Potato and Onion Pierogi

This recipe is dedicated to my cube mate Andrea (aka "The Grand Inquisitor"). She puts up with a great deal sitting next to me, and she always has a sense of humor, even when tired from a night caring for her little one. We were both thinking of Pierogies this week, and I decided to experiment a bit. This is the result of my day of experimentation. After several hours of multitasking, I emerged from the kitchen bedraggled and dusted with flour and armed with delicious pierogies toasted in butter.

I probably will be editing this recipe as I learn to equalize the proportion of filling needed to dough, so keep that in mind if you find things different around here. I found three websites that assisted me, and I used a combination of all three to create my own.


Pierogi Dough:
4 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup sour cream
2 teaspoons salt
2 large eggs

Combine ingredients and knead into a pliable dough, about 10 minutes or so. I threw all of my ingredients into my bread machine and let it do the work of kneading. A food processor can also be used. The dough should be smooth, pliable and not too sticky. Add flour as needed, cover and set aside. You can keep the dough in the refrigerator for a few days.

Pierogi Filling:
3 large potatoes, peeled
1 large sweet onion, finely minced
2 tablespoons butter
Salt and pepper to taste

Boil potatoes until a fork easily pierces the potatoes. Drain and mash or process through a potato ricer. Set potatoes aside to cool.  Saute onions in a skillet with butter until soft and translucent, not browned. Add to potatoes and mix well. Do not add any additional liquid. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Sample the potato filling until the seasoning is good, as too little seasoning could easily leave the dumplings bland.

Dusting with flour, roll dough to 1/8th inch thickness. I used my Atlas pasta machine, because I typically don't bake and can't even remember where my rolling pin is. I gradually rolled it to a thinness of setting "4", which is about 1/8th inch thick. Lay dough out on a dusted surface, and cut rounds of about 3 1/5 to 4 inches round. Fill in the center with potato filling - approximately one generous teaspoon, moisten one half of the edge around with water and seal firmly with a fork and your fingers. I used a dumpling press to do mine.  When the dough is used up, you can either cook the pierogies and serve them or freeze them for future use, laying them out on a tray until frozen, and then sealing them in a container or bag.

To serve, boil completed dumplings in water for about five minutes, until they float. Drain, and then place in a skillet heated with butter and onions. Saute until dumplings are golden and onions are browned. You can either serve them slathered with sour cream, or as I do with melted mozzarella cheese. Four of these dumplings is a filling serving. My batch of dough ran out at about 20 dumplings.

Websites used in the making of these yummy pierogies:
Helen Dyrkaz's Pierogi Recipe
Accidental Hedonist - Potato Onion Pierogi
Homemade Pittsburgh Pierogies with Sour Cream

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