Our next food adventure

Our next cooking adventure is something called pierogi. It's an Eastern European dumpling that Regis remembers his mother making. Many emails have been exchanged about how to make them: how thick the dough, how big the circles, how to grind the filling. There's a place in Pittsburgh called Pierogies Plus that makes them to sell by mail order. This is one of those little cultural things you learn about when you marry someone who's not from here. In the course of conversations, JB (sister of Regis) learned we were making beef commercials and asked what that was. It's like the UN of food here today.


Here's a picture of pierogi that came right off some Polish website. You have to roll the dough 1/16 of an inch thick so I finally broke down and bought a hand-roller for pasta dough. See the picture above. They make one that attaches to my Kitchen Aid mixer but I'm too cheap for that.

Apparently, Alice made her pierogis 6-7 inches across but JB says they stay together better during cooking if they are a little smaller. As with any family recipe, there are differing opinions about everything. It makes a big batch so we'll have some for Super Bowl Sunday. It's always more fun to make something interesting.

There's a pastry dough that you roll into circles then fill. You can make the filling with almost anything but Alice's recipe calls for ground chuck roast, cabbage, onions, and beef broth. You boil them and then fry them in butter. Sounds a little like krub only rolled. This is Alice's recipe:

Pierogi Filling

3 lb boneless chuck roast

1 small head of cabbage

1/2 lb of bacon

1 large onion chopped

salt and pepper to taste