Pirogi Dough Recipe

Directions:

1. The recipe is sparse on instructions.
2. Dough: Mix egg yolk with oil and waater. Add to flour and salt, mix in mixing bowl, work with hand.
3. Work in well. Divide dough in thirds.
4. Keep 2/3 covered.
5. Roll out thin 1/8 to 1/16 inch thick.
6. Cut in circles (yields 24-26 circles per third)
7. Note: My mom's handwriting says to cut the fillings in half. I put the original portions in the ingredient list.
8. Potato:
9. Peel, cut and boil the potatoes for approx. 15 minutes.
10. Fry the finely chopped onions in butter til golden brown.
11. Cut the cheese (giggle I'm 12) in little pieces and mash into the hot drained potatoes.
12. Add fried onions with salt and pepper to taste.
13. Cool before filling dough.
14. Coating: see under saurkraut filling.
15. Saurkrout (sic)
16. Soak imported dried mushrooms in warm water, for 15-20 minutes, rinse and wash out sand. Repeat until there is no sand in the soaking water.
17. Bring to a simmer over low heat and cook for one hour covered.
18. Drain in strainer and put through food processor.
19. Drain the saurkraut and cover with cold water and bring to a boil for 1/2 to 3/4 of an hour.
20. Squeeze the kraut very dry. Chop fine and mix with mushrooms.
21. Fry 2 medium onions very finely chopped in butter until lightly browned and have a good smell. Add to saurkraut mixture with salt and pepper to taste. If still too moist, add some bread crumbs. Approx. 1 tsp of filling per pirogi.
22. COATING: onions chopped and fried in oil and butter...allow two onions per batch of pirogis
23. Mushroom filling:
24. Saute onions in butter til golden brown and all moisture is gone.
25. Remove from heat and add mushrooms with salt and pepper to taste. Refrigerate. 1 tsp per dough circle
26. Meat filling:
27. Saute onion in half of butter until lightly brown, remove from pan. Saute beef in half butter for few minutes, sprinkle with flour to absorb moisture. Remove from heat and combine with onion. Add salt and pepper to taste along with bread crumbs. Cool.
28. Add eggs and mix thoroughly. Refrigerate. When completely cooled and you can form into little balls, then you are ready to fill the pierogi.
29. Prune:
30. Boil in water for 15 minutes. Let cool and drain thoroughly. After drained, pit and leave whole. Place one whole as filling for each pirogi. After they are filled and cooked and drained. Toss the prune filled pirogi in a mixture of browned butter, bread crumbs and sugar.
31. She did not give us measurements for this. I can only relate as I saw her make them.
32. In a large heavy skillet, she put enough butter to generously coat the bottom and brought it to the foaming stage. She added bread crumbs (plain) by the handful until it bubbled like lava, big bubble of popping bread crumbs and then she sprinkled the entire top with sugar, stirred once or twice and dumped in the drained filled cooked pirogi.
33. Plum filling:
34. Drain and cut the canned plums in half, use one half plum per pirogi and use the crumb butter sugar coating after cooking.
35. All the fillings were used cold to fill the dough. Edges were pinched
36. To quote grammy, Like you were pinching your last penny for life
37. She did gently press the air out before attacking the edges. Sometimes she pleated the edges, most times she did not because speed was of essence to her recipe. She had a lot to fill and we weren't going to waste our time being pretty.
38. All were cooked in a large stock pot with generous amounts of salted boilng water until they floated to the top and were skimmed out and drained. All received a coating...onions for savory fillings and crumbs for fruit fillings.
39. Whew!! God bless grammy.