Daring Cooks: Pierogi

The August 2010 Daring Cooks’ Challenge was hosted by LizG of Bits n’ Bites and Anula of Anula’s Kitchen. They chose to challenge Daring Cooks to make pierogi from scratch and an optional challenge to provide one filling that best represents their locale.

Daring Cooks again! YAY! I love doing these daring cooks challenges, because they are usually just that: a challenge. Super fun! And my family likes it too, cause they get to eat something new and exciting. This month's challenge was pierogi which was perfect because Becky had asked me to make those a couple weeks ago and I never got around to it. I made two kinds: Potato/cheese and Meat/cabbage. I liked both of them, however I felt like the potato cheese one went over better. Although if you don't want to eat just carbs and cheese for dinner, I recommend the meat one. There are a bazillion types of Pierogis, so feel free to experiment with it as well!

Pierogis

From the Daring Cooks

Dough
2 to 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 large egg
1 teaspoon salt
About 1 cup lukewarm water

Potatoes and Cheese

3 big potatoes, cooked & mashed (1 1/2 cup instant or leftover mashed potatoes is fine too)
1 cup cottage cheese, drained
1 onion, diced & sauteed in butter until clear
3 slices of streaky bacon, diced and fried till crispy (you can add more bacon if you like or omit that part completely if you’re vegetarian)
1 egg yolk (from medium egg)
1 tablespoon butter, melted
1/4 teaspoon salt
pinch of pepper to taste

Meat and cabbage
200 g cooked meat (minced or cut very finely)
500 g white cabbage (chopped and simmered in a little bit of water, until soft)
1 onion (diced and fried)
1 whole medium egg1 tablespoon butterdry breadcrumbs (add as much to hold the filling together, about 2 tablespoons)
salt and pepper

To make the dough, combine the flour and salt together in a pie dish. Make a well in the center of the flour and crack the egg into it. Using your hands, or a fork if you don't want to touch the egg, combine the flour and egg together. Then slowly add in the water. The water amount is a guesstimation, you might need more or less. Form the dough into a ball, cover with a towel and let rest for half an hour. To make the Potato/cheese filling, just combine all of the ingredients together! (That's a great idea Daring Cooks had, putting the cooking instructions in the ingredient list! Me likey!) Same goes for the meat/cabbage filling.

When you've got the fillings put together, prepare an assembly line situation. If you can, recruit you're family to help. Roll the dough out thinly and cut out circles using a glass or cookie cutter. The size doesn't really matter, it's mostly just personal preference. Put a small amount of the filling in the center of the circle and close the sides up. Seal them with your fingers, but make sure they are sealed all the way, or else the filling will just fall right out. I went around the edges of the potato cheese ones witha fork so that I would be able to tell them apart. You can also use a pierogi form, but hey, where's the fun in that?

After all the pierogis are constructed it's time to boil them. Bring a deep saucepan or a wide pot of water to a boil and then drop the pierogis into the water in batches. I did about 5 pierogis per batch. When they rise to to the top, set a timer for 5 minutes. When the timer goes off, take them out of the water and let them dry off a bit. When you've boiled all the pierogis you can go ahead and eat them. OR you can go one step further and fry them. (DO IT!) Wait until the pierogis have cooled then fry them on both sides with butter. They should be lightly brown and crispy. Nowwwww you can eat them. Frying them makes them like 10 times better. Not even kidding.

XOXO

Natalie