This is a recipe for pierogis, the Polish/Eastern European treat that is a staple with so many meals. I made a potato pierogi (the traditional version) but there are a ton of variations including mushroom, meat, and so many other choices

Pierogi wrapper ingredients:

• 5 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup warm water
• 3 eggs
• 1/2 cup of softened butter

Filling ingreditents:

• 4 medium peeled white potatoes
• 2 medium chopped onions
• 2 tablespoons butter (not softened like the wrappers, but at room temperature)
• 5 ounces of softened cream cheese
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon pepper
• 6 cloves of garlic (or more, depending on your taste preferences)
• 4 slices of bacon

Serving Ingredients:

• 1 tablespoon butter
• Sour cream
• Parsley or paprika (if desired)

Make the Wrappers

• Combine the flour and salt, if you have a food processor you can pulse this.
• Add water, eggs and butter; mixing until dough forms a ball (pulsing in a food processor). You can add an additional 1 to 2 tablespoons of water or flour depending on whether you feel the dough is too thin or thick.
• Let rest in the bowl, covered, for 30 minutes.

Make the Filling

• Put the potatoes in a large saucepan, put in enough water to barely cover the tops.
• Bring to a boil over high heat.
• Reduce the heat, put a cover on the pot and simmer 10-15 minutes or until tender.
• Sauté half the onions, over medium-high heat in butter until tender, put it in a bowl on the side, these are for eating.
• Sauté other half of the onions, chopped bacon and all of the pressed garlic until tender, this will go in the filling
• Drain potatoes. Let sit until steam has evaporated.
• Mash potatoes
• Mix in the cream cheese, salt, pepper into the mashed potatoes. Then add the onion/bacon/garlic mixture until thoroughly mixed.

Assemble

• Divide your dough ball into four equal quarters.
• On a lightly floured surface (countertop works great), roll one portion of dough to roughly 1/8” thickness.
• Cut small round circles of dough. If you have a pastry/biscuit cutter, great. If you don’t, use a drinking glass.
• Place a couple teaspoons of the filling mix into each circle
• Moisten edges of the circle with water and then fold in half, pressing the edges to seal into a semi-circle. Amazon sells pierogi/dumpling makers and for a few bucks these are a great deal.
• Repeat this step with each quarter of the dough ball until you are all out.

Boil

• Bring a large pot of water to a boil over high heat; add the pierogis to the slowly rolling water in batches. I find that you can do this in conjunction with the assembly process, especially if you have 2 people.
• Reduce heat to a simmer; cooking the pierogis for about 1-2 minutes. When they are finished, your pierogis will float to the top and they should be tender.
• Remove with a slotted spoon or fork and place on a drying rack.

At this point pierogis can be stored in a cool fridge or frozen for later use (thawed and sautéed)

Sauté and brown (this step is if you are ready to eat now)

• In a large skillet, sauté pierogis with onion in butter until the pierogis brown.
• You can put parsley or paprika on your pierogis but at a minimum you should have some sour cream on them because the is the traditional way to eat them.

Freeze option (this step is if you want to savor these at a later date)

If you are not going to eat them right away, once they are dried on the rack, you can freeze them. I use sandwich-sized ziplock bags making sure to put about 12-14 per bag, depending on size. As long as they lay flat you are fine. If you want to use a single large holder, be sure to put wax paper between each layer so that they remain intact through the freezing and thawing process. All you have to do is repeat the sauté process once they are thawed.