If there’s anything more wonderful than a family recipe, it’s continuing the tradition by sharing it with children, family, and friends.
I was so lucky this week to when Lori chose her Ukrainian family’s pierogie recipe for a cooking date. Katrina, Lori and I took turns rolling little balls of cheese and potato filling on the dining room table, making homemade dough (we tried both white flour and a wheat flour), cutting dough circles, stuffing the filling into the dough, crimping and boiling.
Our combined 5 kids played nearby, sneaking a cheese-potato ball every now and then, or helping with the dough. We made about 150 pierogies in a couple of hours, and they are delicious, pan-fried in butter with a few onions.
As Lori taught us how to make the pierogies, she told us how her family gathered at her grandmother’s house in Pennsylvania to make them, usually for holidays like Easter or Christmas. Later, her family started making them at her mother’s house. As she took a first bite of our batch, memories of her childhood brought a blissful smile to her face.
charles rock says
our family puts a twist on ukrainian pierogies by adding chopping, straining, squeezing all the water out of sourkraut and straining cottage cheese. add this to your potatoe mix. when you can always cook a batch in butter and onions in a skillet cooker fresh from the boiling pot. cut open add more butter to center, and always french onion dip