan and fry for a few minutes.

Next add noodles or in this case some of the potato halušky I just took out of the pot.  Fry this for about half an hour as well.

The halušky itself is a hearty main or side dish.  I wouldn't recommend eating the slippery potato halušky without frying them, kind of like a pierogi.  Boiled they are kind of like okra - slimy and slippery and not terribly appetizing.  Fried in cabbage they feel and taste much better.

Halušky is often a side dish to the Midwest's favorite poverty food, city chicken.  This is something that my friend Eric, from Columbus, Ohio, told me about.  His mother made it often when he was a boy.  But as common as it is, or used to be, in Ohio, Pittsburgh lays claim to it.

City chicken is not chicken.  It is pork, beef or sometimes even veal, but not chicken.  According to Wikipedia, it comes from a time when chicken, not pork or beef, was too expensive to obtain or even illegal to have in the city limits.  And so people who wanted chicken instead of pork or beef cut up those meats, skewered them and then either fried or baked them.  Pittsburgh's version is breaded (okay, floured) and baked, and this recipe - the second listed in the linked article from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, follows that outline.  That article, from Bob Batz, Jr. [2012], cites the recipe from the I Grew Up in Southwestern Pennsylvania Cookbook: From Rolling Hills to Steel Mills by Douglas Robinson [2011].  Halupki and halušky are apparently both side dishes eaten with city chicken in the Pittsburgh area.  But meat and meat in the same dish?  This is why I made the halušky  instead of the halupki - I didn't feel like having two meat dishes in the same sitting.

The Recipe: City Chicken 

For city chicken, Pittsburgh-style, you will need:

* pork, veal, beef - anything but chicken (I had some left over in the freezer from an earlier post.  Now seemed like a good time to be thrifty)
* chicken (or beef) broth (note to self: stock up on chicken bouillon cubes)
* flour (had it)
* salt and pepper (here)
* fresh thyme (had none; dried will have to do)
* olive oil (had it)
* garlic (used up my last few cloves)
* wooden skewers (had these - you are doing a sort of shish kebab here)

Soak the skewers for about half an hour at the minimum, to ward off scorching in the oven.

Next, put the flour, salt, pepper and thyme into a large gallon bag.  You're doing the Shake and Bake style City Chicken here.

Cut up your meat into bite sized chunks.

Next, shake the meat in your bag until completely coated with the flour mixture.

It's Shake & Bake, and I didn't get nobody to help!

This next part I have never seen before: cut the clove of garlic in half and rub it all over the bottom of your pan.

Pour olive oil over the garlicky pan.

Meanwhile, skewer the pork.

Fry the pork on top of the stove in the pan for a few minutes on each side, just to sear it.

And next, add your broth to the pan and simmer for a few more minutes on each side.  From here I deviated from the recipe - okay, I must have looked at the next recipe on that page, which said to put it in the oven for an hour at 350°F, turning once.

It still turned out moist and juicy.

And there you have it: a classic (or so I'm guessing) Pittsburgher dinner of city chicken and halušky.

If you do try this, I would not recommend eating those halušky without frying them up first, like pierogi.  The cabbage was an excellent accompaniment, though it did need a little bit of salt.  Make sure you scrape up some of the tangy meat drippings to serve over the city chicken.  I could just scrape this stuff off the bottom of the pan and eat that.  But I'll settle for the whole meal.

Sources:

Amish America.  "What do Amish eat?"  Copyright 2010 Amish America, All rights reserved.

Amish Homestead Cookbook.  Tourist cookbook, date of publication unknown.

AmericanCivilWar.com.  "American Civil War Recipes: Union Hardtack and Confederate Johnnie Cakes".  Date unknown.  Copyright 1997-2012 AmericanCivilWar.com, maintained by Central Design Lab. All articles are public domain and clearly credit and link to the author when possible.

Batz, Bob, Jr. "Pittsburgh sticks with loving 'City Chicken'".  Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, published March 30, 2012.  Copyright ©1997-2012 PG Publishing Co., Inc. All rights reserved.

Brieda, Luboš.  "Potato Dumplings (Halušky)".  Slovak Cooking, posted November 3, 2009.  Updated March 24, 2010.  Copyright 2009-2011 Slovak Cooking.

Chowhound.com.  "Slicing Ribeye roast for philly cheese steak".  Discussion on "Home Cooking" board, Chowhound.com. Thread started September 6, 2008.

Pat's King of Steaks. "Pat's King of Steaks Philadelphia Cheese Steak".  Featured on the episode "Best Sandwiches" of the show The Best Of.  Food Network, 1999.

Pennsylvania Dutch Convention and Visitors Bureau.  "Pennsylvania Amish history & beliefs".  Copyright 2012 Pennsylvania Dutch Convention and Visitors Bureau, site maintained by Cimbrian.

Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission.  Pennsylvania Cookbook Trail of History.  From the Editors of Stackpole Books and the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, foreword by William Woys Weaver.  Stackpole Books: Mechanicsburg, PA, 2004.

Pittsburgh.About.com (About.com). "How to Make Haluski (Cabbage and Noodles)"  Date unknown.  Copyright 2012 About.com.  All rights reserved.

Robinson, Douglas.  "City Chicken".  Recipe in I Grew Up in Southwestern Pennsylvania: A Nostalgic Look at Growing Up in the Pittsburgh Region.  Recipe featured in the article "Pittsburgh sticks with loving 'City Chicken'" by Bob Batz, Jr. (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, published March 30, 2012)

Some information also obtained from Wikipedia's "Pennsylvania" page and other pages, and the Food Timeline State Foods link to "Pennsylvania".

Snacking State-by-State: Illinois II - Swiety Jacek z pierogami!***

My previous Illinois post examined the legendary Chicago deep-dish pizza. Of course, Italians are not the only Chicagoans who have altered the Midwestern foodie landscape. Greeks, Cubans, South Asians, Jews, Russians, Irish, African-Americans, Chinese, and so on - I could list ethnicities for the rest of this post. They have all contributed to Chicago's cuisine. The first (and so far only) time I visited Chicago, way back around 2000, I had Japanese, Armenian and Thai food in just a few days. Among those many ethnicities who have defined Chicago's cuisine are the Polish, who have had an important impact in the Windy City, boasting the largest Polish-American community in the country.

Official Name: State of Illinois
State Nicknames: The Prairie State; The Land of Lincoln
Admission to the US: December 3, 1818 (#21)
Capital: Springfield (6th largest city)
Other Important Cities: Chicago (largest in the state and the Midwest; 3rd largest in the US); Aurora (2nd largest); Rockford (3rd largest)
Region: Midwest, Great Lakes; East North Central (US Census)
RAFT Nations: Cornbread & BBQ, Wild Rice
Bordered by: Wisconsin (north); Lake Michigan (northeast); Indiana (east); Kentucky (southeast & south); Missouri (southwest); Iowa (northwest)
Official State Foods and Edible Things: popcorn (snack food); GoldRush apple (fruit); white-tailed deer (animal)
Some Famous & Typical Foods: typical Midwestern foods, especially corn; Native American and pioneer foods; state-specific foods (horseshoe sandwich, shrimp de Jonghe, Chicago dog, Italian beef); also note: deep-dish pizza and hot dogs were first made popular in Illinois

Lamenting our own canceled Polish Festival in Baltimore, I felt extra-inspired to delve into that most beloved of Polish dumplings, the pierogi. The Polish American Journal has a whole webpage just on Polish and Polish American foods. There is so much I did not know about Polish food, but I do now know just how important the pierogi is. Apparently it even has its own patron saint - St. Hyacinth. May he grant this Irish-Italian guy luck in his first attempt at making that most Polish of dumplings.

The recipe: Pierogi (with Potato and Sauerkraut Fillings)

Though there are variations of pierogi all over Eastern Europe (Going through withdrawal over the Polish one? Wait for the Ukrainian Festival. They will have them), we know them best as Polish food, and far be it from me to say which culture's is best. Chef Robert Strybel of the same Polish American Journal mentions that they are such an important part of everyday life in Poland, as he says, it even led to a common expression.

"Swiety Jacek z pierogami!", (St. Hyacinth and his pierogi!) is an old expression of surprise, roughly equivalent to the American "good grief!" or "holy smokes!" Nobody seems to know what the connection between these dumplings and the saintly 13th century monk was all about. [Strybel 2011]

With all the pierogi recipes online, I went with Strybel's, done less in recipe format and more in a narrative. It was a little more difficult to follow this way, but it worked. I more or less followed his recipe as he wrote it, with changes noted below.

I made two types of pierogi (singular and plural), potato and sauerkraut-mushroom. I made half of one and half of the other. Here's what I needed:


* For the dough I just needed all purpose flour, an egg, sa00lt and sour cream. I had all these around the kitchen.
* I had all the ingredients for the fillings as well: an onion, a few russet potatoes, another egg, butter, sauerkraut, mushrooms (dried), bread crumbs (optional) and chives.

I ended up making all the pierogi in batches: first the dough, then the fillings on another day, and then assembling and cooking them all later on. It was not so much difficult as it was tedious. There are a lot of steps to making these things.


The dough was easy to make in the food processor: just throw the ingredients together and when they are blended take it out and flatten it.

What's Polish for "stress relief"?

The one change I made: most recipes call for adding a little sour cream to the pierogi dough, but Strybel's does not. I went ahead and added about two tablespoons.


Mix in the sour cream (this is where I deviate from the recipe) until well blended, and refrigerate.


For the potato filling, simply boil the potatoes, and fry up the onion in butter. Mash the potatoes and mix with the onion, egg and chives.


The sauerkraut filling starts by soaking the dried mushrooms in enough water to barely cover them. You will then let them soak for a few hours at least (I just left mine in the fridge for a few days and came back to them when I was ready). Chop or cut up the mushrooms and boil them in the water until reduced.


Meanwhile, drain the sauerkraut well and scald it in boiling water for 20 minutes, then add the mushrooms and some more sautéed onions, and cook for 30 minutes more. Let cool.


The assembly is the tedious part. You will roll out your pierogi dough and cut it out with a cookie cutter or something else round.


Then take a little bit of filling, put in the middle (or moreover, near it)...


...fold it over and crimp the sides with a fork.


Boil the pierogi in water and set aside. From here you can eat them or freeze them.


Or you could make them a little more palatable by frying them in butter.


I had a good bit of trouble making these pierogi. I started with enough dough for 30. About six or seven burst open before I even dropped them in the water, and another two or three burst open in the water. Eventually I had about 2/3 or what I started with. What I had left went well with sour cream and leftover sauerkraut filling, to which I added some salt (the scalding really takes the zing out of the sauerkraut). These were hearty pierogi, which I would always recommend you fry before eating. Not only does the butter add something to them, but they just become more palatable this way.

*** Saint Hyacinth and his pierogi! - A Polish expression equivalent to "Good grief!" according to Robert Strybel

Sources

Strybel, Robert. "Recipes". The Polish-American Journal, publish date unknown. © 2011 The Polish American Journal, All Rights Reserved.

Some information also obtained from Wikipedia's "Illinois" page and other pages, and the Food Timeline State Foods link to "Illinois".

Co?! Nr Festiwal Polskich!?

It's true: The Sun reports that after 40 years there just isn't enough money to fund it this year. Now where'm I get my pierogi fix on? Seriously though, it's a sad sign of how the economy is hitting local governments, as the city, strapped for cash, raised fees for the organizers of this and all other festivals in the "Showcase of Nations" series. FestAfrica also opted out.

But even though all is lost for 2011, there may be a Festival next year - at the Fairgrounds. Hopefully it can come back to Patterson Park and the Pulaski Monument at some point in the future, accordion in tow.

Because it's Fat Tuesday

It's Fat Tuesday, and many people are getting their Mardi Gras on. The last day to party before the Lenten fast begins, Catholic Christians - at least how I was taught growing up - traditionally fast from meat on Ash Wednesday and every Friday until Easter (I won't admit that I don't exactly do that anymore). But in Poland, apparently it's still much more fastidious: Catholics not only fast from meat but from grease, and do it all Lent long.

Channel 13's Ron Matz was at Polish Treasures in Upper Fells Point this morning finding out just how Polish Catholics indulge before Lent: with a pączki (pronounced like "POOCH-key - that's a short OO as in "look" not a long OO as in "food") - a Polish donut filled with all sorts of sweet things you want to use up before Lent. Though that video was not up when I wrote this (I'll try to post it if they do), I did find this informative video from About.com, starring chef John Mitzewich and in English no less, about how to make this Polish pastry:

Baltimore Festivals: Polish Festival

Well I braved the rain and the wind – neither seeming as bad at the time as they actually were – to go to the Polish Festival. This first for the year of Baltimore’s Showcase of Nations had far more parking than I expected. Apparently, most people did not want to brave the rains today.

I rarely go to these things for anything other than food. I did, however, soak up some of Baltimore’s Polish-American culture. I saw a nice exhibition about Polish-American history and holidays, as well as recipes, music and other nifty info. I even saw a photo of an album my grandmother had, of the harpsichordist Wanda Landowska, who I now know was Polish. Have no idea where it is now, gotta find it.

Between polkas in the background and rain on my head, I hungrily set out for Polish food. My first victims: three pierogis at a pierogis-only booth. I got three – two cheese and potato and a sauerkraut and mushroom – for $3. The potato one bored me, but I really liked the sauerkraut and mushroom. While I sank my teeth into the soft pierogis, I listened either to a Polish band from New Jersey named the Ablemen or to the Krakowiaki Dancers. I recorded a little on my mp3 player, but I think I might be violating some copyright law if I upload it.

I needed a little something to down the pierogis, so I headed over to get some beer. None of that piss-flavored American beer either. I went for a nice Polish beer, Żywiec, which was crisp and good and just $3. But this was only to accompany the first course, as I wandered around the WWII booth, the Polish soccer team stand and a crabcake vendor for more Polish food.

I found it not far from the pierogi stand. Here were all the other delicacies I didn’t find at the other stands. I avoided the stuffed cabbage (gołąbki) and went for some nice warming sour grass soup (zupa szczawiowa) and apple cake (jabłkowe ciasto). The soup ($2) reminded me of Italian wedding soup, but with sorrel (the sour grass), egg yolks and potato instead of meatballs, chicken and pearl pasta. The apple cake ($4)? I took a bite, it was okay. I'll eat some later.

I saved the requisite kielbasa (kiełbasa) for last. I should’ve gone for the smoked kielbasa because I just couldn’t get into the fresh ($6). It was okay, but I much prefer the smoked.

One more photo: Here's that sour grass soup. I got about 2/3 of the way through it before I whipped out my camera.