Potato-Cheese Pierogi
I was always scared of making pierogi, mostly because they take so long. You need to make the dough, the filling, which usually takes a long time (if you want to use the meat from the chicken stock for instance) and so on. So for the first try I decided to make the simplest filling there is - the traditional Polish potato and cheese combination.
Ingredients
For the dough:
- 150g flour
- 1 small egg
- 50ml warm water
For the filling:
- 300g potatoes
- 125g cream cheese
- 1 big onion, diced
- 1 tablespoon butter for frying
- Salt and pepper for seasoning
Directions
Mix well the flour, egg and water. You can use a kitchen machine, or just mix by hand. Let it rest for 30 minutes under a damp towel. Then roll out in however thick (or thin) dough you want. Use a glass to cut out the circles and set aside. Mix the rest of the dough together, roll out, cut the circles, and repeat until you’ll be out off dough.
On a medium heat, add the butter to a large pan and throw in the onion. Mix, until it’ll start turning brown, reserve two tablespoons for garnishing and set the rest aside. Peel and cut the potatoes in smaller chunks, and boil them for 20 minutes. Mash them with a masher and combine with cream cheese, onion, salt and pepper.
With a spoon, take a bit of the filling and put in the middle of the dough. Fold it in half and strongly pinch the edges together. You can make the edges fancier by making some pattern, or use a fork.
Boil the pierogi for a minute or two in salted water, until they rise to the surface. If you want to keep them for later, just throw them to a freezer for 3 hours, and when they’ll become solid, put them in a bag.
Garnish with the reserved onion. If you want to, you can also serve them with sour cream.
