It's pierogi time! Probably the most well-known Polish dish, pierogi are one of the national dishes of Poland. Also, by the way, pierogi is already plural. You don't have to add an "s." Traditionally, they are made and eaten by Polish families on Christmas Eve, so I decided I was going to make some for lunch for Chris's family since we were there visiting.
Pierogi are essentially dumplings, so they start the same way: flour with a little salt mixed in.
Into the well in the center goes some melted butter and milk.
After that, you a little warm water at a time and knead until a nice soft dough forms. And then you let it rest.
While the dough rested, I boiled my potatoes for the filling. I forgot to peel the potatoes before boiling, so I ended up burning my fingerprints off trying to peel them afterwards because I'm too impatient to wait. That's also why they look like weird flesh zeppelins (band name, called it) above.
After the dough rested enough, I started rolling it out super thin. Who doesn't bring their pasta roller attachment with them for the holidays?
Using the roller attachment usually means I end up with weirdly shaped panels of dough, which is fine. It does help get things nice and evenly flattened, because every time I roll things out with a rolling pin, there's always spots thicker than others.
Now, the next ingredient for the filling is "farmer cheese." If I was making these back in Vermont, I probably would have just picked up some ricotta and/or goat cheese, because I don't want to have to go to specialty markets for my ingredients. Luckily, Chris's parents live near a town with a large Polish population (there's a Little Poland there) so I was easily able to find it at a local discount supermarket chain.
Farmer cheese is just a soft, mild cheese; it's similar in flavor to ricotta, but firmer, like a sort of wet goat cheese. Sounds enticing, I know.
The potatoes, once mashed, are then accompanied by some sauteed onions and the cheese. This is a standard combination, just potato, cheese, and onion. You can basically add anything you want to them, but this is the classic.
The dough is then cut into circles and a spoonful of filling is placed into the center of each one.
The edges are then moistened with a bit of water, then folded over and pinched together. I was quite surprised that only a couple of these tore as I was handling them; I tried to keep the dough a little thicker than the paper thin sheets I sometimes end up with when I use the pasta roller. I think the thickness ended up perfectly fine: nice and chewy but still soft.
After folding and pinching, the pierogi are then simply boiled for a few minutes in a pot of salted water. Once they're out, you have to make sure they don't stick to each other by basically bathing them in butter. Not the healthiest, but hey these are literally pockets of starch and dairy. Delicious. I served mine with a dollop of sour cream and a sprinkling of dried herbs on top. I was too tired at the end of this process to fry any of them up and add onions on top, as was my plan with half of these, but I still enjoyed them as is. Chris's sister did end up frying some with onions and they looked great. I started these in the morning and served them for lunch, and everyone seemed to like them. The best comment was from Chris's dad: "They taste like real pierogis." High praise.
Recipes Used: Polish Pierogi
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