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.