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.
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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.
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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.
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Name |
Meat used |
Ingredients |
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Authentic Polish Smoked Sausage Smoked with hardwood |
Pork |
salt, pepper, sugar, garlic, marjoram, sodium nitrite |
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Authentic Polish Smoked Sausage ( version 2) Smoked with hardwood |
Pork 80% and beef 20% |
salt, pepper, sugar, garlic, marjoram, sodium nitrite |
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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 |
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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 |
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Polish Sausage # 3 Naturally Hickory Smoked |
Pork, beef |
salt, water, dextrose, natural spices, garlic powder, paprika, monosodium glutamate, sodium erythorbate, sodium nitrite |
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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 |
Polish SausagesLooking 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 couldn’t. 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
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