Pierogi ruskie

Ingredients

• Plain flour400 g
• Boiling water200 ml
• Neutral oil2 tbsp
• Potatoes — boiled500 g
• Dry curd cheese250 g
• Onions3
• Butter60 g
• Soured creamto taste
• Salt and pepperto taste

Salt and spices grow more slowly than the rest: doubling a dish does not double the pepper.

Weight converts to ounces and volume to cups. Grams of flour are not turned into cups, because that depends on how tightly it is packed.

Method

1. 1

   Pour the boiling water with the oil and salt over the flour, work it with a spoon and then, once it cools, by hand for eight minutes. Cover and rest it half an hour.

   40 min

2. 2

   Fry two of the onions in butter to a deep gold. Half goes into the filling and half is kept for serving.

   20 min

3. 3

   Mash the warm potato with the curd and the fried onion, and season generously. The filling has to be firm enough to hold its shape.

   10 min

4. 4

   Roll the dough to two millimetres, cut discs with a glass, add a teaspoon of filling and pinch the edges dry — wet dough will not seal.

   30 min

5. 5

   Boil in batches in a wide pot of salted water. Lift them out a minute after they float.

   12 min

6. 6

   Serve with the rest of the fried onion and soured cream. Plenty of people fry the boiled pierogi in butter afterwards, which is equally correct.

About the dish

The name misleads: ruskie does not refer to Russia but to Red Ruthenia, a region now on the Polish-Ukrainian border. The filling there was always potato and curd.

The dough is mixed with hot water. Boiling water gelatinises part of the starch, and the dough turns pliable: it rolls thin and does not tear when you shape it.

The curd should be neither sweet nor grainy — Polish twaróg or a dry pressed curd. A wet curd makes the filling loose and the dumplings burst in the pot.

Worth knowing

• — Never leave the dough uncovered: it dries within minutes and stops sealing. Keep everything you are not working with under a bowl.
• — Pierogi freeze well raw on a board and then go into a bag. They are boiled straight from frozen, a minute longer.
• — Taste the filling for salt without fail: the dough is plain, and an under-seasoned filling drags the whole dish down.

Nutrition

Per serving at the base yield, calculated from the ingredients rather than measured in a lab.

Calories

590 kcal

Protein

20 g

Fat

20 g

Carbs

82 g

More from Poland

• Żurek — A sour soup on a rye starter with white sausage and egg. The sourness comes from fermentation, not vinegar.