Pierogies

My German grandmother used to make Pierogies when I was growing up. When I called my mom to ask for the recipe, my mom told me she had never made them. Whaaaaaaaaaaaaat?!!

This is a recipe for ‘Pittsburgh’ style pierogies (not quite sure what qualifies them to be from Pittsburgh). Traditional pierogies are made with potato and onion and/or cheese. I added bacon and chives to spice them up a bit.

The filling for this recipe makes an extreme amount of filling. You could probably double the dough for this recipe and still not have enough to dough for the filling.

dough ingredients.

4 c. flour, plus extra for kneading and rolling dough
1 tsp. salt
2 large egg
1 c. sour cream, plus extra to serve with the pierogi
1/2 c. butter, softened and cut into small pieces
butter and onions for sauteing
filling

filling ingredients.

6 Yukon gold potatoes
1 large onion, finely minced
3/4 lb. bacon, cooked and chopped
2 c. shredded mild cheddar cheese
chives, to taste
salt and pepper, to taste

directions.

To prepare the pierogi dough, mix together the flour and salt. Beat the egg, then add all at once to the flour mixture. Add the sour cream and the softened butter pieces and work until the dough loses most of its stickiness (about 5-7 minutes). You can use a food processor with a dough hook for this, but be careful not to overbeat.
Wrap the dough in plastic and refrigerate for 20-30 minutes or overnight; the dough can be kept in the refrigerator for up to 2 days. Each batch of dough makes about 24-30 pierogies, depending on size.
Roll the pierogi dough on a floured board or countertop until 1/8″ thick. Cut circles of dough (2″ for small pierogies and 3-3 1/2″ for large pierogies) with a cookie cutter or drinking glass. I used a vase.
Place a small ball of filling on each dough round and fold the dough over, forming a semi-circle. Press the edges together to seal and then press with the tines of a fork to make a pretty edge.
Boil the pierogies a few at a time in a large pot of water. They are done when they float to the top. Remove from water and let dry.
Saute chopped onions in butter over medium or medium-low heat in a large pan until onions are soft. Then add pierogies and pan fry until lightly crispy. Serve with a side of sour cream. (I like mine buttered instead.)

tips.

If you are having a hard time getting the edges to stick together, you may have too much flour in the dough. Add a little water to help get a good seal.
If you don’t want to cook all of the pierogies right away, you can refrigerate them (uncooked) for several days or freeze them for up to several months.
You can fill pierogies with pretty much anything you want, though potato and cheese is the most common.

This is an extremely putzy recipe to make. I had a hard time getting the dough to come together. It was a real workout but eventually I arrived at a cohesive ball. I also had a hard time getting the edges of my pierogies to seal until I started using water to seal the edges. That’s an invaluable tip.

My grandma always made these in big batches and then froze them. After pinching together about 18 pierogies I was fully exhausted and decided to leave the remaining dough and filling for another day.

I fried the perogies over medium low heat and found that my butter began to brown/burn too much. This may have been because I was not using a non-stick pan and wasn’t really an issue because I only made two batches.

Recipe rating: 