Pierogi (potato and cheese)

 

Pierogi!

I completed my undergraduate studies at The Ohio State University and downtown Columbus had this wonderful food hall and public market: North Market. I would go just for the pierogis. One of the food vendors in the market was a Polish market vendor and they made amazing pierogi.

During this ongoing pandemic, we were looking for something new to cook together and I was really craving pierogi. It was not something we had attempted to make before, so we gave it a go! They turned out great!

This recipe is based off of recipes from the New York Times Cooking and King Arthur Baking but we certainly made ours much bigger and took some liberties in changing the ingredients.

 

Ingredients:

Dough:

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 tsp kosher salt

4 tbsp unsalted butter, room temp

1 large egg, beaten

½ cup sour cream

Filling:

1 cup mashed potatoes (warm) with garlic and sour cream*

1 cup sharp cheddar cheese, shredded (or half cheddar and half gruyere)

3 cloves of garlic, minced

¼ yellow onion, diced

Finish:

4 tbsp butter

1/2 -1 medium yellow onion, sliced

1 leek, sliced thin

Green onions for topping

Sour cream for topping

 

**We sautéed sliced Brussel sprouts in pancetta and onion as a side dish. 

Directions:

Prepare the dough (1 hour ahead of time): mix together the flour and salt. Add the egg to the flour and combine. The dough will be lumpy. Add in the butter and sour cream until the dough forms a sticky ball.

Knead the dough (but don’t add more flour unless absolutely necessary due to sticking that hinders the kneading process) until the dough is much less sticky but moist (it should form a nice ball)

Wrap the dough in bees wax (or plastic wrap but we love to see people be eco conscious!) and refrigerate for 30-60 minutes.

Make the mashed potatoes (while you chill the dough): Make the mashed potatoes. We used one peeled russet potato, and during the mashing we added in 1 tbsp of butter, approx. ¼ cup of milk, approx. ¼ cup of sour cream, and salt and pepper to season. You want your mashed potatoes creamy but not too thin, so you may want to adjust the sour cream and milk.

Filling: Sautee the diced onion until translucent. Combine the warm mashed potatoes and cheese. Stir until the cheese is melted. Stir in the garlic and the onion. Season with salt and pepper as needed.

Assembling pierogi: remove the dough from the fridge and roll the dough until it is approximately 1/8 in. thick. You then need a round cutter or a small bowl to cut circles in the dough. We used a boll that was approximately 4 inches in diameter. We re-rolled the scraps about 3 times in order to get as many circles of dough as we could.

Place 1-1/2 tbsp of filling onto each round of dough. Fold over the dough to form a pocket and pinch the edges of the pierogi dough together with a fork to seal.

          

Cooking pierogi: Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Do not crowd your pierogi (we could fit about 6-8 large pierogi in our big stockpot). When they float, they are finished.

*If you want to freeze your pierogi, do so before boiling them.

Toppings: While your pierogi cook, sauté the leek and onion slices in the butter in a large skillet until the onions and leeks begin to brown. Add the pierogi to the pan and cook until the pierogis are slightly brown and crisp. Place pierogi and onions/leek on a plate and serve with sour cream and green onions. **You will notice in the below image that we also added pancetta.

 

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Carnitas (only 3 ingredients!)

Carnitas Tacos

Carnitas are perhaps the most well know food item from Mexican cuisine found in the United States. Seemingly every taco truck, taqueria, and Mexican restaurant in the country serves carnitas in some form, as do a surprisingly large number of non-Mexican cuisine focused establishments. These delicious morsels of pork are tender, succulent, perfectly fried, and absolutely delicious whether stuffed into tacos, burritos, tamales, tostadas, gorditas, and more. Carnitas are also exceedingly easy to make at home!

While the recipe provided here does not use the large copper pots and pork lard used by the true carnitas experts, it does produce outrageously delicious carnitas that pay homage to the history of the dish and Mexican cuisine. This particular recipe comes courtesy of Diana Kennedy, a very well known cookbook author with an extensive background in Mexican cuisine. You can find it over on the Food52 website, here and here, or in Kennedy's "The Essential Cuisines of Mexico" cookbook.

For the home cook, all you need are the three ingredients, a heavy-sided pot like a Dutch oven, and a little bit of time (most of it hands-off time). Cut up the pork, add some salt, cover with cold water, bring to a boil, and simmer until the water has boiled away, the pork fat has rendered, and the pork is lightly fried. Then, use in whatever your favorite dish is. In this post, we enjoy them in straightforward street tacos using corn tortillas and topped with fresh minced onion and cilantro. A little hot sauce is a great addition if you enjoy some spice on your tacos.

Time: 2½ to 3 hours

Serves: 4-6 people, 2-3 tacos each

Ingredients

• ~3 pounds boneless pork shoulder or butt, skin removed (and deboned if not boneless)
• 2 tsp salt (use a bit more if kosher salt)
• cold water to cover

Directions

1. Cut pork into pieces a bit larger than a 1" cube. They don't need to be all the same size or shape.
   
   

   

   Pork and salt

   
   

   

   Covered with water

   
   
2. Add pork and salt to the Dutch oven and barely cover with cold water. Bring to a boil, uncovered.
   
   

   

   Carnitas at a simmer

   
   

   

   After simmering for about an hour

   
   
3. Lower heat to a simmer and cook until water has evaporated, about 1½ hours. Meat should be cooked but not falling apart.
   
   

   

   Simmering pork in rendered fat

   
   
4. Lower heat a bit more (low simmer) and continue to cook pork in its rendered fat until meat is lightly browned all over, about another hour.
   
   

   

   Pan-frying carnitas

   
   
5. [optional] Heat a small nonstick pan over medium to medium-high heat. When warm, add some of the carnitas (enough for however many tacos you want) and pan fry until the pork is nicely crisped in places.
6. Serve hot and enjoy!

Extra pictures!

Minced cilantro and onion

Carnitas Tacos with onion, cilantro, lime, and jalapeno hot sauce

Notes

• Use pork with a fair amount of fat. I have never had issues when using a good chunk of pork shoulder.
• For a straightforward carnitas taco, mince some fresh cilantro and white onion, then fill a corn tortilla with some carnitas and top with onion and cilantro. Squeeze a little fresh lime juice over the taco from a lime wedge. Optionally top with your favorite hot sauce.

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Steamed Manila Clams

Steamers! A favorite of seafood lovers from around the country and the world, steamed clams can be found in many different forms. Popular variations range from a classic butter and garlic steamer to more exotic variations with chorizo or sausages, curries, or even beer broths. There are also regional variations, for example the steamers of the Northeast, commonly using "long-neck clams," are often simply prepared and served with butter for dipping. However they are prepared, steamed clams make an excellent, shareable meal that comes together surprisingly quickly.

The recipe in this post is the version that I (Mark) grew up eating with my family in the Pacific Northwest. I have heard rumors that it may have originated from a food magazine, the most likely suspect being Cooking Light, but I have never confirmed this. In any case, the recipe has surely undergone transformations over the more than twenty years, and this version is the closest to "ground truth" to the steamers I make today.

Time: 30 minutes

Serves: 2 as a main course

Ingredients

• 2 pounds Manila clams
• 2 Tbsp butter
• 1 Tbsp olive oil
• 5 cloves garlic, minced
• ⅓ cup grated carrot
• ¼ cup celery (about 1 stick), halved lengthwise and sliced thin
• ⅓ cup leek, white and light green parts, halved lengthwise, and sliced thin
• ½ lemon, sliced into 1/8" thick rings, seeded
• pinch of crushed red pepper (maybe 1/8 tsp)
• 3 sprigs fresh thyme
• ½ tsp dried oregano
• ⅓-½ cup dry white wine

Directions

Washed Manila clams

1. About 20 minutes prior to cooking, rinse clams well in cold water to remove dirt and sand, primarily from the exterior (see note below about buying clams), by covering with water and then agitating clams together with your hands. Remove clams to a colander by scooping the clams out of the water. Avoid pouring clams and water through the colander, which results in dirt and grit being poured over the clams. Repeat rinsing until clams stop shedding dirt and grit.
2. Heat butter and oil over medium heat in a stock pot.
   
   

   

   Sautéed garlic, carrot, celery, and leek 

   
   
3. Add garlic, carrot, celery, and leek. Sauté until fragrant and vegetables are softened, but not browning, about 3-5 minutes. Stir frequently to prevent browning.
   
   

   

   After adding lemon, thyme, red pepper, oregano, and wine

   
   
4. Gather lemon rings in one hand and squeeze juice into pot, then drop in squeezed rings. (The ideal squeeze is a "moderate" squeeze. You want some lemon juice, but you don't want to completely destroy the lemon rings). Add red pepper, thyme, oregano, and white wine. Stir well to incorporate.
   
   
   

   

   After adding clams and stirring

   
   
5. Immediately add clams, stir well to mix clams among vegetables, and cover pot with lid. Reduce heat to slightly below medium and steam for around 5 minutes.
6. After 5 minutes, open lid and stir clams well to bring the bottom clams to the top. If a clam is left on the bottom for the entire cook it will have a harder time opening due to the weight of clams above it. Stirring half way through helps all clams open more evenly in time.
7. Steam for about 3 more minutes. Clams should all be open. Discard stubborn clams that didn't open; these were most likely dead and should not be eaten.
   
   

   

   Steamed clams!

   
   
8. Serve clams in bowls, ladling steaming broth over clams in the bowl. Enjoy with good quality, medium-crusty bread.

Notes

• This is one of a small number of recipes I have encountered where every ingredient seems to make a difference. In particular, don't omit the celery! It seems like such a small quantity wouldn't matter, but the few times I didn't include it the final flavor seemed to be "missing something."
• 2 pounds of clams will feed two adults. The rule of thumb for Manila clams is 1 pound per person for a main course.
• The exact amounts of garlic, leek, carrot, and celery can all be adjusted. In fact, I don't think I have ever made this dish exactly the same twice! I eyeball all of the measurements, so consider these more like guidelines and make small adjustments as desired.
• Dry vermouth makes a great substitute for white wine. A standard in our house is Dolin Vermouth de Chambery Dry. In a pinch, water or vegetable stock would likely do the trick to (no promises on the final flavor though!).
• Leek can be substituted (wholly or partially) with shallot or yellow onion. Leek is our preferred flavor profile, although we occasionally use a little bit of shallot in addition to or instead of a small amount of the leek.
• Butter and oil ratio can be adjusted as desired, but total amount should be 3 Tbsp. We suggest at least ½ Tbsp of butter, and our preferred ratio is 2:1 as given in the recipe.
• When serving, you can pick out the lemon rings and thyme sprigs so the eaters don't need to worry about them. Alternatively, leave them in the bowls for a more "rustic" look.
• Buy clams from a responsible and sustainable seafood shop. Not only will the clams be higher quality, clams from reputable vendors tend to have less grit and sand in them due to proper storage. I prefer shops that keep the clams in properly setup water tanks, which allow the clams to filter out sand and grit prior to you buying them!
• For short term, same day storage, store clams in a bowl in the refrigerator, covered with a damp towel. Do not keep clams sealed in a plastic bag (as they often are packaged at the store) otherwise the clams will suffocate and die before cooking. Yes, clams are alive when you buy them!

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