Recipe(tried): Polish/Ukrainian Easter Breakfast

Many years ago, after marrying my dear Polish/Ukrainian DH, he told me about his mom's traditional Easter morning breakfast. It's pretty simple, and I'm sure was done to use up all the kids's hard-boiled eggs, plus using some of the kielbasa and ham planned for later in the day at the Easter dinner.

I'm wondering if anyone out there also has had this dish and knows what I'm referring to - does it have a real name? We just call it Easter breakfast.

Here are the ingredients:

Easter grade kielbasa
Ham
hard-boiled eggs, shelled
fresh horseradish (not grated, but slivered right off the root)

Slice some of the kielbasa into rounds into a large skillet that has just a little oil and margarine melted. Before DH's by-pass, I used to use a bit of bacon grease! (probably contributing to his by-pass, I'm sure) The rest of the kielbasa will go later into sauerkraut as one of the main dishes for Easter dinner. How much you use in this breakfast dish is determined by how many are there for breakfast, or how much you need to save for dinner.

Next, slice a bunch of thin slivers off the big ham and put them into the skillet with the kielbasa. These slivers should not be big pieces, rather smaller slivers. Maybe two bites per sliver.

Let this simmer slowly to extract the juices from the kielbasa, stirring frequently.

While this is simmering, peel the outside layer off a horseradish root, and then taking a sharp potato peeler, slice little small slivers of the horseradish into the simmering meats. (Cooking the horseradish takes all the heat out of it, just leaves the flavor. It will take A LOT of these slivers, so don't be afraid to keep adding the horseradish)

At this point, turn the heat up just a bit, so that the meats can brown somewhat.

Once the meats seem to be done, coarsely chop at least half a dozen hard-boiled eggs and add to the meat, stirring gently. The yellows will break up and coat all the meats, flavoring everything.

Serve with hot cross buns or traditional easter breads.

This is an old peasant-style recipe, and not for anyone who is worried about cholesterol or salt intake! But once in awhile, we have to do our traditional comfort foods, don't we!

Happy Easter to all -

Love, June