Authentic Pierogi Recipe - Polish Christmas Cooking

I dedicate this pierogi recipe to my twitter friends, who inspired me to make this post, after they have learned yesterday what I am going to cook today. Pierogies are very tasty especially homemade. Basically the dough is the same, you can make different stuffing: sour cabbage with mushrooms, potato-white cheese-onion (called here in Poland God knows why - Russian pierogi) or different fruit-sweet versions (strawberry and blueberry are my favourites).
There is one special kind that traditionally is made in Poland for Christmas - this is sour cabbage pierogi. They are served at Christmas Eve dinner since few centuries. Dough is the same, stuffing is special.
Recommended further reading Polish Classic Recipes (Classics Series)

Recipe for 3-4 hungry persons - approx. 30-40 pierogies (depends on size)

Ingredients:

1/2 kg of sour cabbage

10 dag of dried wild mushrooms

1 cup of water

salt, pepper or hot capsicum

Stuffing preparation:

Chop sour cabbage to small 1 cm long pieces, add salt, pepper or capsicum and cook it for 20 minutes.

In separate pot cook water and mushrooms  for 20 mintutes. After it cools down chop finely the mushrooms and add them to cabbage together with the water they were cooked in. Mix and cook 20 minutes more.

If you don't have wild mushrooms, you may use regular mushrooms, however the taste will differ.

Dough ingredients:

4 cups flour plus some extra for kneading and rolling dough

1 teaspoon salt

2 cups of milk

1 tablespoon of oil and 1 tablespoon of salt for cooking

butter and onions for sauteing

This dough pierogi recipe is very special and comes from my mother. Possibly you will not find it in the books, but it works really great when you need to make sure your pierogi dough is strong enough and soft enough at the same time. It doesn't require any additional cream, butter or anything else.

Mixing boiling milk with flour, makes the dough soft enough, easy to seal and strong to prevent falling apart while boiling. 

 

Mix salt with flour, add boiling milk and work the dough until is smooth (7-8 minutes). Be careful at the beginning - it may be very hot in some places.

You need to work fast. The colder the dough gets, the more difficult it will be to roll it.

Roll the dough on a floured board or countertop until 1/8" thick.

Cut the circles with cookie cutter. Or any cup will do. 

I have chosen the biggest cup - for lazy big pierogies.

Add the teaspoon of stuffing, which you prepared earlier.

Put the sides together...

And seal the edges.

You may add some pattern to decorate and strenghten the seal.

Voila! they are almost ready!

Add salt to water and boil it. Add some oil to make pierogies oily after cooking, so they don't stick together.

Add pierogi only to boiling water, not earlier. This prevents falling apart.

It looks like this after you place them in the pot. Move them very gently, so they don't stick to the bottom.

Cover the pot and wait until the water starts to boil again.

When pierogies are floating on the top, turn off the flame, cover the pot and keep them like this for 5 minutes.

After that they are ready.

Before serving you may add on top:

cream

or

fried, finely chopped onion.

We serve it with fried onion for Christmas.

Bon Appetite!

Recommended further reading Polish Classic Recipes (Classics Series)