Pierogi & cooking with Grandma

Whenever I'm in my hometown, Warsaw, I visit my Grandma.  We laugh and chat (usually about latest fashion trends, travels and family gossip) and sip Grandma's homemade chokeberries liqueur ("aroniówka") - deep and smooth in flavor.  We also cook together, just as we did in the old days when I was a little girl and my head barely reached above the kitchen counter.  Grandma is one of the best cooks I know.  Dinners at her place always follow the traditional Polish way of dining: first you get soup, then the main course (accompanied by kompot - a light fruit juice), and then cake for dessert (all homemade of course).   

Grandma is a real fairy when it comes to cooking.  She makes complex traditional dishes in the blink of an eye (as if she'd just waved her magic wand), and everything she prepares is truly delicious.  I think her secret is that she puts a lot of heart into her dishes - she loves cooking and it's the love you taste.  

Stages of pierogi-making

Pierogi are a kind of dumpling - bigger than ravioli, and bursting with delicious stuffing.  You can have sweet versions (e.g. with blueberries or fresh cheese, all served with sweet cream and sugar) or savory ones (e.g. with minced meat, mushrooms & sauerkraut or with potatoes & curd cheese (so called "pierogi ruskie") - featured here).  The secret of good pierogi lies in the dough - it shouldn't be rubbery or tough, but at the same time it should be firm enough to hold the stuffing when the pierogi are boiling.  Grandma's dough strikes a perfect balance - and now that you have the recipe, you can master this art too :)

My absolute favorites among the pierogi family, are the ones with potato and curd cheese, with onion and lean bacon added to the stuffing for that smoky, defined flavor.  Think "goat's cheese and parma ham" and you'll know what flavor combination I mean.  These pierogi are an absolute hit among both Polish and non-Polish people.  I hope you like them as much as I do :)

METHOD

15-20 pierogi - Serves 2 

INGREDIENTS:

Stuffing:

• 1 medium potato, cooked
• a piece (150 - 200 g) of curd cheese (you can use soft goat cheese too)
• 1 onion, finely diced
• 80 g lean smoked bacon, finely diced
• dried marjoram
• salt (freshly ground)
• pepper (freshly ground)

Dough:

• 300 g flour
• 2 heaped tbsp sour cream
• 1 egg yolk
• some warm, boiled water

DIRECTIONS:

• Stuffing: fry the bacon with the onion until golden brown.  Mince the cheese, cooked potato, and fried onion and bacon.  Mix well with a spoon.  Season with freshly ground salt & pepper, and dried marjoram (about 1,5 tsp).  After boiling the pierogi, the stuffing will be less salty/more bland than at this stage, so make sure it's seasoned well (don't over-season though).
• Make the dough by kneading the flour, sour cream and yolk, adding a bit of warm water to get a firm, but smooth dough.  Knead thoroughly, to allow as much air as possible into the dough.
• Sprinkle some flour on your working surface and rolling pin.  Roll out the dough to approx. 1-2 mm thin.  Cut out circles using a glass.  (Repeat the process with the dough left over after cutting out the circles).   
• Stuff each circle with a heaped teaspoon of stuffing, fold the dough over forming a half-moon.  Press together with your fingers, making small curled folds along the edge (you can also use a fork, pressing it to seal the pierogi).
• Cook in boiling, lightly salted water until the pierogi resurface.  Serve with fried onion or lardons.  

Smacznego!

Grandma's pierogi ruskie with fresh apple kompot

Lazy dumplings

It's a truth universally acknowledged that your outlook on things is determined by your position.  It's all relative.  Your point of view depends on the point from where you are viewing.  

The anecdote about the Jew and the goat comes to mind.  A poor Jew had to live in a tiny, shabby house with his large family.  He was very uncomfortable and unhappy, and went to the rabbi to get some advice.  The smart rabbi thought about the problem for a while, and then told the man to buy a goat, and keep it at his house.  The Jew was a bit surprised to hear this advice, but obeyed the rabbi.  After weeks of major struggling and enduring the difficulties that came with fitting the smelly goat in the tiny house, the man came back to the rabbi as agreed.  "Please explain to me, rabbi, how has any of this been of help to my situation?" he asked.  "If anything, I'm even more uncomfortable, I cannot stand the bad smell, there is absolutely no space for us."  The rabbi replied: "Sell the goat and you will see."  The Jew did as advised, and from then on lived happily ever after, now very satisfied with his (objectively unchanged) house.

You're probably thinking: thanks for telling this funny story, but what the heck does this have to do with these dumplings?  Don't worry, I did not buy that goat from the Jew and the dumplings are not made with goat's meat :P

The "it's all relative" philosophy relates to the name of this dish.  The dumplings are strictly speaking called "lazy pierogi".  Pierogi are traditional Polish dumplings -- a bit like big ravioli.  It usually takes ages to prepare them -- first the dough, then the filling, then making every -- single -- perfect dumpling and decorating it in a traditional way.  For the lazy dumplings, however, you simply mix the ingredients and cut them in a gnocchi-like fashion.

And now we come to the gist: the term "lazy" is very relative here.  When in the "good old days" 30-40 minutes in the kitchen would seem like nothing -- a pretty lazy afternoon you could say -- nowadays things have changed drastically.  In the era when you can do take-out every day, or "prepare a meal" by throwing some ready-made pizza in the oven (which altogether requires less than a minute spent in the kitchen), 30-40 minutes is hard labor.  So I'm not so sure if nowadays we shouldn't be calling these "hard-work-dumplings" after all...

But I'll cut the philosophical stories: bottom line is these dumplings are insanely delicious, and you should definitely try them!

The recipe comes from one of my favorite food blogs -- the legendary Polish blog by Dorotus.

Serves 4

Ingredients:

• 600 g of curd cheese (you can get it at every Polish store -- or replace with quark)
• 3 egg yolks + 3 egg whites
• 200 g of flour
• 2 vanilla sugars
• Salt
• Breadcrumbs + butter (optional)

Directions:

• Grind the cheese or mash it with a fork (I don't mind if it's not super finely mashed).  Add the egg yolks, flower and sugar, and combine.
• Beat the egg whites stiff.  Gently fold into the cheese mixture.
• Form the dough in a long, cylindric shape (I divided it into 3 parts first, and repeated the process 3 times).  You might need to use some more flower on the surface, to prevent the dough from sticking to it -- thought the less the better.  
• Cut off individual dumplings (across).
• Boil water in a big pan with a pinch of salt.  Add dumplings to boiling water, and boil until their resurface.
• Serve with breadcrumbs fried with some butter until golden.

Bon appetit!