Thursday, February 3, 2011

Kowalski Kare Package

I had to go in to have some minor surgery and was feeling a little blue about it so I had my sister, Barbara, in Michigan send me down a care package—10 pounds of Kowalski kielbasa, ring bologna and kiszka (blood sausage).

If you have any feelings about Detroit, check this book out if you get the chance. It is about families and about baseball, specifically Detroit Tiger baseball, The Final Season: Fathers, Sons, and One Last Season in a Classic American Ballpark (Honoring a Detroit Legend) by Tom Stanton. I loved this book, having picked it up at the Ft. Myers airport on a trip to Detroit. It was so sweet. It combined the story of a father and his son, with the story of the author and his Polish family in Detroit. And, of course, baseball, and the Detroit Tigers and their final season at Tiger Stadium at Trumbull and Michigan in Detroit. It had so many parallels with our own family including the eating of what we called Keeshka—the only reference to keeshka I have ever see in any book (except Polish cookbooks) I have ever read!

Genuine Kowalski Kiszka--direct from Detroit! Not even most Polish people like it but my brother and sisters and I inhale it.

Kiszka is an acquired taste. It is a combination of buckwheat, beef blood, finally ground pieces of beef and pork that you probably don’t want to know where it came from, onion and spices. We always had it for breakfast.



Kiszka “Keeshka” (Blood Sausage)

1 half ring Kowalski Kiszka
1/2 onion minced
2 tablespoons butter

Sauté onion in butter in frying pan until onion is translucent  Remove casing from kiszka. Cut kiszka into slices. Add to onion and butter.Stir occasionally until combined and browned.Serve with fried eggs and white toast.


Kiszka, eggs sunny side up and toast with butter and homemade strawberry jam--A breakfast fit for a Polish Prince!

1 comment:

  1. Hey Adam,

    Wow this meal was one of many from my childhood. My mother is a Polish Princess and Kowalski Kiszka was often a birthday breakfast component. I had not had it in years, but a cousin flew out to visit me in California and brought some loved staples. The Kowalski was one, and Koegel's pickled balogna was the other. A one-two Polish punch of beloved sausages. My wife has come around to the pickled bologna, but the Kiszka needs some time. If I only had some Spatz's Bread from Saginaw I could recreate the meal to a "t", except I would have some Trader Joe's just Joe dark roast instead of the Folgers I grew up with...you need to upgrade here and there.

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