December 25, 2006
Pierogi are a traditional breakfast favorite with my family. My grandmother used to do all the work for us, short of the eating. Now days I am working on paying her back for the hundreds of tasty potato-filled dumplings she's produced over the years. Today you'll see how to enough homemade pierogi to stuff even the mightiest craw, cheaper and easier than procurring a Russian bride or courting the mysterious Mrs T.

The ingredients are pretty simple
Dough
3 cups All Purpose Flour
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 egg
3/4 cup of water
2 tsp oil
Filling
2 lbs Russet potatoes
4 Tbsp butter
1 cup white onion, diced
10 oz sharp cheddar cheese, shredded
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp ground black pepper
Garnish
1 cup white onion, diced
butter
sour cream

For the record, the onion there produced over 2 cups of onion.

Peel and cube up your potato about the size of your finger to the first knuckle. It is more convenient to keep your finger intact while doing this but I'm not one to come into your kitchen and tell you when to not bifurcate your phalanges. However, if you do, you're only going to be making pierogi for 10 years, tops. Drop em in a pot and crank em up to a boil. Exciting action shot of potato in water.

Meanwhile, combine all the dough ingredients and mix until well... mixed. After that, turn it out onto a floured surface and knead it for about 5 minutes. I'm a pretentious prick so I just use the stand mixer so I can chop my onions at the same time. Whirrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr...

If you don't have a mixer go back in time and cut your onion up and start 1c of it carmelizing in half a stick of butter. If you have a time machine, while you're at it go back and save President Lincoln, patent One-Click Shopping, and put invest a dollar in the newly-opened New York Stock Exchange.

Now roll out your dough. You're looking for about the thickness of a nickel, which is a #3 on my fancy pasta attachment. I divide the dough into quarters and run it through the pasta roller until I get 2 good passes on each number. If you do it this way, make sure you cover the unused portion with plastic wrap so it doesn't dry out like an oreo in the clothes dryer.
A one!

A twooooo!

A threeeeee!

I'm sure your potatoes are fork tender by now, so drain them and mash them up via stand mixer, hand masher, ricer, electric beater, or a board with a nail in it. Toss in the carmelized onions, salt, pepper, and cheese and mix it up. Set aside to cool.

Finish rolling out your dough and start cutting out some circles. I've tried a variety of things from a 100 year-old biscuit cutter to a Bass glass to my 1c dry measuring cup, which seemed to work best. It sticks to the counter a bit, so later I laid down a sheet of parchment paper and duct taped it to the counter and it nothing stuck, like an NBA player's paternity suit.

Now just put a tablespoon of filling in it, fold it shut, and pinch it shut while squeezing the air out of it and shouting ODELAY. The term 'ODELAY' was imported from the Middle East for the explicit purpose of making pierogis in 1271 by the Beckinites, true story. Look it up on wikipedia.

Boil the potatoey packets in slowly boiling water until well boiled. Once they float, give them 30 second then transfer them to a wire rack to dry. At this point you can freeze them for up to a couple of months by separating layers of them with plastic wrap and sealing them in a tupperware container. Does tupper still make their ware? May want to stop on the way back from saving Lincoln to pick up some primo tupperware from the 70s. I'm diverting attention from the fact that I forgot to take pictures of the boiled product. I could MS Paint you some but that wouldn't make sense, like Christina Aguilera singing in Spanish.

Anyway, now just pan fry them up in batches in some butter and diced onion until they're nice and brown. Wipe out the fry pan between batches so you don't end up with burned onions at the end like I did. I usually only make one batch of these per year so I forget all the little details like that.

Pierogi have their origins in Eastern Europe and variations are found in places such as Poland, Russia, Lithuania, and Romania. Stuffings range from meat to cabbage to eggs. I'm working on a way to stuff a Snickers bar inside one.

Yield: ~65 pierogi, with enough filling to make 20-30 more, or eat as a 2 seving side dish with dinner.
Time: About an hour and a half to two hours start to finish, which can be greatly reduced if you have a couple friends and they decide to help you instead of just drinking mimosas and laughing derisively at your flour-covered ass.