National Pierogi Day!

Hello all. For all of my Pittsburgh and Polish friends it is National Pierogi Day. And in honor of National Piergogi Day I made our own pierogis for dinner tonight. They turned out really good. We haven't eaten them yet but they look and smell delicious.


First you need your ingredients to make the pierogi. I like to use the King Author flour. Its pure flour without Bromide( BAD stuff, in most breads unless the ingredients on the bread bag says unbrominated(Wegmans has these)burger and hot dog rolls etc. Bromide is BAD stuff for your body). You want 2 cups of flour in your bowl. Next you want some salt. I like the Himalayan and Celtic Salts, these are REAL salts, not refined garbage. So you want 1/2 tsp of salt. Next you want to mix those two together. Add one egg, your soften butter 1/4 tsp cut up in little pieces and 1/2 cup of sour cream. I had forgotten I had some plain Greek style yogurt in my fridge. You can use that too and actually its more healthier than the sour cream. Mix it all together. I used my hands if you have a food processor with a hook you can use that too. You want to keep mixing it until the dough is NOT sticky anymore. This can take up to 5 to 7 minutes.
Once your done with the dough , wrap it in some waxed paper and let it sit in the fridge for at least 20 to 30 minutes. You can make this a day ahead of time too and use it the next day.


While your waiting for your dough to settle. Cut up about 3 to 5 potatoes. I cut 5 russet( that I had here in the house and it made A LOT! I even made 2 batches and still had some left). Wash, and cut the potatoes and boil them til their nice and soft.

So while I was waiting for my tastey spuds to cook I choppped up some onion(shhhh, don't tell hubby HATES onion) and chopped up half of my lovely garlic that I got from my mother in law's garden. Yum. I sauteed the onion until it wasn't much of an onion. Sauteed the onion first as the garlic cooks up much quicker. Once the onion started looking 'softer' I added the garlic to the pan.



Once the potatoes were done and the onion. I got my trusty mixer out and started to mix those puppies up for about a few seconds. Then shut off the the mixer, added my onion/garlic mix to the potatoes and mixed those puppies up again. Shut if off, added some cheese to the mix. I thought I had some cheddar in the fridge but I didn't. So I settled for the taco cheese I have. Still tastes pretty good. Mixed that up , there really isn't a set amount of cheese. Just add to your taste. You can add a little salt and pepper to your liking too. To top it off I cut up the parsely I had in the fridge and ended up with that yummy mix. MMMM.



Okay so the mix is all set and by the time your done doing all of that your dough is ready to take out of the fridge. Assuming you are doing this all in one day like I did. I used my favorite rolling pin, a pastry/bread cutter that I had gotten from Pampered Chef, but you can use a cup , jar or anything that is circular to make your pierogi.

Roll your dough to about 1/8 inch thick. If your super human. If your not and your like me try to roll it as thin as you can. Then cut out your circle to make your pierogi.




Add your mix. About a tablespoon or so to the middle of your pierogi. I used a fork to hold the dough and slide when I folded the pierogi. It really worked well in keeping it from squishing out of the pierogi when you fold it in half.


After folding them in half, use your fork to press the edges together. It gives the pierogi a more interesting looking look. Plus it keeps that darned filling in there too. If your pierogi isn't sticking together then your using to much flour to roll out your dough. If you did, that's okay. Just use a little water on the fork and then press.



Then viola'! Your pierogi is all done. If you plan on making them for dinner after your done. Go ahead !Boil these babies for about 8 to 10 minutes or when they start floating at the top of your pan. You can boil them , bake them, fry them. A true Polish person does not fry their pierogi though, they boil them. You can also eat them with a side of sour cream. If your like my dad who is the human 'garbage can' you can eat them with sour cream and salsa(which is pretty good by the way). Add a little butter to them. Be creative.
If you want to eat them later like me. I used my bread pan and put waxed paper in it and added my pierogis to it then wrapped them up nicely. I wrapped up some to put in the fridge for dinner and then the other half in the freezer for another day.
So there you go. Have a great National Pierogi Day!!