Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ncar!umigw!mthvax!aem From: laura@gwchem.waterloo.edu (Laura Pylypow) Newsgroups: rec.food.recipes Subject: OVO-LACTO: Ukranian Recipes, including Perogies Summary: another fine submission to rec.food.recipes Keywords: recipe ovo-lacto Message-ID: <1990Jun28.072009.2565@mthvax.cs.miami.edu> Date: 26 Jun 90 05:28:59 GMT Sender: aem@mthvax.cs.miami.edu (a.e.mossberg) Reply-To: laura@gwchem.waterloo.edu (Laura Pylypow) Followup-To: rec.food.veg Organization: U. of Waterloo, Ontario Lines: 130 Approved: aem@mthvax.cs.miami.edu (Rec.Food.Recipes moderator) In article <1990Jun11.164658.25455@mthvax.cs.miami.edu> rb4p+@andrew.cmu.edu (Robert Luther Brumfield) requests a recipe for perogies. Below is the file that I send out to anyone who asks me for the recipe. Hope it's not too wordy for inclusion in this group. So, you want to make perogies? Well, if you have no Ukrainian grandmother to show you, here's what you do. 1) Make some filling. Traditional savoury ones are: Mashed potatoes Mashed potatoes mixed with dry cottage cheese (New-World Ukrainians often use grated cheddar, which is nontraditional but excellent) ** the potato-based fillings are easiest to handle for beginners ** Dry cottage cheese mixed with beaten egg Sauerkraut fried with bacon and finely chopped or ground Finely chopped mushrooms sauteed in butter with onion and dillweed (this filling is delicious but is especially difficult to handle so not recommended for beginners) Savoury perogies are usually served with sour cream. (in addition to the butter on them; that's just there to keep them from sticking together so the calories don't count :-) ) Also very good are are caramelised onions; finely chopped onions sauteed VERY, VERY, SLOWLY in butter (what, MORE butter?! Yes. Welcome to Kiev, cholesterol capitol of the world) until golden brown and sweet. Bacon bits (real, of course) are excellent, especially with sauerkraut perogies. Some sweet fillings: cooked pureed prunes flavoured with allspice and lemon poached apple pieces sweetened and flavoured with vanilla poppyseed filling (recipe from laura@gwchem.waterloo.edu on request) fresh fruit pieces, sweetened if necessary. A particular favourite is to use whole prune plums; split, remove stones and fill centre with sugar, then wrap the whole plum in the dough. Other good choices are pitted fresh cherries (use two or three in each perogy), apricots, strawberries, or raspberries. It is NOT a sacrilege to cook fresh fruit this way; the gentle poaching they get inside the perogy skins enchances the flavour wonderfully. However fresh fruit is difficult to handle, so I would not recommended it for your first try at perogies. Sweet perogies must ALWAYS be served with LOTS of sour cream. The fresh fruit ones especially. They're at least twenty times better with the cream than they are without. Trust me :-) Tips: Whatever your filling, make sure it's COLD before you start. You can usually get a dozen or so perogies out of a cup of filling. 2) Make the dough It's hard to gauge amounts, since the handling is so variable, but I generally find that the dough made from 2 cups of flour gives me enough "skins" for about two dozen medium size (2.5 inches or so) perogies. Your mileage may vary. The best flour is unbleached bread flour, but most all-purpose flours work fine. I have experimented with whole wheat, and have obtained good results only with very finely-milled stone ground whole wheat bread flour, which is extremely difficult to come by. But, anyway, choose some flour and put two cups of it into a large mixing bowl. Add about half a cup of water to the flour and mix it in. You might as well not bother using a spoon or anything since you're going to have to get your hands dirty anyway. When you have a gluey mess (depending on the moisture content of the flour, you may have to add more water...it should be a medium-soft gluey mess, not a stiff gluey mess) turn it out on the counter and knead it for a few minutes. Now, overturn the mixing bowl and cover the dough with it. GO AWAY FOR AT LEAST HALF AN HOUR. (The longest I've ever left it is about three hours, after which the results were still fine. This is a good time for final preparation of fillings.) When you return, start kneading the gluey mess again. It will turn into a smooth, stretchy non-mess that comes away cleanly from your hands and the counter. If it doesn't, try leaving it a little longer, and if that fails, kneading in a LITTLE extra flour. It should be quite soft; much softer than pasta dough, if that helps any. Stop kneading as soon as it loses its stickiness. From now on until the end of the operation, the dough must always be kept well covered, since if it dries out it loses its elasticity. (You can also do this in a mixer with a dough hook, but be careful not to overknead.) 3) Now assemble the perogies. This is the tricky part, since if the skins are not flaw-free and perfectly sealed, water will leak in during the cooking which both ruins the perogies and makes a horrible mess in the pot. First prepare trays or something to receive the filled perogies; cover some flat surfaces with dish towels or paper towels and dust evenly and generously with flour. Fill your biggest pot with water and put it on to boil. Perogies need even more water than pasta. Now, take a handful of dough and roll it out about 1/8'' thick on a lightly- floured board. Cut it into 1.5'' circles with a cooky or ravioli cutter, or glass or tin. (I used to save tomato paste tins until I found a nifty round ravioli cutter) COVER the dough with a dishtowel or something; it must NOT dry out. It's also good not to roll out too much at a time; especially at first. Flour your hands, pick up a circle and stretch it evenly, especially the edges, until it gains about an inch in diameter. Put a heaping teaspoonful of filling in the center of the stretched dough, and fold two opposite edges up. Pick it up and flatten slightly, then pinch the edges together carefully, making sure that there are no holes and no bits of filling sticking out, forming a semicircular package. I usually go around each edge twice with thumb and index finger. Experienced perogy-makers use a big lump of filling and s-t-r-e-t-c-h the dough around it; this gives you a thinner skin which is much more palatable (who, after all, wants to eat lots of cooked flour- and-water paste?) but the thin-skinned perogies are very fragile. Start with small wads of filling, and try and work up. Put the finished perogies on the prepared trays; making sure that they don't touch each other. If they have to stand for any length of time, dust with flour and cover with another cloth. 4) When you've finished assembling them, prepare some bowls with melted butter in the bottom to receive them after cooking. I usually just warm bowls (pyrex) and butter in a very slow oven, since the warm bowls keep the little treasures from cooling off. Make sure the water is boiling vigorously, then drop the perogies into the boiling water, a few at a time, slowly so the water keeps boiling. Stir VERY GENTLY to keep them from sticking to the bottom. You don't have to dump them in simultaneously or worry about timing them, because they will float to the top when they're done. Fish them out with a runcible spoon, and put them carefully into the buttered bowls. Swirl the bowls every so often to make sure they perogies get all coated with butter. It's usually a good idea to have extra butter available in case emergency lubrication is required. When they're all done, serve immediately, and prepare to become very depressed. They will vanish in a tiny fraction of the time it took to prepare them. But I think it's all worth it :-) Na zdorovje!! -- Laura Pylypow | If you would take from something Chemistry, University of Waterloo | You must first give to it laura@gwchem.waterloo.edu | laura@gwchem.uwaterloo.ca | - Tao Te Ching