|HOME|FEATURES|HERITAGE| CULTURE_PAGE|POLISH_FOOD|

Heritage: Culture/Food

Polish Recipe Box

Pierogi: Dough, sour cream From: Janice Chlosta Bonk My favorite dough for pierogi that I got from a Polish friend years ago: Ingredients: 5-1/2 cups unsifted flour 1 tsp. salt 3 eggs, slightly beaten 1 pint Sour Cream A nice pliable dough. This recipe will give you 5-6 dozen pirogi, depending on the size of your pirogi. For those who have never made pirogi, here's a step-by-step procedure -- Preparation: Roll out some dough on floured surface. Don't roll it out too thick. Cut out circles. (NOTE: Some years ago I got a Pasta Maker and that's the way to go cuz everything goes faster. Just cut off about a 1/2 to 3/4" thick piece of dough and run it through Past Maker Setting 1, then again at Setting 3 and finally at setting of 5. Lay out that strip of dough and cut out your circles.) Take a circle and put a heaping teaspoon of your filling into the middle of your dough circle. Dip your finger into a cup of water and moisten half the edge of the circle. Then bring up lower half of circle to meet moistened half and seal together with your fingers. If you find your fingers sticking to the dough while doing this, dip them into a handy cup of flour. Then pinch the edges together. Be very careful not to do this with your fingernails or you'll puncture the dough. Lay the completed pirog on a floured surface. Repeat process with all your dough circles. When you have a good number of them made you can start cooking them. Before making the pirogi, put on a BIG POT of water on the stove to boil. Put some salt and couple of slices of oleo into the water. Don't have the water boiling too vigorously while cooking the pirogi -- just gently. The keyword in making pirogi is GENTLY! GENTLY slide into the water 12-15 pirogi. Then, with a long wooden spoon, GENTLY stir until all the pirogi rise to the top. GENTLY boil for 7 minutes. HAVE READY: 2 bowls filled with cold water. After the 7 minutes are up then, with a large, plastic, perforated ladle spoon (found on at Lechter's which is ideal), GENTLY take out the pirogi and place into one bowl of cold water. Then immediately (gently) transfer the pirogi into the second bowl of cold water. Let them sit until your next group of pirogi have cooked and then put the cooled pirogi into a colander to drain. Keep repeating this process until all the pirogi are cooked and cooled. Remember, the key phrase is "Gently does it!" Depending upon the size of your pirogi, as a rule a dozen pirogi can be stored in a 1-qt. size Ziploc heavy freezer bag. One-half dozen can be stored in pint sized bags. Freezes well. TO EAT: I think most people just warm the pirogi in the oven with layers of butter/oleo over them. We love to FRY the pirogi slowly until golden brown in combination of oleo and cooking oil. Eat to your heart's content. Try it - you might like it!! Fillings for your pierogi: You can make this with only saurkraut or half saurkraut and head of fresh cabbage, or just fresh cabbage. Fresh cabbage should be par-boiled and cored. Better yet, before hand, put head of fresh cabbage into your freezer. When ready to make pirogi, thaw out the frozen fresh cabbage and it'll already be soft enough to work with without par-boiling same. Saurkraut: 4 big cans saurkraut (for 5-6 dozen pirogi). Put into big pot, cover w/water and parboil a couple of times so it wouldn't be too sour (unless you like it real sour). Pour out into sieve, pour cold water over it, and press out all the water best as you can. Put saurkraut through your food grinder along with some saltine crackers (crackers help to absorb excess moisture of kraut). In a Dutch oven, put in 1-1/2 sticks oleo; melt down. Add 2 handfuls of sauted onions into kraut and mix in well. Salt & pepper to taste. Fresh cabbage or half fresh/half saurkraut: Do as you would using just saurkraut. You can also cook some dried Polish mushrooms, grind them up and mix into your cabbage filling. Cheese Fillings: Hard Farmers Cheese. I have used various cheese fillings over the years but the one my menfolk like the best is made with the real, hard farmer's cheese. Some places do not carry it but if you have a Polish Deli in your vicinity, you should be able to get it there. You could even get your Polish dried mushrooms there as well. The cheese is hard so you have to break it up and crumble it in your bowl. To the crumbled up farmers cheese (3-4 packages of it), add 1 egg, 1 heaping cup sauted onions, salt and pepper to taste. Should make 5 dozen pirogi. Cheese & Potato: Ingredients: 4 packets farmer's cheese (it's much softer than the real hard farmer's cheese) 12 oz. low-fat cottage cheese (the dryest kind you can find) Plain mashed potatoes 1 egg Sauted onions Salt & Pepper Preparation: Cook 3 large potatoes. Mash good w/3 big wooden spoonfuls of sauted onions, salt and pepper to taste. Add this to your cheese, mixing well. Add 12 oz. low-fat cottage cheese, mix in well together. Mix in 1 egg, salt and pepper to taste. If mixture is still rather too soft and you have no more mashed potatoes on hand, you can mix in 1/2 packet of Idaho Granule Dry Potato Mix. Easily makes 6 dozen pirogi. Recipes handed down by my maternal grandmother - Helena Banas Janas - who was born in Rozanka, Markuszowa in what was then under Austrian rule and known as Galicia instead of Poland. (Area of Tulkowice and Rzeszow). Settled in Chicopee, MA. Cheese & Potato filling recipe was hers. The other variations were from my mother and the ones with only the real hard farmer's cheese is mine. My Surnames: Bonk, Chlosta, Janas, Banas and Kusek