What are Kolaches?
A brief guide to food with consonants
Kolaches are a traditional Czech pastry, popular in the immigrant communities in Oklahoma and Texas. Pronounced ko-lah-chee (or ko-lah-key), kolache is the plural of kolach. The individual pastries were originally made with a fruit or poppy-seed filling baked into an indentation in the center of a fluffy, sweet, yeast-risen dough. And, yes, they're as good as they sound. Maybe even better.
But Texans do not live by treats alone; at Johnny Kolache, we
specialize in varieties filled with meat, sausage and cheese. Back
in the old country, these were called klobasnek; the name arising from
the use of a Czech sausage called klobasa, a relative of the more
famous Polish kielbasa. Once the Texans got hold of the idea, it was
only a matter of time before other ingredients were added to the
list, including jalapeños. Lucky for you,
we're not sticklers for detail, so you only have to remember one
word: kolache.
