Bohemian Grandma's Ham & Noodle Casserole

[AnotherFairportfan]

Šunkafleky

My mother learnt some variant of this from my Bohemian grandmother who lived in Chicago. I loved it.

I haven't had it in years, but since i baked a ham over the weekend a month or so ago, i had a fair amount of leftover ham, so i decided to see if i could find a recipe.

I remembered that my mother and father called it something that sounded like "fleechky", but i had no idea of the spelling, and i wasn't 100% sure it was a Bohemian dish - Grandma cooked Polish as well as Bohemian.

So i googled for "recipe noodles ham Polish" and i got a lot of hits, one of which gave the correct Bohemian spelling as well.

This is a combination of two of the recipes submitted by commentors.

What i found really amusing is that at least half the comments (whether they included recipes or not) were from ex-pat Chicago Bohunks who reminisced about how much they loved going to visit their Chicago grandmother and eating Šunkafleky.

======================

wide egg noodles
4 eggs
cubed ham - amount's up to you, but a cup or two is good
1/4 cup butter
heavy whipping cream
1/4 tsp onion salt
1/8 tsp ground pepper

Cook noodles as directed on package. Drain well. (Do not rinse; they need to stay hot) Return to pot (stove should be off) and stir in butter until it melts.

Stir in meat.

Place seasonings and eggs into a large measuring cup and beat.

Add enough cream to make 1-½ cups.
Butter a 2 quart casserole and place noodle/meat mixture into it.

Pour eggs and milk mixture over entire surface. Do not stir.

Bake in a 350⁰ oven for 45 minutes or until top is golden brown

[Dave]

Sounds like scrumptious comfort food!

Also a bit like Fettuccini Alfredo, sometimes referred to as "heart attack on a plate".

[Sgt. Howard]

Pigknuckle and split pea soup with schwartzenbrot is another all time favorite in this house- boil one smoked pig trotter per person to season the soup, pare off the flesh into the soup once it is tender enough to fall off. Then start your split pea soak. Now do your Black Rye bread dough, kneading and rising three times. By now, the peas should be ready to cook. Bake bread at 350 degrees for 45 minutes- soup will be done as the bread comes out of the oven. DON'T YOU DARE USE MARGARINE ON THIS!!! Unsalted butter only. Pure Bavarian Heaven

[AnotherFairportfan]

One of the comments at one of the sites where i hunted for the recipe said that HIS grandma made it with boiled ham - and she saved the water she boiled the ham in to cook the noodles in.

[Typeminer]

Now do your Black Rye bread dough, kneading and rising three times. Bake bread at 350 degrees for 45 minutes. DON'T YOU DARE USE MARGARINE ON THIS!!! Unsalted butter only.

Bet goat cheese would be good on that bread for breakfast, though.

Details on the rye dough? Is that a variety of pumpernickel?

[AnotherFairportfan]

My grandmother made a Bohemian rye bread with flour that was fifty/fifty rye/wheat. Wonderful stuff, with caraway seeds in and a butter-rubbed crust that wasn't real thick and crunched and crackled.

A few years before he died, my dad was making a batch of it, and he burned out a heavy-duty mixer with dough hooks kneading it.

[Dave]

All this talk of black rye bread is making me want to get ambitious, and get some 100% dark rye flower, and make a sourdough starter, and bake a couple of loaves. Haven't done anything like that in a very long time... my wife and I don't eat much bread, but what we do eat is the "dense" variety. A good black-rye bread full of seeds and sour would be wonderful!

[DinkyInky]

Pigknuckle and split pea soup with schwartzenbrot is another all time favorite in this house- boil one smoked pig trotter per person to season the soup, pare off the flesh into the soup once it is tender enough to fall off. Then start your split pea soak. Now do your Black Rye bread dough, kneading and rising three times. By now, the peas should be ready to cook. Bake bread at 350 degrees for 45 minutes- soup will be done as the bread comes out of the oven. DON'T YOU DARE USE MARGARINE ON THIS!!! Unsalted butter only. Pure Bavarian Heaven

Russian Black bread? Very dense, rich, heavy dark rye bread? Almost a meal in itself?
I've made a version that had a client of Mother's, who was from Russia, and after I made a loaf for her, she said her Mother was crying, and found it amazing a Polish gal could make it like folks back in the old country. Apparently there's a trick to it I mastered.
If so, I'm amazed you had room for soup.

All this talk of black rye bread is making me want to get ambitious, and get some 100% dark rye flower, and make a sourdough starter, and bake a couple of loaves. Haven't done anything like that in a very long time... my wife and I don't eat much bread, but what we do eat is the "dense" variety. A good black-rye bread full of seeds and sour would be wonderful!

How do you get a sourdough starter to make heavy bread? Mine were always crusty and airy. I got misty-eyed at having to leave mine with my "sis". It would have been confiscated during the move, and I'd rather that old starter stay in use versus tossed on the rubbish heap.

[TazManiac]

Well, now I gotta go out and get some ingredients..

btw- Dinky? I thing by now you'd acknowledge that you have the 'touch' when you put your mind to something, it might be to a varying degree inherited or developed over time, but it seems to work.
(Don't question it, just give thanks, and motor on...).

As for myself; My maternal GPs had gotten to the point of running the neighbourhood ol' folks home, prior to migrating from Atlantic City to California-
my recollection of Good Old Fashion Family Recipes includes boiled chicken (yuck) and Rhubarb Pie; ("GrandPa, why does the celery look red like that?")
I'm not saying Rhubarb Pie was yucky, in fact it was great, just... strangely coloured...)

GrandPa, being Barbadian, also introduced Sugar Cane and Coconuts to the household, but he wasn't any kind of culinary wiz. I think the high point of his special tricks amounted to peanut-brittle, from scratch.
(In retrospect, I think he was less Cook than Chemist in the Kitchen...)

In other words, what it amounted to was; My Mother couldn't cook worth a damn. I never faulted her for this, she was too busy out saving the world. And that was OK.

My brother and I, (we of the brood who share the same parents) and seemingly (strangely) independently, have through osmosis and sheer will of effort imbibed PBS cooking shows including the late, great, Julia Child, into our fibrous being, leading to two overlapping but wildly differing Schools Of Culinary Excellence.

In other words, despite my barren childhood, foody-wise; 'Poppy Can Burn', to use the vernacular.

I'm finding this recipe of the Bohemian Grandma's exciting, and with Easter a'coming, there should be plenty of Ham to peruse...


nom, nom, nom...

[TazManiac]

PS- I found it high-larious that a Google search of the word at the top of the thread turned up everything but something I could read...

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heh, heh, heh...