Is there any difference between sausages of the world or all casings hold the same? Let’s make fried cabbage and sausage with Kielbasa and see!
Kielbasa in the modern sense, simply means sausage. But if we want to carve deeper into its past and true origin then we have to hit up the history of the old continent itself.
Kielbasa is the Polish word for sausage but the word itself as many other, like the Czech kielbasa or Hungarian kolbasz comes from times long forgotten or bitterly remembered across Europe.
There were a couple of centuries in the middle of the second millennium when the Turkish empire stretched well over the Balkan, occupying Europe’s South Eastern territories. It didn’t last long enough to convert its population to Turkish, especially as some of the occupied countries were only vassal states, but it was time enough to inject some Turkish culture into European customs.
Where is Kielbasa from then?
The word “kol basa” literally means “hand-pressed” in Turkish and if anyone has ever made sausage from scratch then the meaning of hand pressing makes total sense. Unfortunately, a couple of centuries ago people didn’t have KitchenAid to fill their sausages so people had to do it by hand and with those primitive tools they had.
But Turkish is not the only possible origin of this delicacy or rather not many quite convinced its pure Turkish origin as there are other clues hidden in its etymology.
The Hebrew “kol basar” meaning is “all kinds of meat” which perfectly describes the filling of any sausage, especially in the early ages when sausage wasn’t used as a primary food product but as a way to preserve and use meat left from the prime cuts.
What is Kielbasa exactly?
There are many types of sausage all over the world that uses various edible, yet in its purest form undesirable parts of the slaughtered animal such as the organs, skin, or the blood. Hungarians are quite fond of pork liver sausage that is made with rice beside of the blood sausages that we can find all over Europe including in Poland.
Kielbasa clearly came to the US through Poland but its meaning on the new continent has been reduced to basically one product that could be easily exported across the world the u-shaped smoked sausage.
This, nowadays widely available kielbasa doesn’t differ much from Frankfurters that we use for our hot dogs in terms of texture or composition, save a couple of kielbasa specific spices. Of course, if we are willing to go the extra mile and search for quality kielbasa, we still can find the real deal, not to mention that we can make our own much easier than kielbasa was made centuries ago.
Which one is the best Kielbasa?
Let’s pray though that we are blessed with a grocery store that sells kielbasa with no additives, colorant, and corn syrup so we can cut straight to make a quick and tasty meal without much effort.
Frying cabbage with kielbasa is the second quickest way to make kielbasa and if we are on keto then probably the number one. The quickest method would be having them with mustard and a slice of bread but if we don’t want to waste our daily carbs allowance on white bread then forced to find alternative solutions.
Of course, we can simply have kielbasa on their own or with some salad, but they reinvents something that was tested and tried times and times again by people who know it better.
Polish seems to know much about kielbasa and cabbage judging by the number of recipes they have with either of them and one of the most basic and probably quickest one is fried cabbage with kielbasa.
Ingredients
- 2 tablespoons / 30g Oil or lard
- 2 medium / 220g Onion (sliced)
- 1lb / 500g Kielbasa sausage (sliced)
- 3 cloves / 9g Garlic (diced or crushed)
- 2lb / 1kg Cabbage (½ head) (sliced)
- 2 tablespoon / 30g Vinegar
- ½ teaspoon / 2g Black pepper (optional)
- ½ teaspoon / 3g Salt (optional)
How to make Fried cabbage and sausage kielbasa
- Heat oil or lard to high temperature and saute onion until it gets a glassy / translucent look for about 3-5 minutes.
- Add sliced kielbasa and garlic then saute until sausages are slightly seared for another 3 – 5 minutes. Fresh sausages will render out a good deal of fat at this stage.
- Mix in the finely sliced cabbage and saute until it collapses somewhat for about 3 – 5 minutes.
- Mix in vinegar, optional salt and pepper to taste. Stir fry on medium heat until some of the vinegar harshness disappears and the flavors come together nicely for another 3 – 5 minutes.
Enjoy!
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Fried Cabbage and Sausage Kielbasa
Ingredients
- 2 tablespoons Oil or lard
- 2 medium Onion sliced
- 1 lb Kielbasa sausage sliced
- 3 cloves Garlic diced or crushed
- 2 lb Cabbage ½ head (sliced)
- 2 tablespoons Vinegar
- ½ teaspoon Black pepper optional
- ½ teaspoon Salt optional
Instructions
- Heat oil or lard to high temperature and saute onion until it gets a glassy / translucent look for about 3-5 minutes.
- Add sliced kielbasa and garlic then saute until sausages are slightly seared for another 3 – 5 minutes. Fresh sausages will render out a good deal of fat at this stage.
- Mix in the finely sliced cabbage and saute until it collapses somewhat for about 3 – 5 minutes.
- Mix in vinegar, optional salt and pepper to taste. Stir fry on medium heat until some of the vinegar harshness disappears and the flavors come together nicely for another 3 – 5 minutes.
Notes
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