A dish with the interesting name “Bigus” is nothing more than a fragrant stewed cabbage with meat.
The dish is unique in that it is cooked simply, but it turns out so tasty and satisfying that once you try, you want to cook it again and again.
Big cabbage cabbage - the general principles of cooking
Cooking begins with the selection of basic ingredients. Usually take already mature white cabbage, but you can use the young varieties. To give the bigus an interesting sourish note, it is permissible to use a mix of fresh and sauerkraut.
Meat is used by anyone: beef, chicken, pork, as well as smoked meats, sausages or any other semi-finished products. There are also bigus lovers from fresh cabbage with fish. There are no restrictions - it all depends on the taste preferences and the products available at home. In addition, the meat ingredients can not be used at all, having prepared a vegetarian version of the dish or a bigus with mushrooms.
Additionally, you can put in a bigus carrots, onions, tomatoes. For a special bright taste - berries cranberries and lingonberries, an apple.
The process itself is simple:
• Meat is cut, fried in butter until blush, then stewed until half cooked.
• Fresh cabbage is chopped and stewed in another container until half cooked.
• All components of the dish are connected and made ready on the slowest fire.
Of the spices, the most accessible and well-known components are commonly used: cumin, bay, pepper. A good bigus with greens is added to this ingredient either at the end of stewing or in an already prepared dish.
1. Bigus from fresh cabbage with apples and lingonberry jam
Ingredients:
• half a kilogram of pork;
• five hundred grams of two types of cabbage (fermented and white cabbage);
• sausage (three hundred grams);
• onion;
• fresh carrot;
• tomatoes in their own juice;
• natural cranberry jam;
• soy sauce;
• sugar;
• half a liter of water; • Red Apple;
• one hundred grams of fat;
• cumin;
• chopped garlic;
• Bay leaf.
Cooking methods:
1. Grind the fat into small cubes, melt in a griddle.
2. Connect the diced pork meat with lard. Fry both ingredients.
3. Add onion with roasted carrots to roasted meat. Fry all the ingredients together.
4. Squeeze sauerkraut from brine. To eliminate the acid, it is recommended to wash the cabbage with warm water and squeeze it again.
5. Add sauerkraut to the pork.
6. Put the natural jam made from cranberries.
7. Stir all the ingredients. Fry.
8. Pour the sauce along with plain water.
9. Stew for about thirty minutes.
10. Chop fresh cabbage and place in a frying pan.
11. Add tomato mixture. Extinguish, adding water if necessary.
12. Carefully cut the apple into thin slices. Put to the rest of the ingredients.
13. Stew for half an hour.
14. Add salt, sugar.
15. At the very end of cooking, add sausages, chopped garlic, laurel leaves and cumin.
2. Bigus from fresh cabbage in the old Polish
Ingredients:
• onion;
• four hundred grams of cabbage and sauerkraut;
• one hundred and fifty grams of mushrooms and prunes;
• 100 milliliters of dry white wine;
• one hundred grams of ham and boiled sausage;
• vegetable oil.
Preparation:
1. Fry onions to a glass color.
2. Add shredded cabbage (both sour and fresh). Fry until half cooked. When using very sour sauerkraut, add sugar.
3. Add the sliced sliced mushrooms, prunes.
4. Pour in dry white wine.
5. Ten minutes before the end of the quenching, place the ham and sausage.
6. Season with spices.
7. Simmer another about 20 minutes until fully cooked.
3. Bigus from fresh cabbage with rice and minced meat
Ingredients:
• half kilograms of fresh white cabbage;
• one medium sized carrot;
• onion;
• 200 grams of rice;
• 200 grams of minced meat;
• salt and seasoning to taste. Preparation:
1. Fry the onions, cut into thin quarter rings.
2. Grate the carrots.
3. Separately fry the minced, salt.
4. Connect the onions, grated carrots, minced meat, shredded cabbage.
5. Stew for about twenty minutes on low heat.
6. Wash the rice and boil until ready, drain the water, pour the grits to the fried ingredients.
7. Stir, add to taste seasonings and salt.
8. Cover with a lid, simmer for a few minutes over low heat.
4. Bigus from fresh cabbage in a slow cooker
Ingredients:
• 400 grams of beef pulp;
• 600 grams of white cabbage;
• large onions;
• one medium sized carrot;
• one hundred grams of tomato paste;
• one hundred milliliters of water;
• one Bulgarian pepper;
• five pieces of prunes;
• a teaspoon of salt and spices;
• tablespoon of vegetable oil.
Preparation:
1. Rinse the beef and chop finely.
2. Onion and sweet pepper cut in the form of thin straws.
3. Coarsely grate the carrots.
4. Put the beef in the oiled bowl of the slow cooker. Salt it.
5. Add chopped vegetables, salt, seasonings.
6. Shred cabbage, salt, remember hands, put in a slow cooker.
7. Add the spice mixture, chopped prunes and mushrooms.
8. Dilute tomato paste with water. Pour the resulting mixture into the remaining ingredients.
9. Close the multicooker lid. Set the mode to “quenching”. Cook for one hour. Then cook in “Frying” mode for about ten minutes.
5. Bigus from fresh cabbage with mushrooms
Ingredients:
• a couple of tablespoons of tomato paste;
• 50 grams of wheat flour;
• one onion;
• 250 grams of white cabbage;
• 300 grams of fresh champignons;
• root celery;
• Bay leaf;
• black pepper;
• salt.
Cooking methods:
1. Rinse the mushrooms, chop finely.
2. Cabbage finely chop.
3. Stew mushrooms in water for five minutes.
4. Chop celery root.
5. Add cabbage and celery to the mushrooms.
6. Fry chopped onion with a small amount of flour and tomato paste separately. 7. Transfer the onions to the rest of the ingredients. Simmer for 15 minutes over low heat.
8. Five minutes before the readiness, add salt, black pepper and bay leaf.
6. Bigus from fresh cabbage with potatoes
Ingredients:
• 600-800 grams of beef meat;
• two hundred grams of pork fat;
• six large potatoes;
• one large onion;
• medium sized carrots;
• 500 grams of fresh cabbage;
• garlic;
• a pair of bay leaves;
• allspice;
• salt with sugar, seasoning mix.
Preparation:
1. Stew diced meat with minced pork lard.
2. Add the onions to the meat. Stir fry.
3. Put the pre-grated carrot. Leave over low heat for a little less than one hour. Try stirring regularly.
4. Add the shredded cabbage to the pan. Simmer until volume is halved.
5. Add spices, sugar, salt.
6. Put diced potatoes.
7. Top up with a glass of water.
8. Stew until potatoes are ready.
9. Serve hot.
7. Bigus from fresh cabbage with chicken
Ingredients:
• chicken meat;
• sauerkraut;
• fresh cabbage;
• bow;
• bay leaf;
• pepper;
• butter;
• greenery;
• tomato mixture (water with pasta).
Preparation:
1. Divide the chicken into pieces. Fry at minimum heat, pouring in a little oil, until semi-finished. Salt and pepper, temporarily take out on a plate.
2. In meat oil, fry sauerkraut for five minutes.
3. Add coarsely chopped onions and fresh cabbage.
4. Fry everything together for 5-6 minutes until a light blush of vegetables.
5. Fill the vegetable mixture with a glass of water. Simmer for about ten minutes.
6. Add chicken. Simmer for 30 minutes.
7. Pour in tomato mixture.
8. Five minutes before the end of cooking, put chopped greens, black peas, bay leaf.
9. Stir the ingredients. Remove from heat.
10. Insist the bigus under the closed lid for a few minutes.
8. Bigus from fresh cabbage with sausage
Ingredients:
• five or six sausages;
• a pound of cabbage;
• onion and carrot - one by one;
• 20-25 g tomato paste;
• dried dill;
• butter;
• salt;
• laurel.
Preparation:
1. Grate carrots, chop onions. Fry both ingredients in butter until softened.
2. Boil sausages, drain the water, cut the sausages themselves.
3. Cabbage chop straws, put to the onions and carrots, add salt, to taste the spices.
4. Simmer, stirring occasionally, for about 40 minutes. If necessary, pour in some boiled water.
5. For a couple of minutes, until ready, put the tomato paste, previously boiled sausages. Stir.
6. In the ready dish put bay leaves, fill the dill.
7. Serve after at least half an hour infusion.
Fresh cabbage Bigus - tips
• Bigus from fresh cabbage is tasty hot, but it is even more tasty after it has been standing in the fridge for 24 hours. Cold bigus - an excellent snack to strong drinks.
• Do not use too much water, the consistency of a properly prepared bigus should be thick.
• Smoked foods added to dishes will add a special taste and aroma to bigus.
• Bigus can be harvested. It is stored in a refrigerator in a sealed package or frozen.
• Cabbage and any kind of meat are perfectly combined with various vegetables, mushrooms, prunes, wine, tomatoes, so you can safely add these ingredients to the dish.
• It is best to cook a bigus from fresh cabbage in a cauldron or a deep cast-iron pan, you can use a slow cooker.
