How to Master Pierogies

My grandmother was from Slovenia and I remember her making Pierogies on Friday's as we weren't allowed to eat meat on that day. It brought back great memories of her kitchen and the labor of love that went into making that meal. And you were right, with the right amount of butter, they would just slide down your throat.

What a tender and gently witty piece. Thank you.

Pierogies are prevalent in my home town Pittsburgh. Not having anyone to teach me, I ventured off on my own, filling them with anything I had around the house- smoked salmon, chicken paprikash, turkey and stuffing and at my 5 year old grandson's suggestion, a chocolate Frango mint (which was delicious). So be adventurous with fillings but do your best to seal the edges. And they freeze well too.

The world felt so secure when our family, aunts, uncles, cousins, gathered all in my grandparents home, around a long table in the basement kitchen, near the warm furnace, anticipating the slippery, delicate pierogy to be savored along with sausage and kapusta.

What a great piece. Thank you!

My grandfather fled to Canada as a "white" Russian during the Russian revolution. My grandmother and mother followed a couple of years later. In my 20s, I moved across the country to pursue my career, leaving behind those meals of perogies that I loved. Store-bought just weren't the same so I made the pilgrimage back to baba's to get her recipe. She was thrilled. We entered her kitchen sanctum. She pulled out the necessary ingredients and went to work, me scribbling feverishly on the side counter to ensure I got every nuance. At the end I had everything except the portions of the ingredients. When I asked her how much of each one she replied, "until it's right". So, there is a recipe after all.

This was a great article. Am of Slovak descent and grew up eating pierogies. Unfortunately, I don't make them. What I resent is companies like Mrs. T's urging us to put tomato sauce, salsa, sriracha, etc. on pierogies. Please don't tamper with my heritage. If you want pasta with tomato sauce, eat ravioli. My baba served her pierogi with chopped onions cooked in butter- poured the mixture over the pierogi. The idea of serving them with a bit of bacon sounds delicious and doesn't really tamper with the ethnicity of the dish.

Nice story however I do protest one aspect. Processed American cheese does not belong in any quality food. None. It is junk imitation cheese, not real cheese. Go for the sheep's milk.

For the record, I am Polish/Lithuanian and grew up on pierogies so truly appreciate a good one, and make them form time to time.

My Slovak grandmother, who came from Austria-Hungary, used to make them (without a recipe), but she would hide what she was doing from my mother when she made them so my mother never learned how to make them herself. What a shame. Besides potatoes, she used poppyseed or lekvar filling. Besides melted butter, we also added onions cooked golden brown and bread crumbs. Hopefully this recipe will let me reproduced what my grandmother made.

We had a similar dinner on Christmas Eve to the one described by S. Casey. But But my mother used to make sour (creamless) mushroom soup with noodles made from egg whites dropped into the hot soup. And we put honey on the "holy bread." You can still buy the holy bread online.

Anyone living close to Yonkers NY is lucky enough to be able to buy homemade pierogi,kielbasy or hot dogs (no preservatives added) from a Polish deli on Lockwood Avenue in Yonkers. Almost as good as grandmother made.

Mmm ... pierogies are pure soul-food, and making a big batch can be a fun activity for family or friends. The article also mentions won tons, pot stickers and shiu mai. For a single book that expertly covers making all these types and about fifty others, track down a copy of "Cooking Under Wraps" by Nicole Routhier. It is sinfully out-of-print, but luckily not hard to find: I'm about to buy my 3rd copy, because it invariably gets "borrowed."

I love pierogies fried in butter with sliced onions to a crispy texture.
Then I eat them with cottage cheese which adds a third dimension.

I'm sure each region, (perhaps each Voivodship or even town in the case of Poland), has their own way of making this staple. I'm sure -things vary from family to family.

My grandparents emigrated from Southeastern Poland, near Ukraine.
For us it was a filling of dry farmers cheese (fresh pressed cheese made from cow's milk), mashed potato and onion. Pierogis were then boiled, and just before serving, fried in bacon lard to be crispy. Serve with pickled beets and cold cucumber salad in a sweet/sour dressing, seeded rye bread on the side. It is fantastic to be Polish.

Pierogi-making is a big social event in our family. My mother, the daughter of Ukrainian immigrants, makes the dough and fillings. I roll and cut out the dough while my sister and our daughters stuff the pierogies. The girls began their apprenticeship at the age of three when they were able to wrap a piece of dough around a prune. The have since graduated to all facets of pierogi-making, including the most difficult, stuffing the dough with krup (buckwheat groats).

I can vouch for the sour cream ingredient - that's what my Polish grandmother used. But she and my mother were more adventurous with fillings. Herbed ricotta cheese, for one, and my favorite - sauerkraut that's been pre-rinsed, cooked for a time in a bit of water (to soften further) and flavored with a bit of bacon fat. Then - sateed with onions - heaven!

The idea of using American cheese is revolting; as for potatoes, meh.

My Slovak grandma wrapped Italian prune plums with the dough and made noodles with the leftover dough. After boiling she covered them with butter, ground walnuts and sugar. They were such a summer Friday dinner treat.

My Polish father and Ukrainian mother came to the U.S. (along with my sister and brother) in 1949 after spending four years in a displaced persons camp post-1945 WWII. My mother used to make pierogi (pirohy) on Fridays and they were the best. The argument among "experts" is how thick or thin to roll out the dough. Thanks for bringing attention to this great Eastern European delicacy.

Pretty much out own family recipe - simple, just labor-intensive. The only difference is ours had cottage cheese instead of American. We were always told to slightly over-salt and over-pepper the potato/cheese/bacon mix, because the seasoning boils out. Thanks. The story was great.

Immigrants living among immigrants. That is what makes America great.

I was thinking it was time to make pierogies. I use my grandmothers recipe. She immigrated to the US from Poland. At Easter she would put a walnut into one pierogy but I can't remember if it was good luck to get the walnut or not.

Thanks for this great story. Now, I'm hungry!

In my Lithuanian family, they were called virtinai, made with either ground beef or potatoes, and served with fried salt pork cubes, butter, and sour cream. They were so good, but they did sit in your stomach.

Wonderful read! My family is Slovak on my mother's side, and we make our pirohi with American cheese too. The dough has sour cream-base, and the filling also includes instant potatoes, onions lightly sauteed in butter. We usually make them when we are gathered together over Thanksgiving weekend, assembly-line style, and then freeze them, so everyone can take packages home with them to have for Christmas Eve dinner (and leftovers are for Christmas breakfast).

My family's background is Carpatho-Rusyn. Both my maternal grandparents from the Polish side of the Carpathian Mountains and my paternal grandparents from the Slovak side were Rusyn.
Pirogies were a staple for us, and in particular a central component to Christmas Eve. supper. Absolutely out of this world!

Great story francis! As always really bringing us in and getting to the heart. But that photo, Eesh.

My grandmother, Polish, used to make these with dry cottage cheese, or potatoes, sometimes cabbage. We had them often. Very often. Really, really often. Between pierogis, boiled potatoes, noodles, and cabbage (the cabbage frequently with the noodles) I would not touch any of the above for years.

My mother, aunt, and cousin would make them at our church as a communal gathering and fund raiser in Youngstown, Ohio.

I worked with a great guy originally from Cote d'Ivoire who loved them at first bite. He would drop whatever he was working on and head over to the cafeteria whenever they were on the menu. Ate twice as much as I did.

Now I like them, tried making them a while back, not good. OK, bad. Mom and Aunt Steffie are now up in the great kitchen in the sky laughing at me and my failures.

Thanks for sharing the memories.

You're in the wrong city - Winnipeg is where perogies are at! There's even Perogy Planet on North Main!

My ancestors are Scottish/German/English and I’d never had pierogi until I met my future husband. His sister passed along their Ukrainian grandmother’s recipe to me so I could surprise him at our first Christmas together. I’ve been making them for almost 40 years now and I think of his grandma every time I make them even though I only met her once. Our grown daughters have carried on this family tradition. We sauté them in butter with a dollop of sour cream on top. Wonderful.

This recipe has 4 slices of AMERICAN cheese? No.
This is not close to a real pierogi recipe, why waste the space posting it?
No.
No.
No.
Farmer's cheese is very easily found all over New York City.
American cheese??
No.

@ John Mazur: brother, you said a mouthful. I've thought for many years that if we'd all just concentrate on filling our mouths with each other's food and otherwise shutting up - no religion, no politics, just eat! - we'd all come to realize what life is really about.

And then perhaps have a conversation.

Or just more pierogies (or bratwurst or babaganuj or wui wor yuk or...).

Our Baba used to drain cottage cheese and mix it with mashed potatoes. Sometimes, she'd mix in a little cheddar. I don't think I'd like the American cheese as much.
When she fried them up a bit with the bacon and onions, they were memorable. We still try to recreate them and our efforts are good, but not the same. Of course, she didn't use a recipe.

My Grandmother Bronia brought her pierogie recipe over from Poland in 1910. I learned to make the farmer cheese filled kind from my Aunt Marianne in New Jersey. We top them with bread crumbs fried in butter and onions fried in butter. I can make 80 and have them gone in a day.

Thank you, d'akujem, for this piece on Slovak Americans and foods. My grandfather was a Slovak immigrant, and his wife was an American-born Slovak. So of course, my mother spent many Christmas Eves making piroji, as we called them. (I salute Baba in this article, making them every Friday!) My sister and I were enlisted to help spoon the soft mashed potatoes into their noodle-dough wrappers. We ate them boiled, then covered with melted butter. They'd slide down your throat in an extremely pleasant way. We had cold kolbasi slices on the side, as well as pieces of "holy bread" impressed with scenes of the Nativity. Christmas Eve was always special.

If at the same time, everyone in the world could sit down and share a big plate of Pierogies, everything would be all right.

Thanks, been liking for a good pirohy recipe. My mother and baba made them, but left no recipe behind.

Another piece of great storytelling Francis......I wanted to be there in the kitchen with you.