Vegan Makowiec (Polish Poppy Seed Strudel)

I made this delicious poppyseed strudel during Polish food month (July 2013) but didn't get time to post it, so I'm bringing it out for Vegan Mofo and my Spice Rack theme. Poppy seeds are possibly not actually a spice (although I guess that depends on your definition) but they're kept with my spices so I'm including them in the list.

Poppy Seeds
Two varieties of poppy seeds are commonly consumed - white and blue poppy seeds. Blue poppy seeds are most commonly seen in European/Western cuisines - they're the ones you'll find sprinkled on bread rolls, pastries and in your orange and poppyseed cake. White poppy seeds have a slightly milder flavour but otherwise are fairly interchangeable - they're more commonly found in Indian, Asian and Middle Eastern dishes. Both types of poppy seeds are gathered from the same poppy that produces opium, however the ones used in cooking have virtually no narcotic content (just 50 ppm). Poppy seeds contain a relatively high amount of oils, so can easily become rancid if they are old or stored improperly. Try to buy small quantities of poppy seeds (only as much as you need) from shops which have a high turnover and store any remaining ones in an airtight container.

Reference: Hemphill, 2006

For my month of spices I'm using Spice Notes and Recipes by Ian Hemphill as my reference tool to learn about spices and for all the information above. Thanks Ian for writing such a great and informative book! 

Makowiec (Polish Poppy Seed Strudel)

Ingredients
Pastry:
1/4 cup soy milk, warmed
2 tsp active dry yeast
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup canola oil
1/2 tsp salt
1/3 cup apple sauce
2 cups plain flour

Filling:
3/4 cup poppy seeds
1/4 cup soy milk
2 tbsp vegan margarine
1 cup sugar
zest of 1 orange
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup raisins
1/2 cup walnut halves, broken up

Soy milk, for brushing the top
Whole poppy seeds, to garnish

To Make
1. Cover the poppy seeds in hot water and soak over night. Then drain and grind in a food processor.
2. Whisk together the warm soy milk and the dry yeast and set aside for 10 minutes, until foamy (if this does not foam up, your yeast may no longer be active and you may need to buy some fresh stuff).
3. Add the 1/4 cup sugar, oil, salt and apple sauce to the yeast mixture and mix well to combine.
4. Add the flour and mix until a dough forms. Turn dough out onto a floured surface and knead for 6 minutes by which time you should have a smooth ball of dough. Return to the bowl and cover with a tea towel. Let sit in a warm spot for 1 1/2 hours to rise.
5. To make the filling: combine the soy milk, margarine, sugar, ground poppy seeds, orange zest and raisins in a saucepan and place over a medium heat.  Cook until thickened, stirring frequently. After about 4-5 minutes it should be quite thick, remove from the hear and stir the vanilla extract through.
6. Heat the oven to 180 degrees.
7. Turn the dough out onto a floured surface and roll out into a big rectangle. Spread the filling over the rectangle of dough, leaving about 1 1/2 cm around the edge. Sprinkle the walnuts on top.

8. Roll up into one big log (starting from the longer side of the rectangle) and place seam side down on a baking tray lined with baking paper. Brush the top with milk and sprinkle with poppy seeds.
9. Bake for 20 minutes, or until golden brown on top. Allow to cool, then slice and serve.

Check out my other Polish recipe posts from Poland Month:

Home Made Vegan Sour Cream

Pyzy (Polish Potato Dumplings)

Mizeria (Polish Cucumber Salad)

Golabki (Stuffed Cabbage Rolls)

Surówka Z Marchewki

Kluski Z Makiem (Poppyseed Pasta Dessert)

Kluski Z Makiem (Polish Poppyseed Pasta Dessert)

I'm crazy about pasta! It's just the most delicious and comforting thing to eat, and so convenient to cook. anyone who knows me will know that probably my favourite thing to eat is a big bowl of pasta with a glass of wine to accompany it. But.... pasta for dessert? I've never tried it before, but when I found it for Polish food month I really had to try it! To be honest, this is not 100% traditional! The traditional polish dish would be made with hand made noodles, but I've used supermarket packet pasta to be quick (and a bit lazy!). It was actually very delicious, although it felt strange to have pasta for dessert!

As you read this, I'll be hanging out in funky Helsinki!

Kluski Z Makiem

Ingredients
300g dried pasta (large shapes)
2 tbsp vegan margarine (Nuttelex)
1 cup poppy seeds, soaked over night
1/2 cup raisins
1/2 cup sugar
Zest of 1 orange
Zest of 1/2 lemon
1/2 cup chopped hazelnuts
1/2 cup chopped almonds
1/2 cup maple syrup
Walnut pieces, to garnish

To Make
1. Cook the pasta al dente, according to the instructions on the back of the packet (although you'll probably want to cook it for about 1 minute less than it says on the packet so that it's not overcooked).
2. Combine the poppy seeds, margarine, raisins, suagr and zest in a saucepan with 1 tbsp water. Heat over a low heat until the sugar and margarine are melted. Simmer gently for about 5 minutes.
3. Dry fry the chopped almonds and hazelnuts in a pan over a medium heat, stirring frequently, until slightly browned and toasted.
4. Combine the cooked pasta, poppyseed mixture and toasted nuts and mix well. Add the maple syrup and stir until all the pasta is well coated.
5. Cool to room temperature and garnish with walnut pieces to serve.

Serves 4.

This month I'm featuring lots of delicious food from Poland.

Check out my other Polish recipe posts:

Home Made Vegan Sour Cream

Pyzy (Polish Potato Dumplings)

Mizeria (Polish Cucumber Salad)

Golabki (Stuffed Cabbage Rolls)

Surówka Z Marchewki

Makowiec (Poppyseed Strudel)

Vegan Makovnjaca (Croatian Poppy Seed Strudel)

Makovnjaca was one of the first recipes which I came across when I started looking into Croatian Food for our January featured country - Croatia (obviously). There were a lot of different recipes out on the internet with quite a lot of variation - however, I can't credit it this to any of them because I pieced this together using ideas from a few different websites and then changed it to make it vegan. So, although it is a traditional dish - this one is very much my own recipe for it and therefore I can't comment on it's authenticity (perhaps a Croatian reader can help me out with this?).

As far as I could glean there were two types of makovnjaca on the internet - a light bready/cakey one and a denser and less fluffy strudel/danish one. This one is of the latter variety, as the pastry does not rise to make a fluffy cake. It was very delicious, particularly because it wasn't overly sweet. Before beginning Croatia Month I had never even thought to use poppy seeds as the fillings in my desserts - but having make 2 now (see the Poppy Seed and Almond Kolache recipe - link below) I am definitely a convert and will be trying to work it into my other desserts as much as possible to explore some new flavour combinations. Poppy seeds are also a good source of anti-oxidants, essential volatile oils, dietary fibre, B-complex vitamins, iron, zinc, magnesium, calcium, manganese and potassium. They can also act to soothe anxiety and irritability and ease pain due to very small levels of opium alkaloids present in them.

Ingredients

Pastry

600g wholemeal flour

150g nuttelex

100g castor sugar

200ml warm soy milk

1 tbsp golden syrup

4x 7g yeast sachets (28g)

5 tbsp water

Filling

2 cups poppy seeds

1 cup soy milk

½ cup sugar

5 tbsp apricot jam

1 tsp cinnamon

Zest of 1 lemon

1 tbsp rum

To Make

1.  Dissolve the sugar and yeast in the warm milk and leave for 15 minutes.

2. Sift the flour into a bowl and cut the nuttelex into it. Rub the nuttelex into the flour with your hands until it forms a crumbly mixture with no large bits of nuttelex.

3. Make a well in the middle and pour in the yeast mixture, golden syrup and a few tbsp water. Mix well.

4. Turn dough out onto a floured surface and knead until smooth and elastic. Put back in the mixing bowl and cover it with a tea towel. Let stand in a warm place to rest (it won’t rise much, so don’t worry if it doesn’t).

5. Put the poppy seeds, soy milk, jam, sugar and cinnamon in a saucepan and bring to a simmer. Simmer until the mixture is thick and the jam is completely dissolved. Remove from heat stir the lemon zest and rum through.

6. Divide the pastry dough in half and roll out one half into a large rectangle (use the baking tray that you’re going to be using to determine the length of the rectangle.

7. Spread half of the poppy seed filling mix evenly over the rectangle. Roll up like a jam roll. Trim the edges to be neater and place on a tray lined with baking paper.

8. Do the same thing for the other half of the pastry and filling. Brush the tops of the rolls with either soy milk or melted nuttelex.

9. Bake at 170 degrees for about 40 minutes, or until the tops are browned slightly. Allow to cool completely.

10. Slice into 2cm slices and serve.

Makes 2 makovnjaca.

Check out our other Croatian Recipes:

Poppy Seed and Almond Kolache

Yumuşacık Poğaça

(Savoury buns filled with creamy potato and pickles)

Paprenjaci

(Cracked Pepper Biscuits)

Posna Sarma

(Rice Filled Cabbage Rolls)

Croatian Pizza

Yumuşacık Poğaça (Croatian fluffy savoury buns)

A-dizzle and I recently had a whole group of people over to help us eat all our Croatian food. Not only was this a particularly fun one to make with helpers but it was also by far the most popular savoury dish we served. There is something so fun about inviting people over and then getting them to help you with the food and we had a great time rolling these out, check it:

Poğaça is a savoury bread/pastry eaten in Croatia, Bulgaria, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Slovenia, FYR Macedonia, Serbia, Montenegro, Hungary, Greece  (where its called bougatsa Μπουγάτσα) and Turkey with variations.Typically it is filled with feta cheese, however, this isn't a very vegan option so these ones have a vegan filling of my own devising, comprising of creamy potatoes, grated pickles and chopped parsley - it was such a hit that my guests were eating the leftover filling straight out of the saucepan.

I have to give a big thank you to the fantastic @rhelune for sending me the idea for these, and also for all the other awesome advice and recipes sent to me via twitter.

Poğaça with Potato and Pickles

Ingredients

Dough

4 cups flour

¼ cup warm soy milk
1x 7g sachet dry instant yeast
½ cup canola oil
1 tbsp sugar
¾ cup mineral water

Filling

2 potatoes, peeled and washed

1 onion, finely chopped

1 tbsp nuttelex

2 pickled cucumbers

1 bunch continental parsley

Sea salt, to taste

Plus

Soy milk, to brush on top

Poppy seeds

To Make

Dough

1. Mix sugar and yeast with warm milk. Combine all the dough ingredients including this milk mixture and mix them well. You can add a little more flour or mineral water if either of them is not enough. You should have a pliable and nonsticky dough. 

2. Cover it with a moist cloth and let it rest in a warm spot for 45 min.

Filling

1.  Chop the potatoes and boil them in plenty of water until completely cooked.

2. Melt nuttelex in a saucepan and sauté the onions until translucent and soft.

3. Coarsely grate the pickled cucmubers and add to the onions. Sauté until the onions are completely cooked. Remove from the heat. Add the potatoes and mash with a potato masher (doesn’t have to be smooth, leave it chunky).

4. Finely chop the parsley and stir through the filling with the sea salt.

Assembly

1. Preheat the oven to 180 Degrees

2. Take a small piece from the dough and flatten it with your hands. You can do this on the counter. Put a tsp of potato mixture on it and close it up folding the edges upwards like a bundle. Do the same for the rest of the dough. 

3. Place a parchment paper in a baking tray and place the poğaça on it. The folded side of  poğaça should be at the bottom to have a ball shape. This is best done with help :) Try to make them all the same size, however, as you can see below, we didn't really succeed due to multiple rollers, but it didn't affect their cooking.

4. Brush the tops with milk and sprinkle with poppy seeds.

5. Bake for 20-25 mins or until they are nice and golden on top. Serve straight out of the oven or allow to cool to room temperature (both delicious).

Makes 12.

Check out our other recipes for Croatia Month:

Poppy Seed and Almond Kolache

Paprenjaci

(Cracked Pepper Biscuits)

Posna Sarma

(Rice filled cabbage rolls)

Makovnjaca
(Poppy Seed Strudel)

Croatian Pizza

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Poppy Seed and Almond Kolache (Croatian Pastries)

Welcome to Croatian Month on Gormandize with A-dizzle and K-bobo! We're both pretty crazy about world food and about discovering new dishes, new ingredients and new cooking methods, so a couple of months ago we decided that, starting in 2012, we would feature the cuisine of a different country each month in addition to our regular recipes so that we could learn more about countries whose cuisine is less celebrated internationally. We asked readers for suggestions and came away with a great list of countries to feature over the upcoming months. If you'd like to suggest a country for us to add to the list just visit this blog post and post us a comment!

So, we begin with Croatia. Firstly I'd like to point out that neither A-dizzle nor myself have ever been to Croatia (YET!), therefore we have done our best to research Croatian cuisine from our computers mostly (and from talking to people who have been to Croatia!). So, if you are Croatian or know a lot about Croatian food please feel free to comment or contact us with feedback on the food that we post or with ideas for recipes we can include. My first post of Croatian delights is Poppy seed Kolache - which I made yesterday to serve to my NYE guests. They were delicious and were quite popular with the guests. My version is, of course, vegan and ever so slightly modified :)

Ingredients

Pastry:

3 cups flour

1/2 cup ground almonds

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1 tbsp tapioca flour (arrowroot)

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 cup sugar

1 tbsp lemon zest

1 cup nuttelex (or other non-dairy margarine or butter)

2 tbsp lemon juice

6 tbsp water

Filling:

1 cup poppy seeds

1/3 cup apricot jam

3/4 cup soy milk

1/3 cup chopped dates

1/2 cup chopped almonds (chop and then measure!)

1/4 tsp cinnamon

2 tbsp maple syrup

To Make:

1. Preheat the oven to about 180 degrees C.

2. Mix the flour, ground almonds, baking powder, salt, sugar, arrowroot and lemon zest well in a large bowl.

3. Add the nuttelex in small pieces and then rub into the flour mixture using your hands until the mixture looks like coarse breadcrumbs.

4. Make a well in the centre and add the lemon juice and 4 tbsp water. Mix well (probably easiest to keep using your hands). Add the rest of the water a tablespoon at a time. The pastry should make a stiff dough which stays together in a ball when kneaded. Turn onto a floured surface and knead briefly. Put aside.

5. Combine all the ingredients of the poppy seed filling except the almonds and maple syrup in a small saucepan.

6. Put on a low heat and bring to a simmer. Simmer until all the liquid is absorbed and the mix becomes a stiff paste.Remove from heat and stir through the almonds and maple syrup.

7. Cut yourself a piece of paper into an 8cm by 8cm square to use as a template (this is optional, but it is good to ensure that all your kolache end up the same size).

8. Roll out 1/4 of the pastry dough to about 1/2 cm thick and cut it into squares using the template. There should be plenty of dough so you shouldn't need to scrounge extra squares out of tiny left over bits.

9. Pace 2 tsp of the filling along the centre of the square diagonally (see pic):

10. Bring the two corners over the top and press down gently on them to form a cylinder (see pic):

11. Repeat with using up the rest of the filling mix (you may have a bit of pastry dough left over - you can save this and make another batch of filling sometime or you can use it up by using anything you like in the fillling - such as fruit [fresh or canned], nuts or chocolate).

12. Place on a baking tray lined with greaseproof paper and bake in the oven for 20-22 minutes (you will need to turn the tray around about 15 minutes into the baking time to ensure even cooking).

13. Cool on the tray before serving. You may like to dust them with some icing sugar for prettiness before serving (I didn't have any!!).

Makes about 20 kolache (plus some left over pastry dough)

Check out our other recipes for Croatia Month:

Yumuşacık Poğaça 

(Savoury buns filled with creamy potato and pickles!)

Paprenjaci

(Cracked Pepper Biscuits)

Posna Sarma

(Rice-filled cabbage rolls)

Makovnjaca

(Poppy Seed Strudel)

Croatian Pizza

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