Polish Sausage - What is Kielbasa?



















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Polish Sausage -
Polish Kielbasa - What's That?
 


There is no specific product in
Poland called “Kielbasa". Kielbasa is the Polish name for sausage
and this general description applies to any sausage made in Poland.
It is like telling your wife that your brother has bought a car. Her first
response will be which one? She wants to know the model and the
manufacturer.  Kielbasa definition covers Italian Sausage, Spanish Chorizo,
German Bratwurst, American Breakfast, Chinese Lap Chong, they all can be named “Kielbasa" in
the Polish language. If you tell a sales lady in a shoe store that you want
to buy a pair of shoes she will ask you what kind? Sneakers, walking shoes,
working boots, high heels, you have to narrow your request. Asking for
kielbasa in a typical Polish store is meaningless as on the average there
are about 20 different sausage types lying around. You have to follow up
your request with a proper name: Kielbasa Krakowska, Kielbasa
Szynkowa, Kielbasa Mysliwska, Kielbasa Jalowcowa, etc.
 
There is only one sausage
that carries the word “Polish" in its name and that is the
Polish Smoked
Sausage (Polska Kielbasa Wedzona). It has been well defined for centuries
and this is most likely what the first immigrants brought with them to
America. The sad truth is that you can find Polish Smoked Sausage in almost
every supermarket in the US, and they are all made different. Yet the
present and former Polish Governments have published guidelines for making
Polish Smoked  Sausage and those rules have remained the same for the last
50 years.

 

All over the world people copy recipes
for Polish Kielbasa but they create their own versions instead of making the
original sausage. Some of them may turn out to be  wonderful sausages and
you have the full right to say that you have made a better sausage than the
famous Polish Smoked Sausage. Your grandfather who came from Poland most
likely made his own version which he obviously called kielbasa. If he came
from Germany his sausage would have been called wurst even if the
ingredients were the same.


1. Polish Smoked Sausage has
been always made of pork, salt, pepper, garlic and
marjoram (optional). There is a less popular second
version of the sausage that is made of 80% pork and 20% beef. All other
ingredients: salt, pepper, sugar, garlic, and marjoram remain common to both
recipes. The garlic is a must but
the marjoram is optional
 2. The meat is cured. In the US Cure #1 (sodium
nitrite plus salt) is used, in European countries people use Peklosol
(sodium nitrite plus salt).
 
3. The sausage is stuffed into a large hog
casing: 36 - 38 mm.
 
4. The sausage is smoked with hard wood.
 
We have investigated a number of
Polish Sausages and Polish Kielbasas made by American plants and sold in
supermarkets. The number of used ingredients, spices and chemicals varied
from 10 to 20 and different meats were used: pork-beef-turkey, beef only,
pork-beef. We tried to find a name of an equivalent Polish sausage that
might fit the description, but there was none. Except for the name and the
shape, none of
the sausages was even remotely close to the original.

 













Many books were written about sausages and each one provides
some Polish sausage recipes. And they were all wrong but....one book had it
right. The book, considered a classic today, was The Great Sausage Recipes
and Meat Curing, written in 1976 by a Pole, Rytek Kutas from Buffalo. Later
Mr. Kutas created the Sausage Maker Inc, the biggest mail order (now also
selling on line) company specializing
in sausage making supplies.



Photo 1.14 Rytek Kutas

Photo courtesy The Sausage Maker, Buffalo, N.Y.

 



 





A little
experiment was
made to see  how large American manufacturers
make Polish Smoked Sausage. Four sausages called Polish Kielbasa and Polish
Sausage were bought at
the local American supermarket in Florida and let's see  how they compare with the original
Polish recipe.

 




Name


Meat used



Ingredients




Authentic Polish Smoked Sausage

Smoked with hardwood


Pork


salt, pepper, sugar, garlic, marjoram,
sodium
nitrite





Authentic Polish Smoked Sausage ( version 2)

Smoked with hardwood

Pork 80% and
beef 20%

salt, pepper, sugar, garlic, marjoram,
sodium
nitrite





Polish Sausage # 1



Natural Hardwood Smoked

Pork, beef,
turkey


salt, water, corn syrup, 2% or less dextrose,
flavorings, ground yellow mustard, autolyzed yeast, hydrolyzed whey
protein, monosodium glutamate, potassium and sodium lactate, sodium
diacetate, sodium nitrite, starch, (modified food, potato
starch), Vitamin C (Ascorbic Acid, Contains: milk




Polish Sausage # 2




Natural Smoke Flavoring Added

Pork,
turkey, 2% or less beef


salt, turkey broth, water, corn syrup, starch
(potato, modified starch), dextrose, hydrolyzed milk protein, smoke
flavoring, Vitamin C (Ascorbic Acid), autolyzed yeast, gelatin,
sodium phosphate, sodium diaceteate, sodium nitrite,
potassium lactate, potassium chloride, granulated garlic, oleoresin of
paprika, flavorings, ingredients not found in or in excess of
amount permitted in regular smoked sausage, Contains: milk




Polish Sausage # 3
Naturally Hickory Smoked


Pork, beef


salt, water, dextrose, natural spices,
garlic
powder, paprika, monosodium glutamate, sodium erythorbate,
sodium
nitrite




Polska Kielbasa # 4
Fully Cooked


Beef


salt, water, corn syrup, 2% or less of: natural
spices, natural flavors, dextrose, monosodium glutamate, isolated soy
protein, Vitamin C (Ascorbic Acid), sodium phosphates,
sodium nitrite,
Contains: soy




 

Looking at the above sausage recipes we tried to come up with
a name of an equivalent Polish sausage that might fit the description but we
couldnłt. It becomes quite clear that different manufacturers put different
ingredients inside of the casing and the name Polish Kielbasa is used just for
credibility and to gain the trust of the consumer. It seems that for some
manufacturers any sausage that is smoked (or
have smoke flavoring added) and stuffed in a 36 mm casing will
qualify to be called the Polish Smoked Sausage, Polish Sausage or Polish Kielbasa.

The following is a quote from Wikipedia, the free
encyclopedia on Internet:
 




Nowadays, many
major meat packers across America offer a product called "kielbasa," but it
is usually a far cry from the real thing.





 
The problem is futher magnified by countless recipe sites on the Internet
that provide misleading recipes for making Polish Smoked Sausage. To sum it
up there is no specific sausage called kielbasa but there is a
well defined Polish Smoked Sausage which is so simple to make:
all you need is pork, salt, pepper and garlic.
Reprinted with minor changes  from the book



Polish Sausages


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