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Joan's Pierogie

Source of Recipe

Joan


Recipe Introduction

My Mom and Dad are both Polish. I grew up with pierogies from both sides of the family. Russians and Ukraine's make them also. If there are any Polish or Russian communities near you, they can probably be found there. Where I live in upstate NY, just 75 miles north of NYC in the Hudson Valley area, there is a large Polish community called Pine Island. That is where about 80% of the onions that come from NYS is grown. It is all black dirt farm area. Black dirt meaning just that, it is where glaciers melted and left residue millions of years ago. The soil is very rich there and black as coal. They also find a lot of dinosaur skeletons there. Polish people settled there and farmed the land. There are a few Polish groceries there that make homemade pierogies and sell them. They are very good. I have adapted my Grandmothers original recipe as the pierogi dough is very hard to work with as it is elastic and you have to work fast as it will dry out quickly. There are dough's made with sour cream to keep the dough more moist and easier to handle. I don't care for those as the pierogie comes out to pastry like and that's not the way it is supposed to be. I created my own dough recipe that includes some sour cream for ease of handling. I took my Grandmothers recipe for the dough and kept playing with the amount of egg and sour cream till I got it just right. My Mom and Grandmother liked it a lot and they had started to make it that way because it was easier for them as they got older. Make no mistake though, this is time consuming. I only make them a few times a year because when I do make them and the rest of the family finds out I am doing it, I wind up making over 300 of them. I also freeze them for later use. I made them for Thanksgiving ahead of time, froze them and wrapped them well and they went on the plane to Georgia with me. My kids were delighted and surprised. Thanksgiving and Easter is when I usually make them. The recipe I'm giving you will make between 50 and 60 pierogies. Hopefully! It depends how you roll out the dough.

List of Ingredients

Pierogie Dough

3 cups of flour
2 Tablespoons melted butter
1 egg (large)
3 egg yolks (from large eggs)
¼ tsp salt
4 Tablespoons cold water
½ cup of sour cream



Recipe

Put the flour in a large bowl (if you have a kitchen aid mixer you can use that with the dough paddle attachment). Make a well in the flour, add the egg, egg yolks, melted butter, water, salt and sour cream. Mix till dough forms. Take out and knead a few times to make sure everything is mixed in thoroughly. If dough is a bit to sticky, add a little more flour, if to dry, a little more water, a teaspoon at a time. Take the dough cut in half and form into 2 disks. Wrap in plastic wrap and set in a cool place to rest for about 1/2 hour.

Dough should be rolled out to somewhere between 1/16 to 1/8 of an inch thick or about the thickness of a nickel. There are 2 ways to cut the rolled dough. Either in a square so you can cut squares that are 3 inches square or just rolled out so you can take a 3 inch round cutter and cut out
circles. If you have ever made homemade ravioli you can make them that way to. If you use the squares, about 2 teaspoons of filling is placed in the center of the square, then the square is folded over diagonally and the edges sealed by pressing together with your fingers. You must wet the edges of the dough first by dipping your finger in a little water and running your finger over the edges of the square so you will get a good seal. Now this is where you need some room. I take clean towels and spread them on top of my kitchen table. As I make the peirogie, I line them up on the towels. They will dry slightly and that's OK. Don't worry about it.

When all the pierogies are made, bring a large pot of slightly salted water to a boil. Drop the pierogies gently into the boiling water. Do this in batches of 1 dozen. Cook for about 3 min. When they are all floating, they
are usually done. Take them out carefully with a slotted spoon so the water can drain off. Line the hot pierogies back up on the towels to cool. When they are cool, I line large cookie sheet or plastic serving trays with wax paper. Lay the pierogies on the trays in a single layer, cover with more wax paper. Put in the freezer to freeze. After they are frozen, put in freezer Zip Lock bags, label and put back in freezer. When you want to thaw them, separate them and let them thaw. I melt butter in a frying pan and cook till golden brown on both sides. You can fry up onions in advance to serve with them if you wish.

OK now the filling. I don't really follow a recipe to do the filling, I just make it like my Mom always did. I make a few pounds of mashed potatoes. While the potatoes are cooking I melt some 1/2 stick of butter and grate a small onion into the butter and sauté a little bit. When the
potatoes are done, I add this to the potatoes and start whipping the potatoes with an electric hand mixer. Add just a little milk. You don't want the potatoes to soft. I do not as my Mother or Grandmother never used cheddar cheese. I buy about 1 to 1 1/2 pounds of a good American cheese such as Land O Lakes in the deli section of the supermarket. We like the taste better. While the potatoes are hot, start beating in a few slices of cheese at a time. If the potatoes are cooling off and the cheese is not melting, put the pot over low heat and continue mixing in the cheese. Somewhere in-between add a few drops of Tabasco sauce. This will not make the mixture spicy, nor will you taste it. The hot pepper sauce will bring out the cheese flavor more. (You can do this when you make homemade mac n' cheese, does wonders for the dish) When this is done, taste for salt, add if you think necessary. I usually make the filling the night before and put in the fridge overnight. Easier to handle.