There are only a few foods that we don't come by simply and easily in New Plymouth. One of them is perogies.
Yep they are sold frozen, by hundreds of kilograms in the super markets in the Lower Mainland but they are not common here...
So, occasionally, I have to do something about that.
Mostly, this foray into Central/Eastern European cuisine was inspired by a brewing day last month. We have a "Canadian Club" where the boys of Maple Fern Brewing and I eat a typically Canadian meal while they are brewing up some beer.
Past lunches have included poutine (with freshly made cheese curds no less) and of course Kraft Dinner. When it was my turn to set the menu, I knew it was time to take on perogies.
The dough isn't difficult.
Neither is the filling really. But it makes for many steps and many bowls and pots dirtied.
I have to point out the orange colour because cheese here isn't orange. It's white (like the milk it's made from.) So how did I recreate that artificial colour? In addition to potatoes in the filling I added kumara (or yams/sweet potatoes). I thought I was being quite clever. The boys didn't even notice because they were just so used to that orange filling of perogies from days of old.
This batch was actually just to put right into the freezer because I had made way too much orange filling last month and it's been waiting patiently in the freezer as well. This batch didn't even use it all up so there will be more perogies to come!
It's an effort but man did they hit the spot that day. Fried onions, sauerkraut, homemade sour cream, some salami kind of stuff... And I might add they are much nicer than the storebought kind we remember. (Even the fancy storebought ones from the European Deli in Burnaby.) Now if we could only find a Central/Eastern European perogy-enthusiasts club to join so we could eat them more often with less effort. Maybe we have to start one.
(And I know perogy can be spelled many ways but that's the way I remember it so I am ignoring all the red squiggly spelling error lines.)
Anna and I made perogies polish style and it took us a full day and into the night but we made over 200 total! Ours were not quite as big as yours.
ReplyDeleteWhoa 200 is awesome! That would be a good supply :)
DeleteI wonder if the recipe I had was Polish style or not? Hmm, I will just have to make some more soon!