I love making perogies for Easter. It just seems right. I wanted to make two kinds this year both fillings based on mashed potatoes as the main ingredient. I boiled some diced and peeled Yukon gold potatoes until tender. I use Yukon golds because when riced, they are creamy and not as grainy as Idaho potatoes.
I make the dough in advance because it must be refrigerated for a couple hours. The dough has sour cream in it and is a nice smooth pliable dough to work with.
The only time I use jarred sauerkraut is for pierogies. The flavor is mellow and it is the perfect consistency.
This is the dough just before being refrigerated.
My pierogie pal is finding it tough to wake up to work on the assembly line this morning.
You can tell this by the fact that there is some flour on the floor which she has not noticed yet.
For filling number one, I diced up some onion and sauteed it in butter just until soft.
She's awake!
Oops....not for long!
Stay awake puppy....I have the feeling something will hit the floor soon.
As soon as the onions have softened, I mix them with half of the riced potatoes and add mild cheddar cheese and chopped bacon which I prepared earlier. The Blog Tech left out some of the steps. I am not holding it against him. Today is opening day for baseball and he has a one track mind. BASEBALL.. BASEBALL.. BASEBALL!!!
The top bowl is cabbage for a dish I will post tomorrow. The filling on the lower left is the potato, cheese, onion and bacon.The filling on the lower right is potato. sauerkraut and pepper.
The filling should be at room temperature. Now it is time to roll out the dough and form the pierogies. The dough should be rather thin, about 1/8th inch.
Using a small ice cream scoop, you place a bit of filling along the length of dough and fold the dough over the filling.
I use a biscuit cutter to cut out each one. Then the edges are crimped between your fingers.
I place each one on a well floured surface as I work.
When crimping the edges you must be sure to seal the entire perimeter. You do not want these opening when they are boiled.The process is repeated until you run out of dough or filling or both.
I then refrigerate them just so they firm up a bit before taking the plunge.
This year I taught the Blog Tech how to make them.
He is such a good Polish boy. He made them perfectly. Hey Blog Tech! Get a hair cut! Love, mama.
The pierogies are dropped into boiling salted water and cooked until they float. As they are removed from the boiling water, they are placed in a bowl of melted butter with a bit of sour cream beaten in and completely coated. This is important or else they will stick together and you will end up with a pierogie loaf. Not a good thing.
Potato and cheese on the left. Sauerkraut and potato on the right. Teddy licking the floor!*** HEY! Don't forget to enter the giveaway for the brass candlesticks by clicking on the button on the sidebar!
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