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Bulbianaja Babka (Baked Grated Potato and Bacon Pudding)
Bulbianaja Babka (Baked Grated Potato and Bacon Pudding) reads richness 6.7, umami 5.4 and salinity 3.7 on Palate's 0–10 flavor X-ray — a Belarusian main, about 2 hr 30 min. Measured from the recipe itself: ingredients and technique.
The flavor X-ray — six axes, 0–10
- Umami & Savory — 6.0 / 10
- Sweet & Fruity — 2.4 / 10
- Sour & Bright — 3.2 / 10
- Bitter & Earthy — 2.2 / 10
- Rich & Fat — 6.9 / 10
- Aromatic & Spice — 3.7 / 10
The measured notes (of 18)
Richness 6.7 · Umami 5.4 · Salinity 3.7 · Herbaceous 3.3 · Allium 3.2 · Sourness 3.1 · Funk & Ferment 2.6 · Sweetness 2.3 · Smoke 1.8 · Warm Spice 1.5 · Earthy 1.5 · Floral 1.0 · Bitterness 0.9 · Nutty 0.8 · Heat 0.6
What's in it (12)
- potatoes — 1500 g
- pork belly — 200 g
- onions — 220 g
- eggs — 300 g
- all-purpose flour — 23 g
- regular milk — 200 g
- salt — 10 g
- freshly ground black pepper — 5 g
- marjoram — 1 g
- lard — 40 g
- sour cream — 250 g
- dill — 20 g
Time & effort: about 2 hr 30 min (2 hr 10 min active) · effort: involved
Nutrition (per 100 g, engine-estimated): 148.9 kcal, 6.5 g protein, 8.2 g fat, 12.5 g carbs
Dietary: Contains meat · Contains dairy · Contains egg — engine-derived; double-check anything allergy-critical.
How it's cooked (12 steps)
- Render the lardons in a frying pan over medium heat for 10 minutes until crisp.
- Fry the onion in the rendered fat for 12 minutes, until well browned. Keep the pan and everything in it.
- Grate the potatoes finely, 15 minutes, and let them stand 5 minutes.
- Pour off the free liquid, 2 minutes, keeping the settled white starch and returning it to the bowl.
- Pour the boiling milk over the grated potato and stir hard for 2 minutes. This scalding is the step that separates a babka from a tray of baked draniki: it partly gelatinises the starch, stops the potato greying, and sets the finished crumb dense and sliceable rather than watery.
- Beat in the eggs, flour, salt, pepper and marjoram, 2 minutes.
- Stir in the bacon, the onions and all the fat from the pan, 2 minutes.
- Grease a heavy cast-iron dish or a 24 cm skillet thickly with the lard and put it in the oven to get hot, 10 minutes, before tipping the mixture in. A cold dish means the babka welds itself to the bottom.
- Bake at 190 C for 1 hour 15 minutes, until the top is dark brown, cracked and firm, and a skewer comes out clean.
- Rest 15 minutes before cutting into wedges, or it crumbles.
- Serve with cold smetana and dill. Babka is the Belarusian potato dish most often recorded in English under a Polish or Russian name; it is neither, and in the Belarusian kitchen it is a main course rather than a side.
- Substitutions: bacon can stand in for the smoked pork belly.
Dishes with a similar flavor shape
- Smothered Pork Neck Bones and Rice — Soul Food
- Machanka (Pork Rib and Sausage Dipping Gravy) — Belarusian
- Manti (Turkish Dumplings) — Turkish
- Zelenyi Borshch (Green Sorrel Borshch with Egg) — Ukrainian
- Palócleves (Palóc Soup with Lamb, Green Beans and Dill) — Hungarian
Keep reading: what richness, umami, salinity mean in the flavor lexicon · the world's cuisines, by flavor.
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Every number above is Palate's engine-measured estimate, computed from this recipe's ingredients and techniques — not human-tasted ratings or reviews.