DISH #7 PIEROGI

Pierogis, half-moon shaped dumplings filled with minced mixtures are Polish delicacies and are a staple of my neighborhood's 'Little Warsaw' culinary scene. Many Polish restaurants in Greenpoint offer these inexpensive Polish specialties with a little sour cream, shredded lettuce and occasionally some applesauce.

On first glance, there's an appeal to this staple-- it is a pasta afterall and it's sauteed in butter. Some even contain sweet treats like blueberry, mmm. How can you go wrong? Well, you can.

The problem is that the pierogi pasta is usually too thick, the meat or cheese filling can be bland and there's not enough flavor accompanying the dish. I've enjoyed the best and worst case pierogi scenarios-- I've enjoyed them when my Grandmother, Helen, makes them but I've also felt like I couldn't take more than one bite of them, most recently at the Polish restaurant down the block from my apartment. The worst result is that they take up residence at the bottom of your stomach in a sad, leaden, I'm not going to be happy about this and I'm not going anywhere the rest of the day manner.

I'm not convinced it has to be that way, thus, my newest dish, 'Pierogi in Seven Bites.'

My plan was to roll out the pierogi pasta very thinly, to make them smaller than I'd traditionally seen them, to fill them with varied flavors and serve them with sauces with a little more excitement. I want to employ a little three-bite theory with this dish, small bites of each flavor-- I want to leave my guest sated, not stuffed, intrigued by the flavors and wanting more of each.

My original idea was to stuff the periogis with a homemade goat-cheese ricotta but after thinking more about the dish I decided that I also still wanted to adhere to some of the flavors and fillings which are traditionally matched with these dumplings. I spoke with Gram and she gave me some suggestions as to some traditional fillings: potato and spinach; minced pork; sauerkraut and bacon; farmer's cheese; mushrooms; and potato with cream cheese and cheddar.

I meditated on these flavors while walking through my local grocery store, Tops on the Waterfront (a few blocks North of Bedford Avenue in Williamsburg) putting different ingredients in my basket: peaches, blueberries, chevre, ground sirloin, yams, sauerkraut, and dandelion. I thought about making a dish including both sweet an savory dumplings. In the end though I decided to leave the fruit out of the dumplings. I used Gram's pierogi recipe and came up with my own adaptations for the fillings.

Grandma Helen's Pierogi Recipe

This is the dough that I used. It makes 75 to 100 pierogi You can half the recipe but you still need to use one egg.

2 Tablesoons Melted Butter or Margerine
5 Cups All-Purpose Flour
1 Cup Lukewarm Water
1 Cup Lukewarm Milk
1 Egg

Put the flour into a bowl. Then beat the egg into the lukewarm water with the milk and the melted butter. Pour the liquid mixture over the flour, mix well and knead until smooth. Add more flour if the dough is too wet. You can do this in your mixer with the dough hook and finish by hand. Divide the dough into amounts that you can roll very thin (I use my pasta machine).

Make circles on the dough with a glass dipped in flour. You're going to put your filling inside the circles and fold them in half to make a half moon and seal by pinching with your fingers. Cook the pierogies in the same way as cooking raviolies.

Gram's Cheese Filling

1 LB Cheese of Your Choice
2 Eggs
Salt to taste
1 Tablespoon Sugar

Mix well. Using a spoonfull of filling for each dumpling it should give you enough for 36 pierogi. You can substitute your cheese for riccota and vice versa. Season to your taste.

I served cheese pierogi with my sweet sourkraut and kielbasa and it was fine. You can even use farmer's cheese, cream cheese, cottage cheese-- anything you like is okay. Leave out the sugar and you can mix mushroom duxelles and season and mix with your cheese. Anything goes.

Below are all the fillings recipes for my pierogis. The first filling I made accidentally, potato-bacon instead of sauerkraut bacon and didn't use in the perogis for this dish even though it was actually very tasty. The pictures above and throughout this post take you through the process. I did two things differently from the recipe above to close the pierogi: I used an egg wash to seal the dumplings and I changed the shape slightly.

Because I didn't have a pastry-cutter the size I was looking to do, about an inch wide, and because I wanted the dumplings to be uniform I did not make the pierogi the traditional half-moon shapes but circles instead. I used a small metal mise cup to make the first cut in the dough and once the dumplings were sealed with the egg wash and pressed shut with the tips of a fork I used a shot glass to cut away the edges of the excess pasta.

Toro's Potato-Bacon Filling
1¼ Idaho Potatoes, Peeled, Boiled & Mashed
7 Slices Bacon, Rendered, Gently Browned & Crumbled
Salt and Pepper

Peel and boil the potatoes in salted water. Drain, rough mash, add crumbled bacon and season with salt and freshly ground pepper.

Toro's Potato-Dandelion Filling
1¼ Idaho Potatoes, Peeled, Boiled & Mashed
Seven Dandelion Fronds, Chopped
2 Tablespoons Butter
Pinch Nutmeg
Salt and Pepper

Peel and boil the potatoes in salted water. Drain, and rough mash. Clean dandelion fronds and chop greens macedoine-size, a little less than ½ inch long. Heat pan, add butter and chopped greens. Season with nutmeg then add salt and freshly ground pepper and saute briefly. Add greens to potatoes.

Toro's Potato, Cream Cheese and Cheddar Filling
1¼ Idaho Potatoes, Peeled, Boiled & Mashed
5 Tablespoons Butter
2 Tablespoons Cream Cheese
3 Tablespoons Heavy Cream
3 Tablespoons Shredded Cheddar Cheese
Salt and Freshly Ground Pepper

Peel and boil the potatoes in salted water. Drain, and mash. Mix butter into hot potatoes and whip well. Add cream cheese and heavy cream and mix well then do the same with the cheddar cheese. Season with salt and freshly ground pepper.

Toro's Beef With Almond Paste and Raisins Filling
½ Onion, Grated
1 Tablespoons Rendered Bacon Fat
2 Tablespoons Butter
3 LB Ground Sirloin
1 Tablespoon Almond Paste
Salt and Freshly Ground Pepper
3 Tablespoons Golden Raisins

Grate half an onion and saute in bacon fat and butter. Add ground sirloin and saute. Add almond paste and mix well. Season with salt and freshly ground pepper. Add raisins to pan at last minute and allow the heat to plump them up then remove meat-mixture from pan.

Toro's Sauerkraut and Bacon Filling
7 Slices Bacon, Rendered, Gently Browned & Crumbled
½ Bag of Sauerkraut (?? size)
3 Tablespoons Butter
Salt and Freshly Ground Pepper

Render the bacon, drain pan of fat reserving a little on the bottom of the pan. Drain sauerkraut well of all liquid. Add butter to pan then sauerkraut over low heat. Crumble in cooked bacon and season with salt and freshly pepper.

Toro's Wasabi Yam Filling
2 Yams, Bake and peeled
2 Tablespoons Butter
1 Tablespoon Salt
1 Tablespoon Wasabi

Wrap yams in foil and bake in oven at 350ºF until soft inside. Peel yams and whip butter in. Season with salt and mix in wasabi.

Toro's Elephant Garlic Filling
1 Clove Elephant Garlic
1 Cup Vegetable Oil
Salt and Freshly Ground Pepper

Peel entire clove and submerge in a small pot filled with vegetable oil. Gently warm the oil and garlic until soft and pasty throughout. Remove garlic from oil and mash. Season with salt and freshly ground pepper. The oil can be used for salad dressing, bread dipping or anything at all really.

Toro's Saffron Mushroom Duxelle Filling
½ Large Shallot
3 Tablespoon Butter
1 Tablespoon White Wine
6 Large Baby Portobello Mushrooms
Pinch of Saffron
Salt and Freshly Ground Pepper

Sweat shallots in butter. Finely chop the mushrooms and add to shallots with a tablespoon of white wine, deglaze pan. Add chopped mushrooms and saffron and cook duxelles under a cartouche (parchement paper lid). Season with salt and freshly ground pepper.

Apple Sauce With Chili Peppers
5 Golden Delicious Apples, Peeled & Cored
2 Tablespoons Lemon Juice
1 Tablespoon Butter
1 Chili Pepper, Sliced in Half Lengthwise

Peel and core apples then chop roughly and sprinkle lemon juice over the slices. Warm butter in pan then add apples and lemon juice and cover with a cartouche. Cook over low heat stirring occasionally. Do not allow apples to burn. When apples begin to fall apart add two tablespoons of water and sliced chili pepper and allow to meld flavors. Cook until all liquids evaporate.

Toro's Beet Chevre Sauce
2 Beets, Peeled
1 Package Chevre
Salt

Peel and slice beets, and boil until tender. Puree beets and add chevre. Mix in blender or food processor until smooth. Add salt to taste.

Toro's Horseradish Sour Cream
5 Tablespoon Sour Cream
2 Tablespoons Freshly Ground Horseradish

Grate horseradish with a micrograter and mix well with sour cream.

Toro's Broccoli Sprouts in a Grapefruit Vinaigrette
Broccoli Sprouts
3 Tablespoons Fresh Grapefruit Juice
1 Tablespoon Cider Vinegar
12 Tablespoons Oil
Salt and Freshly Ground Pepper

Mix juice and vinegar and whisk with oil then season with salt and freshly ground pepper.

TO ORDER: Place a quenelle of each sauce on the plate: the chili pepper applesauce, the beet chevre and the horseradish sour cream. Add one of each pierogi, first boiled until they rise to the top of the pot of water then air dry and saute in a pan of butter. At the last second dress the broccoli sprouts and place in the center of the plate.

I'm really happy with this dish. The pierogis were tasty and varied in flavoring, able to be eaten in one bit or cut in half and dipped in different sauces. I felt that the sauces complimented the pierofis well and I wasn't stuffed when the plate was finished. It's a successful update of a Bar Mleczny (Polish Milk Bar) dish. This dish became way more time-intensive than I'd planned but that seems to be a trend with this menu. This dish became more complicated because I wanted to pay homage to the more traditional fillings and accompaniments while still experimenting and playing with the concept.

Going forward I've got to simplify or I'm never going to get finished.