Making Pierogies!

Last weekend I made pierogies one of my families favorites. I don’t make them from scratch too often, we usually just eat Mrs. T’s frozen ones. But homemade are sooo good! It’s really not has hard as you would think, maybe just a little time consuming. A cold wintry day or a dreary rainy one is a great day to make a huge batch and freeze them for later use!

These two pics are the potato ones.
I usually make half potato and half sauerkraut. I got 75 out of this batch. 39 sauerkraut and 36 potato. This time I added a little bit of grated cheddar cheese to the mashed potatoes! Notice the edges are turned or fluted. Potato get that.

These two pics are the sauerkraut. Look at the edges again. They get sealed with the fork. This way we know which ones we are getting on our plate!                                                       

Boil the piergoies just a few minutes until they come to the top and saute onions in melted butter and here you have it, the finished product! Of course there is always the do you lightly brown them in melted butter or just pour the melted butter and onions over top of the boiled ones dilemma. They really are better browned up but that’s an extra step an an extra pan, so it just all depends on the mood momma’s in:) These are brown as The Thinker loves his that way and he was visiting that day.

Of course you can’t forget the sour cream! I have to have a spoon of that with every bite of pierogie!

Here’s the recipe:

4 1/2 cups all purpose flour
2 tsp. salt
2 cups/1 pint sour cream
2 tbls. melted butter
2 eggs + 1 yolk
2 tbls. oil

Mix together in large bowl and divide in 2 sections and roll out on floured counter. Try to roll them fairly thin. Cut into circles. I just use a glass. You can make them very small or larger. 

fillings:

Mashed potatoes w/wo cheese  (you can make these a head of time, you want them cold to fill)

Sauerkraut    (I simmer the sauerkraut for a while in the morning and then drain in a colander as you don’t want it too wet.)

or whatever you like for your filling, these two are pretty traditional fillings.

Take each circle and place small amount in center and fold over turnover style and seal. Really it just practice to see how much you want in the filling. Too stuffed and dough too thin they might pop open in the boiling step and you will lose your innards:)

Some people eat them with spaghetti sauce but that ruins them for me. I don’t think polish people eat them that way. A polish woman taught my mom to make them and they used melted butter and onions and sour cream and we got them at a little polish restaurant in Harbor Springs MI. and they were tiny and had butter and onions and sour cream. They were delicious, but way too small for me! I love pierogies!

This post is linked to Beth Fish Read’s!