Bigos is one of the flag dishes of Polish cuisine. It is a kind of cabbage stew. There are, of course, several variations, but its main ingredients are sauerkraut, fresh cabbage, pieces of various meat kinds, and mushrooms (mainly dried boletes).

I already posted once on bigos showing its less complicated version I tasted earlier in a restaurant (>>>). This time I decided to make it on my own but chose its ‘dark’ variation based on prunes. I liked the challenge. To make it, I needed around five hours of constant work in the kitchen. The process is long-lasting as you have to prepare many ingredients, and during a continuous cooking process, you have to mix them carefully.

What you can see in the photo below is bigos on prunes as I finished making it. However, bigos is best when served after a couple of days and recooked many times. The one made on prunes gets darker and darker in the process.

Below, the whole cooking process of bigos on prunes picture by picture. The two ingredients that by far are not originally Polish I added were whiskey and soja sauce. Besides sauerkraut and fresh cabbage, beef, sausage, bacon, dried boletes, and prunes, I added onion, tomatoes, apple, preserved plums, red wine, butter, salt, bay leaf, and allspice.

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