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Bigos (Polish Hunter's Stew) Recipe Builder
No two Polish families make bigos the same way, and that is the whole character of the dish. It began as whatever the hunt and the larder produced, so the argument about what belongs in it has been running for a couple of hundred years and is not going to be settled here.
The builder below walks you through the decisions one at a time: which meats, how sour you want it, which mushrooms, how long you have got, and how you plan to cook it. At the end it gives you a full recipe scaled to the number of people you are feeding, with a day-by-day schedule.
Every quantity comes from my own Bigos Królewski, so whatever you choose, the proportions are ones I actually cook.
Bigos is built on whatever the kitchen had. My own Bigos Królewski uses both, with a smoked element running through it.
Tap any of them to read what it brings. They are not interchangeable, and the wrong one will stay tough however long you cook it.
The single biggest decision in the whole dish. Drag it and read what changes.
Browned in the fat left behind by the meat, before anything else goes in. Tap each one to see what it does.
What carries the pot. Wine or beer goes in alongside beef stock and adds a layer on top of it. Pick stock or water on their own if you would rather leave the alcohol out. If you are using dried mushrooms their soaking water counts towards this too.
Tap any of them to read why it is there. Several are genuine arguments, and I have said where I stand on each.
Bigos is not really finished when the cooking stops. It is finished after it has been cooled and reheated a few times.