Other Ethnic Food
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Pierogis - old family recipe.
Pierogis
It helps to have an assembly line with teams to divide the work. This also helps
because you tend to have several 'operations' going at the same time. In
general, you can start with the filling (so you have the water from the potatoes
for the dough). Then make the dough. From there, you form your assembly line.
You'll pretty much want people rolling dough, stuffing and sealing and boiling
at the same time.
The filling:
5 lbs potatoes
1 lb cottage cheese - drained
2 medium onions - chopped fine
Peel, cut and boil the potatoes, as you would for mashed potatoes. Fry the
onions until golden brown. Drain the potatoes, but retain some of the water for
the dough. Mash the potatoes dry, don't be tempted to add milk to the mixture,
it needs to be dry. Towards the end of the mashing process, add the cottage
cheese and onions and mix until combined.
As with any recipe, there are options. Some saurkraut, cooked a short time, can
be added to the filling. We've also tried with kielbasa. If you add sausage,
make sure you cook it and chop it fine.
The dough:
6 cup flour
4 tsp salt
4 Tbsp oil
2 eggs
about 1 cup water - Grandma used the water from the boiled potatoes.
In a bowl, combine flour with salt. Beat together eggs, water and oil, then stir
into flour mixture to make soft but not sticky dough that holds together in a
ball. If necessary, add 1 Tbsp more water at a time, being careful not to make
dough sticky. Turn out dough onto a floured surface and knead until smooth.
The assembly:
Depending on your work surface, take either all or part of the dough and roll it
out until it is 1/16" thick (the thickness is important). Use plenty of flour to
prevent sticking. Use a sharp cutter to cut circles about 3" in diameter.
Add about a heaping teaspoon of filling to the center of each dough circle. Then
take your finger, dip it in warm water and coat the edge of half the pierogi
circle with water. Fold the opposite dough edge over and stretch it over to the
wet edge. Either pinch or use a fork to seal the edges. Make sure no filling has
gotten on the sealing edge or it will leak. If the pierogi looks to thin, you
can dip the thin surface in flour before placing into the water.
Cooking:
Once again, you have some choices here. My family always boiled the pierogis,
but I've had them fried as well. In either case you start with at least one
large pot of boiling salted water and you'll cook in batches.
Carefully drop the pierogis into the boiling water and watch for them to float.
Stir gently to prevent perogies from sticking together or to bottom of pan. If
you're going to fry them, you can remove them when they float. If you're going
to boil them, let them cook for 5 minutes after they float.
The other stuff:
4 large onions
Sour cream
We always served the pierogis with fried onions and sour cream. You'll have to
cook them in batches, so we while you're boiling the pierogis, you'll want to
start frying onions. I like them cut thin, but not diced. Fry in butter until
golden brown. Try to have some onions done by the time the first batch of
pierogis are done. Spread some of the onion/butter mixture on the bottom of a
deep baking pan. Place the pierogis into the pan and layer with onions. If you
do this right, you can layer the onions and pierogis and they won't stick. Keep
the pan in the oven on warm until ready to serve.
I always remember making pierogis being a big party. I'm pretty sure it's
important you have some gin or vodka on hand, so the cooks are properly
hydrated/marinated.