Ideally, the stew should thicken through evaporation alone, but flour, roux, crumbled rye bread or a grated raw potato may be added to it to take up excess moisture. Other ingredients often added to include onions, diced and browned in lard together with the meat, and dried forest mushrooms that are precooked separately in boiling water. The stew is usually seasoned with salt, black peppercorns, allspice, juniper berries and bay leaves. Some recipes also call for caraway, cloves, garlic, marjoram, mustard seeds, nutmeg, paprika and thyme. The tart flavor of sauerkraut may be enhanced by adding some dry red wine or beet sour (fermented beetroot juice that is also a traditional ingredient of borscht), which may impart a reddish hue to the stew. is often slightly sweetened with sugar, honey, raisins, prunes or plum butter known in Polish as . Traditionally, is stewed in a cauldron over an open fire or in a large pot on a stove, but it may also be prepared in an electric slow cooker. The contents should be stirred from time to time, to prevent scorching, which may impart a bitter taste to the entire batch. is considered best after it has been repeatedly refrigerated and reheated to allow the flavors to fuse. Varieties The flexible and forgiving recipe for allows a great number of variants, often simply using what ingredients are at hand. It is often claimed that there are as many recipes as there are cooks in Poland. In the region of Greater Poland, typically contains tomato paste and is seasoned with garlic and marjoram. Kuyavian is often made from red cabbage as well as white. In Silesia, it is usually mixed with or , that is, small plain boiled dumplings made from unleavened dough that contains flour and mashed potatoes. A variant which contains julienned apples, preferably with a winey tart taste, such as Antonovka, is known as Lithuanian and is typical for the territory of the erstwhile Grand Duchy of Lithuania (now Belarus and Lithuania). In , or "hunter's ", at least part of the meat comes from game, such as wild boar, venison or hare. It is usually seasoned with juniper berries, which help neutralize off-flavors that may be found in the meat of wild animals. Serving As a dish that does not spoil quickly and is thought to improve with each reheating, has been traditionally used as a provision