RECIPE: Rec: Pierogis

RECIPE:

traca

Well-known member
Here's my recipe that comes from Seattle's Polish Home Association Cookbook.

Food Processor Dough:

2 cups flour

1 egg

1/2 cup warm water

Salt

Add all the ingredients in a food processor and whirl until it forms a ball. Chill the dough for 30 minutes. Divide the chilled dough in two and roll out on a floured surface as thin as possible. Using a 3 inch cookie cutter or a glass, cut out rounds. Place filling in the center, then fold over and pinch the doubh all around, making sure it's sealed tightly.

To roll out the dough, you can also use a pasta machine. Roll ou the dough at indicator 4 for a thin dough.

To cook, fill a large pot with water and add a bit of salt (less for sweet pierogi). Bring to a boil. Drop in the pierogi and stir around gently. When they rise to the top, continue cooking for a few minutes. Garnish with butter and bread crumbs heated and browned in a small skillet.

Fillings:

Meat

2 lbs beef, roasted or boiled

2 slices white bread

1 large onion, chopped

4 tabelspoons butter or bacon drippings

salt & pepper

Grind the meat. Soak bread in water and squeeze out. Add to the meat. Brown onion in butter or bacon drippings and add with the fat to the meat. Season & blend well.

Cheese & Potato Pierogi Filling*

2 large potatoes, cooked in skins

1 cup low-fat ricotta cheese

2 green onions finely chopped

1 small onion, finely chopped and browned in oil

1-2 tsp lemon juice

salt & pepper

Peel cooked potatoes and put them through a ricer. Add cheese, onions, salt & pepper to taste. Makes about 25 pierogi.

* Note: my friend Ala puts crumbled feta in this as well...to taste.

Fruit Filling:

(no recipe, just method)

Fill pierogi with cherries or blueberries. To serve: mix sour cream, lemon juice & sugar to taste. Drizzle over boiled pierogi.

 
Childhood memories were activated by this post.

Friday was always pierogis day at my Baba's house. She would start at the crack of dawn and made what seemed like a gazillion pierogis. After mxing the dough she would fashion it into long ropes. A nugget would be pinch off the rope and using a rolling pin she created a small circle which would be filled with a potato/cheese mixture folded in half and pinched closed. These morsels would be boiled up during the day for the various family members who would drop by for this delicious treat. The pierogis were served dripping with butter and sprinkled with caramelized onions along with dollops of sour cream.

My mother continued the tradition of making pierogis but only for special holidays. Alas, I have never made them...........Perhaps this recipe will give me some encouragement. Diet be damned!!!!

Thanks for the trip down Memory Lane.

 
I totally agree...if we had a babushka, we wouldn't need to make them ourselves! I've cooked with

some of these women, and whoa...they are powerhouses in the kitchen!

 
Sylvia...this is lovely. Here in Seattle I've befriended a Polish family and

it seems they've always got some kind of deliciousness close at hand. People are always dropping by or they've almost always got house guests from Poland or across the country. It's such a wonderful, welcoming environment...

For my friend Ala's wedding, the Polish community made all the food. Four weeks in a row, we'd meet a the Polish hall and make pierogi. I think we made 1,500. It was such a great place to be with all these women laughing, gossiping, a mix of English & Polish. It was so much fun!

 
You knew immediately when Granda E. was visiting our house...I'd walk in

the door from school and perogies would be on every linear surface, including the ironing board!

I don't think babas knew how to make this recipe in numbers smaller than a gazillion. I think the original recipe specified:
Serving Size: Enough for the Huddled Masses.

I'd love to try Traca's version...we never had meat in ours. Just potato/onion or potato/cheese/onion or potato/sauerkraut/onion or sauerkraut/onion...I could go on, but for ease just do the mathematical equation for "number of combinations".

(Note: do not use the equation for "number of permutations", because theoretically there is no difference between sauerkraut/onion and onion/sauerkraut. You're going to have gas either way.)

 
I don't remember having pierogis with meat either. There were the ones with saurcraut and

those with wild mushrooms. Occasionally Baba made them with fruit.

 
We have a group of "older" women at the local Polish church who are called

the pierogi angels. They get together weekly to make pierogs and sell them for $12. doz. to benefit the church.They always run out. THey're also sold at local fairs and for Christmas and Easter. Last year they made something like $80,000.
That's a lot of pierogi!

 
I made pierogies one Christmas for my daughter's class international potluck . . .

I looked at alot of recipes and made some out of potatoes, seasoned with some cabbage and onion, but for the wrappers I used chinese dumpling skins. I did a cross-cultural steam-saute of sorts them tossed them in melted butter an plopped them into a crock pot.

Turns out the kids weren't into them but all the parents there made 'em vanish, and raved about them.

 
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