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OT - Pierogies; Input on this simple recipe?

KiterTodd
KiterTodd Posts: 2,466
edited March 2018 in EggHead Forum
We have frozen pierogies a couple times a month. It's an easy mid-week meal served up with some smoked sausage or kielbasa.  I've tried buying fresh pierogies from local markets, but honestly, don't find them much different than the Mrs. T's we buy.

After my luck making Pulled Pork Pasties this past weekend, I decided to give Pierogies a try ...mainly because I saw a recipe on DDD that looked simple and delicious. 

Any feedback on this recipe for the dough?  Sorry, I don't know which episode it was.

4 cups flour
1 cup sour cream
2 eggs.

Mix it all up by hand.  Let it sit 15-20 minutes.  Pull off a 1" ball and roll out to fill.  (the stuffing in the episode was a mixture of cooked potatoes, shredded cheddar and a lot of butter)

I like minimum ingredient recipes that don't require shopping and are easily prepared.  This looks like one of them.  :)
LBGE/Maryland

Comments

  • gdenby
    gdenby Posts: 6,239
    Coming from a family where most of the women made them by hand, and a town where every other tavern served them, Mrs. T's are only pierogies in the vaguest sense.

    I've tried a few times. I too used a recipe w. sour cream. The dough wasn't bad, but my attempts at folding and crimping were ludicrous. And my potato filling turned into glue. Don't know why.

    My elder daughter takes after her grandma, and cooks really well. Still is not happy at all w. what she's tried. She has been happiest w. ones she made using wonton wrappers. My younger son, a cook, made some decent ones, but wished he'd had a press for forming them.

    There aren't many places in town that still make good ones. The best, produced by a sweet elder lady, have malted barley flour in the dough, like some NY style pizza dough. They are marvelously light.

    Pierogies do not have cheddar. Well, ok, they can, but its just not right. Dry farmer's cheese, think gooey, rather heavy cottage cheese is the what is still sold in markets around here.

    Mushroom filling is at the top. My wife's dad and buddies went mushroom hunting on all their days off.

    Fry bacon. Sauté onions in the fat. Set both aside, and fry the pierogies. Serve w. sour cream.

    And lastly, if you can make the finest, thinnest dough, fill it w. fruit preserves for a dessert. Bliss.
  • KiterTodd
    KiterTodd Posts: 2,466
    This is a different recipe (water and salt instead of sour cream), but goes into more details on technique;
    Homemade Perogies

    And here's a video they also included;
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3fycIz6HtQ&feature=youtu.be


    LBGE/Maryland
  • Botch
    Botch Posts: 15,432
    Stuffing pasta with potatoes has never appealed to me.  :i_dunno:
    _____________

    "I mean, I don't just kill guys, I'm notorious for doing in houseplants."  - Maggie, Northern Exposure


  • gdenby
    gdenby Posts: 6,239
    Typically, the potato filling is about as much butter or cheese as 'tater. Very smooth, not clumpy like some mashed potatoes. My family mostly made kraut filled, but myself, I hated cooked cabbage, even sour cabbage. My preference is cheese and onion.
  • blasting
    blasting Posts: 6,262

    My family made the vareniki version of perogies.  These (in my house growing up) consisted of a partial plum inside, and topped with a little white sugar.  My favorite is cottage cheese filled, and topped with sausage gravy.  Of course these are eaten with the homemade sausage as an accompaniment.  I prefer to finish with the plum ones, since they are sweeter. 

    This was a "mom thing" up until this year.  I finally made them with her this year, so I guess the torch has been passed.  The link below shows pics, although not mine it gives an idea.


    https://natashaskitchen.com/2013/07/07/plum-vareniki-plum-pierogies/

    Phoenix 
  • DoubleEgger
    DoubleEgger Posts: 17,125
    edited March 2018
    KiterTodd said:


    I like minimum ingredient recipes that don't require shopping and are easily prepared.  This looks like one of them.  :)
    This is exactly why pierogies exist. 
  • KiterTodd
    KiterTodd Posts: 2,466
    Wanted to close the loop on this off topic post as I got some good responses and links that helped me along.  I DID indeed make pierogies last week. Was a fun thing to do with the kids.  They did most of the work, it made for some inconsistent looking pierogies, but I'd definitely do it again.

    First off, my takeaway from this is to make ahead and then reheat in a pan for dinner service. Awesome!

    So, we made them for dinner, followed the simple 4/1/2 recipe I posted up top and that mostly worked.  I had to add a little more SC and a little bit of water at the end to get everything to incorporate. But it was a dry, non-sticky, dough ball that seemed to match what I saw online.

    The night we made them, they were good, but the dough seemed a little thick. I attributed that to rushing through it with kids and not rolling/pressing all pieces out as thin as I wanted.  Good results.  Maybe not better than store-bought...

    ...THEN! We made them the following night for dinner and heated up the prior days work in a pan with butter.  Holy crap were they good!  Much better than anything I've store bought.  The dough kind of merged with our potato cheese filling and you did not notice it.  They also got a nice little crisp in the second cook that changed the flavor profile and texture.  Really liked them.



    I also tried to make some with cottage cheese, but I couldn't find "dry" cottage cheese anywhere.  Does that just mean cheese curds?  I tried draining regular cottage cheese but the result was a wet filling that I could not get into one of these little dough pockets.  Next time!
    LBGE/Maryland
  • My Mom is 100% Polska.  Her grandma made them, but my mom had trouble with the dough.  I've always went with won ton wrappers.
    Flint, Michigan