It’s National Pierogi Day on October 8th, and if you don’t know what a pierogi is, well, are you missing out!
A popular Polish dish, the pierogi (or in Ukraine, varenyky) is a tasty flour-and-egg dumpling filled with your choice of meat, potatoes, cheese, onions, practically anything you fancy in fact.
Pierogis can vary from simple, potato and cheese-stuffed versions to pierogi stuffed with rare wild mushrooms or salmon, or sweet flavours such as tangy plum.
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The idea of pierogi (or pierogis, either plural will do) is that they are cheap, carbohydrate-rich, high-calorie foods for manual labourers such as field workers – sort of the Polish equivalent of the Cornish pastie. Pierogi have been around since the days of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, a dualistic European state that existed from the 16th to the 18th centuries. Cheap and easy to make, pierogi quickly became one of the most popular dishes of the region, and today they’re enjoyed as snacks or full meals all around the world.
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Mrs. T’s, a frozen pierogi brand, founded National Pierogi Day in 2008, but the typical pre-processed supermarket pierogi has little in common with the real thing except for its shape, so try making your own or asking a Polish friend to treat you to a real hand-made version. Here’s a straightforward recipe for a simple cheese-and-potato version.
Pierogi are often served with melted butter, sour cream, fried bacon crumbles, sautéed mushrooms and onions or green onion.
Basic Polish Pierogi
Ingredients:
Dough:
- 3 cups flour
- 1 cup warm water
- 1 egg
Filling:
- 750g potatoes
- 2 large onions, finely chopped
- 1 tablespoon butter
- 250 grams farmer’s cheese
- Salt and pepper to taste
Method
- Peel the potatoes and boil them in salted water till soft, then drain and mash, set aside to cool. Cook the onion in the butter over medium-low heat until fragrant.
- Add the farmer’s cheese to the potatoes, and the onions as well. Combine well, and add as much salt and pepper as you like.
- In another large bowl, combine the flour, the egg, and the warm water, kneading until you have a smooth dough.
- Roll it out until it’s about 1/8″ thick and use a large glass to cut out circles of it.
- Place one large teaspoon of the filling in the middle of each dough circle and seal the circle well, using a bit if water if needed to make sure the edges stick. Cook in batches of 10-12 in salted water for 7-10 minutes or until they float to the surface.
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