Kotlet Schabowy

Kotlet schabowy is a slice of pork loin beaten thin, dipped in flour, egg and breadcrumbs and fried in fat, and it is the most eaten restaurant dish in Poland and the standard Sunday dinner in most households, served with boiled potatoes and either mizeria - cucumber in soured cream - or braised cabbage. It arrived in the nineteenth century as a version of the Viennese schnitzel, made with pork rather than veal because pork was what people had, and it became so thoroughly domesticated that most Poles do not think of it as borrowed. The proportions matter: beaten thin enough that the meat cooks through quickly, breadcrumb coating loose rather than packed, fried in enough fat to blister. Milk bars serve it very cheaply. The dish's dominance is itself a subject of complaint among Polish food writers, who point out that the country's older cooking is more varied than the Sunday plate suggests.

What you actually see

• Beaten pork in breadcrumbs - fried in fat, the standard Sunday plate.
• Potatoes and cabbage - or mizeria, cucumber in soured cream, alongside.
• A domesticated schnitzel - pork instead of veal, and long since naturalised.
• Milk bar prices - the cheapest version, in the subsidised canteens.

When to go

All year; Sunday by tradition. An hour.

Honest expectations

It is everywhere, which means most versions are ordinary - a thin dry cutlet is common. Milk bars close early and often take cash. Portions come with a lot of potato.

Nearby

Any milk bar or canteen in a Polish city.