Kishka (food)

Kishka or kishke (Polish: kiszka; Russian: кишка, kishka; Ukrainian: кишка, kyshka; Yiddish and Hebrew: קישקע, kishke), is a Slavic word meaning "gut", or "intestine", which lends its name to varieties of sausage or pudding (see kaszanka). The cooked kishke can range in color from grey-white to brownish-orange, depending on how much paprika is used.

Kishke in Eastern European cuisine
The Eastern European kishka is a blood sausage made with pig's blood and buckwheat or barley, with pig's intestines used as a casing. It is traditionally served at breakfast.

Kishke in Jewish cuisine
The Jewish (specifically Ashkenazi) kishke is traditionally made from a kosher beef intestine stuffed with matzo meal, rendered fat (schmaltz) and spices. Blood is not used, as it is forbidden by kashrut.

In recent times edible synthetic casings often replace the beef intestines. Home cooks also often use kosher poultry neck skin to stand in for the intestines; it is cut, the bones removed, stuffed, and sewn up with an edible thread. Such kishke is often used as an ingredient in cholent, and this form is more usually referred to as "helzel".

Kishke is available in some kosher butcheries and delicatessens; in Israel it is available in the frozen-food section of most supermarkets.

There are also vegetarian Kishka recipes. 

"Who stole the kishka?"
"Who stole the kishka?" is a traditional polka tune.