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.

This was a really fun challenge for me, although it definitely drove home why I don’t make stuff like this on a regular basis. I just don’t have the patience for the small, fiddly, repetitive parts of the process. By the time I’d made 2 dozen of the potato pierogies, I was pretty much done. I wound up using the rest of the filing as a side dish for dinner that night.

But I was determined to make the bonus/additional round of pierogi with a regional flair, so I persevered and moved to another round of rolling, filling, boiling, and frying. That’s going to be Tuesday’s post, however, so let’s get on with the main challenge!

Start with the dough: I followed the very basic recipe given to the Daring Cooks – nothing more than flour, egg, salt, and water – to come up with a nice smooth dough. It took about 8 mins of kneading to get it to the right texture and then I let it rest for 20 mins.

While the dough rested, I made the potato filling by boiling new potatoes until tender (I left the skins on), sauteeing some onion in a little butter and olive oil, and mixing the mashed potato and onion with cottage cheese.

Then it was time to roll out the dough and bring the two elements together. I have to admit I was worried about working with the dough. I thought it was going to be too elastic to roll out well and so as a result I rolled it a bit thinner than I should have. I also used the large biscuit cutter for my first batch, which turned out very small pierogies. For the 2nd batch, I rolled the dough a bit thicker and used a pint glass, which was the perfect size! (I did find, as someone else in the group pointed out, that every time I re-rolled the scraps, the dough got a little “tougher”.)

Adding a scoop of filling and sealing the pierogies was simple. A couple of times I added a bit too much filling which made them not want to stick, but as I did more of them, I got better about judging the right amount of filling. A finger tip dampened in a little water helped hold the dough, and I finished them off by pressing the edges with a fork.

You can see the difference between the sizes of the two batches – I let them sit for a few minutes while the water came to a full boil. Then I dropped the pierogies into a large pot of boiling water (I used my 3qt dutch oven), about 6-7 at a time. As they began to float, I set the timer for 6 mins, and then gently lifted them out to drain on a rack.

Now I’m not a big fan of boiled/steamed dumplings, so to me these tasted a bit doughy as they were. H assures me they were yummy … and since he always orders steamed dumplings when we go out for Chinese food, I’m taking his word on it. Still, my memories of pierogies always involved pan frying in butter and serving with onions and sour cream. So that was the next step for me!

I know that traditionally they’re fried in butter, but I used a little bit of butter in some olive oil to balance out the fats. A few minutes on each side gave me a deep, rich brown, and then I took them out to drain on a paper towel.

Finally, I served them with a dollop of plain Greek yogurt (in lieu of sour cream) and a sprinkling of parsley. Yum!

A couple of notes for this recipe. I used an unbleached white flour from King Arthur flour which is my standard “all purpose” flour. I found the dough was just a little gummy and doughy tasting, even after frying. For the dessert version and the local filling version, I wound up buying a very soft Southern flour called White Lily. It made a MUCH better dough for this kind of application. (If you don’t live in a state where White Lily is distributed, you can order it online here: http://onlinestore.smucker.com/display_category.cfm?cat_id=63&aid=WWLW07010)

Also I actually boiled the pierogies a few days before I fried them and then stashed them in the fridge in a plastic container. They kept well for 5 days and fried up nicely.

Oh, and finally, as you can tell, I had a lot of fun playing around and photographing these. I couldn’t decide what color I liked the best for a background.

Thanks to the Daring Cooks for encouraging me to push out of my comfort zone … and stay tuned for the 2nd version, which will post next week!

Here are the recipes I used:

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