Pass the Plate

If you’ve never tried this Polish dish, you really should, it’s delicious. Also known as pierogi, pierogy, perogy, pyrogie, or pyrogy, these are little dough dumplings typically filled with potato and cheese (filling recipe here). They’re then fried up in a pan with butter and onion. You can fill the dough with whatever you like though, lots of people even make dessert perogi – although you should probably skip the onion if you’re going that route. 😉

These a very easy to make, but take a bit of time to pepare since you need to shape them, fill them and then close them up. In my experience you can find these frozen at most grocery stores in Montreal at under $5 a bag, so if you can get your hands on these, the small improvement in flavor is not really worth the time of making these from scratch. But if you’re like me and live in a place where no one’s even heard of perogi, it’s absolutely worth every second of work.

Ingredients

• Flour 2¼ cups 550 ml
• Salt 1 tsp 5 ml
• Butter, at room temperature ¼ cup 50 g
• Egg, beaten 1
• Sour cream 1 cup 250 ml

Preparation

1. In a large bowl, combine the flour and salt.
2. In a small bowl, cream your butter.
3. Add the egg to the butter and try to break down as many of the lumps as you can. Most perogi recipes don’t include a step like this, but I find it makes it much easier to combine the butter properly with the rest of the dough.
4. Add your butter mixture and the sour cream to the flour mixture.
5. Work the dough for 5-7 minutes until you no longer have any dry parts.
6. Chill the dough for 20-30 minutes. If covered, it’ll keep well in your fridge for up to 2 days.
7. On a floured surface, roll out your dough to ¹⁄₈” / 3 mm thickness.
8. Cut 2″ / 5 cm circles into the dough.
   

   For this you can use cookie  or perogi cutters. If you don’t have either, use a glass or a mug to get a nice, round shape. Use a bit of flour on it to make sure the dough doesn’t stick. When pressing the mug or glass to the dough, make sure to twist it a bit to ensure you get all the way through.

9. Add about 1 tsp / 5 ml of your filling of choice in the center of your dough circles. Try my cheese and potato filling.
10. Fold your perogi in two and press the edges closed with a fork.
    

    It’s important to close these tightly so the filling doesn’t spill out while you’re cooking them. If the edges aren’t sticking, moisten them a bit with water first. If your filling is getting in the way of closing them, use a bit less in each.

This recipe usually makes about 36 perogi, which is usually enough for 3-4 people if you’re serving them as a side dish, or 2 if it’s your main course. You can freeze these to have them at a later date, just make sure you lay them out flat so they don’t stick to each other. Once frozen, you can bag them or put them in a container.

Cooking directions

1. Bring a pot of salted water to a boil.
2. Add the perogi and boil them until they float to the surface of the water. This usually takes 5-10 minutes.
3. On medium-high heat, melt a generous amount of butter in a large frying pan.
4. Fry up your perogi until they get a bit brown. Make sure you move them around a bit so they don’t stick, particularly at the beginning. I like to add some onion to fry at the same time so they pick up some of the flavor. Depending on the oven, I usually do this for about 10-15 minutes so they really soak everything up and get a little crispy in some places (although I don’t think crispy is the traditional way of having them). Once I flip them, it usually only takes 1-2 minutes to finish up on that side.

Enjoy these as a meal on their own or as a side dish with some meat. I like having them with some roast beef or pork and a bit of gravy.