A Lost Art

We all know someone who knows someone who can give us the hook up with awesome home-made church pierogies, don't we? Me... not so much. So that puts me at a small disadvantage in my quest for deliciously and meticulously prepared authentic pastries and dough-packed goodness. My husband, who hails from a very traditional Polish family, was absolutely thrilled when I took up the lost art of pierogi slingin.' The beautiful thing about them is you can literally stuff anything under the sun in them. The recipes below just include how I most often make them. They're a lot of work, but nothing compares!

YIELD: about 6 dozen (using a 3" cutter)

TOTAL TIME: about 3-4 hours (if you use all the dough)

if you make larger pierogies, the time is cut down considerably, but smaller ones are easier to manage.

I happened to be making beer brats with sauerkraut this weekend, so I cooked extra sauerkraut to use as a filling, as well as a potato filling. You can use any myriad of ingredients for fillings, but here are my potato and kraut recipes:

POTATO FILLING

peeled, diced red skin potatoes (5 or 6, medium sized)

3 slices bacon, chopped

1/2 small onion, diced

2 cloves garlic, minced

2 or 3 tblsp butter

1/2 cup sour cream

1/2 cup shredded cheddar

cracked black pepper, to taste

complete season, to taste

onion powder, to taste

garlic powder, to taste

etc, etc

saute bacon in a pan with the onions until tender and almost done. add minced garlic and saute a few minutes more. drain and set aside.

boil potatoes and drain when tender. mix/mash potatoes in a bowl with butter, then add sour cream and mix/mash till smooth. add bacon mix, cheese, and seasonings and blend thoroughly. cover and set aside for pierogies.

SAUERKRAUT FILLING

1 bag sauerkraut

2 tblsp butter

4 slices bacon, chopped

1 med. onion, diced

1 teaspoon garlic powder (if not used in brats)

1 teaspoon onion powder (if not used in brats)

pepper to taste (if not used in brats)

With Brats:

2 bottles dark beer

5 brats

1 teaspoon garlic powder

1 teaspoon onion powder

1/2 teaspoon cracked pepper

1 teaspoon red pepper flakes (opt'l)

If making brats and beer kraut, like I did:

Put beer, kraut (with a little bit of juice, not all), chopped onion, red pepper flakes, gp, and brats in a large pot. Cover and boil until brats are cooked through, stirring occasionally, about 10 or 15 minutes. Remove brats and wipe off any kraut on them and grill them when ready.

Continue to simmer the kraut for another 10 minutes or so, stirring occasionally.

Remove about 1/2 the sauerkraut with a slotted spoon, put it in the bowl, and set aside. Leave the remaining kraut to serve with the brats. Then saute kraut mix as written below.

If you don't want to make the kraut with brats and beer first, just drain the kraut (1/2 bag... rinse it if you don't like any bitterness or strong flavor)... and proceed as follows:

Melt 2 tblsp butter in a large non-stick pan. Add bacon and onions (if you didn't use them in brats mix). Saute for a few minutes and then add the kraut and continue sauteing until bacon is cooked, but not crisp.

Season how you like with gp, op, pepper, etc. Remove with a slotted spoon to a bowl. Use a paper towel to soak up any crazy excess grease. Cover and set aside.

MUSHROOM GRAVY

1 pint white mushrooms, halved, and sliced

1 small onion, diced

4 tblsp. butter

1 cup sour cream

1 can beef broth

cracked black pepper

seasoning to taste

flour (1 tblsp at a time)

milk (if needed)

Saute mushrooms and onions in a pan with melted butter. When tender, add mixture to a medium saucepan. Add sour cream, beef broth, cracked pepper and other seasonings to taste. Simmer on med-low heat about 5 minutes, stirring often. Then whisk in 1 tblsp flour if needed to thicken sauce. Continue to simmer and stir 5-7 mins until sauce is right consistency. As needed: If sauce is too thin, add flour (1 tblsp. at a time). If too thick, add a little milk to thin it out. Serve over cooked pierogies.

PIEROGI DOUGH

3 eggs, room temperature

1/4 cup sour cream, room temp.

3/4 cup whole milk, room temp.

1/4 cup butter, softened

1/2 tsp. salt

5 1/2 cups flour

1/2 stick butter, softened

1 egg, beaten in a small glass (egg wash)

*For any who don't already know, you want all your ingredients to be at room temp. If they're not, crazy things will happen to your eggs when you put them in.

In a large bowl, beat eggs, sour cream, butter, milk, and salt with an electric mixer. Add flour and mix with hands until thoroughly blended into a soft dough. Leave the dough in the bowl, cover, and put in a warm place to rest for about 5 mins.

Then, knead dough for 10 minutes. Divide into 4 balls. Grease each with butter to prevent them from drying out and leave them in the bowl until ready to use.

MAKING THE PIEROGIES

what you need
• large wooden flour board
• rolling pin
• something suitable for cutting the circles out. a large mouth glass that is about 3" diameter will make about 6 dozen small pierogies. if you use a larger cutter, your pierogies will be larger and you'll cut a lot of time out since you're making less. fiy, small ones are easier to pan cook (they don't fall apart as easily).
• flour for board and pin
• butter (softened)
• large bowl
• basting brush for egg wash
• fork

• trays with wax paper/plastic wrap/foil.. whatev. (if freezing)

Lightly flour your board and pin. Take 1 ball of dough and shape with your hands into a rectangle, or square if your board is square. Start rolling out the dough, making sure to roll each time in all directions so the dough spreads evenly. Pick up dough once in a while to re-flour the work surface and pin. Anytime the dough starts to stick to the pin or the board, flour them. Roll the dough out as thin as you can without the dough being too thin that it will rip. If you don't roll the dough thin enough, you'll have really thick-doughy pierogies... and they'll suck.

Use the mouth of a large glass or other suitable round cutter to cut circles into your dough. Discard leftover dough into bowl to re-blend later.

Line all your circles up on your board and go over all the edges with the egg wash. This will help seal them. Spoon a small amount of filing in the center of each pierogi, about a tblsp. Too much and you wont be able to close them. Remove excess if needed.

Fold edges together into 1/2 moons and lightly pinch shut. Seal with the tines of a floured fork.

Set on a tray lined with wax paper/foil/plastic wrap. If you're going to freeze them, throw them in the freezer on the tray until frozen. Then put them in a freezer bag. They'll stick like hell if you don't freeze them BEFORE putting them in a bag.

TO RECYCLE THE DOUGH:

Take all your dough scraps and kneed back together. Use softened butter to help the dough stick back to itself. Then re-roll the dough and make more pierogies.

COOKING:

Boil a large pot of lightly salted water with a can of beef broth (opt'l). Add pierogies and boil them until they float. Remove with a slotted spoon.

When all your pierogies are cooked, you can saute them in butter and onions for about 10 minutes. Make sure you stir them with a heavy PLASTIC spoon. A metal spoon will break your soft pierogies. Serve with mushroom gravy.

I forgot to take pics when i cooked them, but here's my tiny, messy kitchen.

The End.