After moving from Poland to the United States in 2001, Gosia Baniak eventually landed in Indiana, bringing with her a lifelong love of cooking. She started out cooking for Polish community gatherings, which grew into a catering business built around traditional Polish and Eastern European food, from pierogi to Polish sausage. This year, she parlayed her catering business into a brick-and-mortar restaurant in Sheridan, Gosia’s Rustic Kitchen.
You have worked in restaurants for years. Where was the idea for Gosia’s Rustic Kitchen born?
I came to the United States in 2001. That’s when I came to Chicago. We moved 13 times. Somehow, we ended up in Indiana, and we love it. I always worked in restaurants. I was always a manager, and I was in the back of the house as a cook, so I always enjoyed it. I made food for the Polish society in Indianapolis. They do parties a couple times a year, and I made my food. They said, ‘Maybe you should start thinking about opening something.’ That was five years ago. That’s how it started—with home-cooked meals for a party.
What made you decide to bring Polish food to the Indianapolis area?
There is really not much Polish or even Eastern European food in the Indianapolis area. We wanted to bring on the authentic stuff.
How do you make sure the food feels authentic, especially when you’re sourcing ingredients here?
We are trying to cook what I ate when I was a child in Poland. Every house in Poland on Sundays, either you had pork chop, pork tenderloin—or you had chicken and chicken noodle soup. It’s very traditional. You have the cutlet, the mashed potato, and then the three salads. One very popular seasoning that we use is called Vegeta. It’s a mix of dried vegetables and herbs—you have salt, pepper, celery, carrots, parsnip. It goes into soups, gravies, sauces, beans. It’s universal. And before we even opened a restaurant, we visited—I would say 40 warehouses—and sampled 100 pounds of sausage to make sure they made really good sausage. We’re very particular.
What should people expect from a good Polish sausage?
It’s the spices, the kind of meat they use, the amount of fat, how it’s smoked. It’s got to have proper natural casings. It can’t be too fatty, but it can’t also be too dry. When you bite into it, the skin should be crispy, and then the sausage is going to burst and it’s going to be juicy.
You’ve also found a hit in an unexpected menu item in your Polish sausage burnt ends. How did those come about?
When we were getting the sausage, we had a lot of ends, and we didn’t know what to do with them. We hate waste, so we needed to find a way to use it. My husband put them on a grill, charred the ends and smoked them. They’re served with a house sauce made with ingredients including ranch, ketchup, barbecue sauce, liquid smoke, and Polish spices.
On the other end of the spectrum of tradition, what is the key to making good pierogi?
Good flour is the key to making good pierogies. The first time I made pierogies with American flour, I almost killed somebody because they were so hard. The gluten content is different. If you use unbleached flour, you are good to go.
Your menu lists more than a dozen different pierogi. Do you have a current favorite?
We make a pierogi that is called ‘Thanksgiving in One Bite.’ I made the recipe for it, and it is literally Thanksgiving in one bite. You have the turkey, the sweet potato, and stuffing inside the pierogi, and then we top them with gravy and chutney. It’s very popular here, and I don’t know anyone else who is doing anything like that in a pierogi.
