Pierogies

A post on the Being A Broad forum prompted me to hunt for my pierogi recipe but I couldn’t find it. The recipe below is a combination of online recipes and my own adjustments. They are good; we enjoyed them for dinner tonight. Tod says they are the best he’s had in years, which is probably true, pierogies are impossible to find in Tokyo. Jim suggested we call them “Scranton-fu Gyoza” in honor of our childhood stomping ground.

Pierogies
Makes about 2 dozen large or 3 dozen small

1 cup “hard” all-purpose flour (plus some for rolling)
3/4 cup “soft” cake flour
2 eggs
3/4 tsp salt
1/4 cup water
2 Tblsp butter
1 cup onion, minced very fine
4 potatoes, peeled and cut in quarters
1/2 cup cottage cheese
salt and pepper to taste
1 onion, sliced
4 Tblsp butter

Stir together flours in a bowl. In a separate bowl, mix eggs, water and salt. Make a well in the flour and add egg mixture, gradually incorporating flour until a soft dough forms. Transfer dough to a lightly floured work surface and knead, adding only as much additional flour as needed to keep dough from sticking, until smooth and elastic, about 8 minutes. (Dough will be soft.) Cover with plastic wrap and let rest at room temperature at least 30 minutes.

While the dough is resting, make the filling.

Boil the potatoes in salted water until soft; drain. Cook the minced onion in butter over medium heat until soft and translucent. Mash together potatoes, onion and cottage cheese. Season with salt and pepper.

Flour your work surface. Divide the dough in half and roll it out out thin. Using a cookie cutter or a glass, cut rounds about 4” across for large pierogies or 2.5” for smaller pierogies. You can re-roll the scrap dough, but the gluten really gets going and your pierogies will get tough and chewy if you work the dough too much. Any extra dough can be cut into strips and boiled as noodles.

Drop about a tablespoon of filling into the center. Fold the dough together to form a half-moon. (Bringing both edges up, rather than folding one side over, lets the dough stretch evenly and pulls it off the rolling surface at the same time.) Be sure that the filling is all inside and not on the edges, then wet your fingers or a fork and pinch the edges closed. Set aside on a floured paper towels until you’re ready to boil them.

Repeat with the remaining dough and filling.

Boil the pierogies in salted water for approximately 10 minutes…they will increase in size and float to the surface of the pot as they cook. As they boil, saute onion slices in butter until translucent. Remove the pierogies from the water, drain and add to the onions. Pan fry until light brown. Serve with buttered, boiled cabbage and the scrap noodles (this is called haluski).

The uncooked pierogies can be frozen. Just boil them straight from the freezer.

Posted by kuri at March 04, 2004 09:48 PM