Today’s post was going to be about quinine, the magical alkaloid that flavors tonic water. However, this weekend is Polish Fest and there just was not enough excitement at work – colleagues were not only not planning to get their pierogi on, few even knew what a pierog was or cared. So, I thought we could use today’s post to further the understanding of pieorgi.Pierogi is the Polish word for a stuffed dumpling. They are known by other names and spellings across central and Eastern Europe– pirogi, pyrogi, varenyky, derelye, vareniki. No matter the spelling or country of origin, the words refer to a half moon/crescent shaped dumpling - similar to the Italian ravioli, the angolotti. At its simplest, it is rolled egg dough – again like you would find in a raviolo - but the two part ways over the filling - A pierog (singular) is filled with fairly common ingredients – potato, cabbage/sauerkraut, onion, bacon, farmer’s cheese, quark/cream cheese and/or mushrooms.
There are sweet versions of the dumpling as well and meat filled varieties but when I think of pierogi, I think of one kind: filled with potato, farmer’s cheese and onion. These are apparently known as Russian pierogi, for reasons no one has been able to explain to me. In Russia the pierogi are known as verniki or if they are filled with meat, pelmeni. Since this style of dumpling is endemic to the Baltic States, this doesn’t appear to be a case of borrowing a noun from another language or a dumpling from another culture, they are just Russian pierogi.
The dumpling, by any name, is prepared, usually by boiling РUkrainians deep-fry their dumpling, the varenyky - the root of the word means to boil, which makes deep-frying odd (though not technically ironic). After cooking in water the dumpling can be saut̩ed in fat for extra flavor Рbacon or goose are both popular and tasty but butter also does the job .
Pierogi ruskie – are delicious. The beauty of ravioli, filled with the comfort of mashed potatoes, topped with the indulgence of sour cream. Seriously, a plate of them will cost $5 dollars at St. Stanislaus this weekend. Or a person who isn’t in north Portland or isn’t inclined to make them could go to polana.com and order 3 - dozen for $29 plus shipping and handling.
Enjoy your weekend, Saucyman will return next week full of pierogi with an entry on Quinine, Charles Seluzicki gives us a bunch of baloney and the week will close out with a question about expensive versus cast iron pans.
Later in October, Saucyman will feature its first ever Sauthors Week™ profiling newly minted Author Matthew Dickman; Stegner Fella and first time author Mike McGriff and other treats including an interview J.D. Salinger – just about food, not about what he has been doing for the last few decades - the event will be enough to make Oprah and her book club jealous.
1 comments:
One of the best things about my mother in law is that she grew up in Hamtramck, Detroit. I literally swooned the first time I tasted her mushroom pierogi.
She sautes them in butter along with very finely chopped onion that becomes delicately brown and lightly crispy. Counting the days til Wigilia.
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