Didn't post this last night (Sunday) because I was exhausted after making these. It's a HUGE job, don't do it alone! Luckily I had my mom to help/teach me as it was her recipe. I was talking with my friend Amanda about recipes we'd like to see passed down from our mothers and this one topped my list. Mostly because it goes beyond my mom's generation, for god knows how many generations. My Great Aunts, all Ukrainian, use to make these when I was a little girl and I was proud to be the 'official perogy pincher'. So this recipe is close to my heart, hopefully I get to share it with my daughter one day.
We found a recipe in a Ukrainian cookbook belonging to my mom's boyfriend that was so old it didn't have a cover! So I can't even credit it. However the recipe itself was credited to a Mrs. S. Zaharko. We needed something to go off of to give us a general idea as my mom was mostly going by memory, we'd hadn't made the perogies since my Great Aunty Gladys passed away long ago. I loved my Aunty Gladys so much as a I child I like to think she'd be proud of the job we did, perhaps she was in the kitchen guiding us last night. :)
In the end we barely used the book so I'll do my best to repurpose our recipe below.
Makes approximately 100 perogies (freeze what you don't use, I'll include freezing tips below)
Ingredients
Stuffing
1 1/2 lbs dry cottage cheese (mom says 'dry' is key)
8 medium potatoes
Salt and pepper
Dough
8 cups flour
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. baking powder
6 eggs
1 1/4 cup milk
+ 1 egg for wash
Boil potatoes until soft and then mash with the dry cottage cheese. Mix well. Salt and pepper to taste.
Sift flour, baking powder and salt into a very large mixing bowl. Beat eggs with milk. Make a large bowl-like hole in the flour mixture and pour in egg mixture. Using a fork, bring the flour in gradually from the sides and swirl it into the liquid. Keep mixing, drawing larger amounts of flour in, and when it all comes together, work the rest of the flour with flour-dusted hands. Knead until you have smooth, mostly lump-free dough (we struggled to get all the lumps out).
Put flour on floured-covered cutting board and when not in use, cover with wet tea towel. Using a knife, cut off a chunk of dough and then cut a smaller piece off of this so that you are working with dough the size of a golf ball, then roll it to make a ball.
Use a rolling pin to roll out to approximately 1/4 inch thick. Do not go thinner than this or you will have problems closing up the perogies at the end. Most recipes call for rolling out all the dough in one piece and using cups to get circle shapes, but then you get all kinds of wasted dough. The way we did it, you use most of the dough. You can use a cup for really misshapen pieces if you'd like. Fill circles with 1 tbsp. of filling and fold dough in half.
Use an egg wash (egg and water) along the edges and seal very well. Place finished perogies on floured baking sheet and then cook or if freezing, follow tips below.
Options for cooking:
-Fry in deep fat until golden brown and drain on paper towels
-Boil in salted water until perogies float, then fast fry in frying pan
We boiled them as that's the way the Aunties use to roll, then topped them with bacon and onions that we panfried slowly in butter until caramelized and sour cream.
We served it with Polish sausage also fried in butter (um I see a theme here?) and leftover brussels sprouts and cauliflower au gratin. This plate of food made me immensely happy.
Funday Freezing Tip:
Lay out perogies on flour-covered baking sheet and place in freezer for 10 minutes until perogies begin to freeze, then put them in ziplock bags in the freezer. Laying them out in the freezer for the first 10 minutes before bagging will prevent them from sticking together.
Well, this is my last post of 2012 so Happy New Year! Also, there will be no post next week as I'm in Costa Rica for my friend Rebecca's wedding, but I'll be back on Jan 13.
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