Packages of Sunshine and Happiness!

March 3, 2006 12:39 PM

Being a Canadian I know that the right way to eat perogies is fried, with sour cream, fried onions and bacon bits. I am, however, open to new ideas. I have tried perogies with salsa to good effect, and now I am wanting some other perogie-topper/cooking suggestions. How do you cook/top/eat these delicious morsels of joy?
posted by arcticwoman to food & drink (38 comments total)

I boil frozen pierogies for a few minutes, then fry them in butter. I generally serve them with cabbage (chopped and sauteed with balsamic vinegar and onions), or sauerkraut, or some diced dill pickles, or sour cream and dill. It depends on what kind of filling the pierogies have, though - the above works great for any of the potato or potato/cheese ones, but I'd probably just use some bacon with the sauerkraut pierogies.
posted by sluggo at 12:43 PM on March 3, 2006

bacon bits

not at a Jewish deli. try it with a good blue cheese's shavings, if you really have to tinker with perfection -- it goes very well with the potatoes
;)
posted by matteo at 12:50 PM on March 3, 2006

unless you're a Jew for Bacon
posted by matteo at 12:53 PM on March 3, 2006

Pan-fry them in olive oil with paprika, basil, and garlic. Serve with whopping big blobs of sour cream and a smidge of hot sauce.

I cooked up all our pierogies last night, and now I want more. Meh.
posted by cmyk at 12:54 PM on March 3, 2006

Cheemo Perogie Recipes
posted by blue_beetle at 12:55 PM on March 3, 2006

Fried in butter; add some cracked black pepper about midway through. "Rooster Sauce" is good with pierogies, too, but that's no surprise as Rooster Sauce is good with everything.
posted by jtron at 1:02 PM on March 3, 2006

I had them with mushrooms, feta cheese and sour cream, just last night. Shanghai Cowgirl in Toronto does a couple of other odd combinations (as well as the traditional bacon, onions, sour cream).
posted by jacquilynne at 1:04 PM on March 3, 2006

I didn't know what they were, and I put them in chicken soup, and they were pretty good subsitutions for dumplings. I don't know if what I've just said will upset anybody, but it's the truth!
posted by Hildago at 1:07 PM on March 3, 2006

I take a bowl and put in a few teaspoons of hot pepper sauce and a little vegetable oil. Mix to combine. Add one box of the frozen pierogies. Toss to coat. Preheat oven to 400F or so, spread coated pierogies out on a baking sheet, bake 10 mins each side. They should puff up a bit. Take out and serve with blue cheese dressing for dipping.

Not sure how that would work with real, fresh pierogies as I usually eat them in the more traditional way (fried with butter).
posted by mikepop at 1:09 PM on March 3, 2006

Basil pesto.
posted by ersatzkat at 1:11 PM on March 3, 2006

my roommate dumps about half a bottle of garlic tobasco on a box of those after frying them in butter with onions.
Me, I like them plain.

yeah, I'm just that dull.
posted by Kellydamnit at 1:14 PM on March 3, 2006

Letfover sauerkraut pirogies are good the next morning fried in a cast iron pan till hot then covered with grape, strawberry, or raspberry jam.
posted by Mitheral at 1:15 PM on March 3, 2006

Oh and the key to good home made pirogies? Use the water leftover from cooking the potatoes to make your dough.
posted by Mitheral at 1:17 PM on March 3, 2006

Steam fried (pan fry the bottoms, dump water in the pan, cover until cooked, like dumplings). Yogurt instead of sour cream.

I miss the utterly non-traditional sweet potato pierogies I used to be able to get frozen. Butter and cinnamon on those.
posted by cobaltnine at 1:20 PM on March 3, 2006

I had these for dinner last night. Fried, with butter and/or sour cream is it.

By the way, if you can get pierogi priest brand where you live, do so. They're sold fresh in the store, and IMO they're the best next to home made (as I shed a tear for my dear, late Polish mom).
posted by SteveInMaine at 1:21 PM on March 3, 2006

Yum! We use fake bacon bits (vegetarian), and always add grated cheese of one sort or another before smothering in sour cream and lots of hot sauce. And people say poutine is disgusting!
posted by fish tick at 1:24 PM on March 3, 2006

Chinese dumpling soup. There's a potato dumpling soup in Korea as well, and you can use the same recipes.
posted by Sallysings at 1:25 PM on March 3, 2006

Boil; drain, throw in heavy, oven-proof pot (like a Le Crueset thingy); cover with heavy cream, scatter some chopped fresh dill, bake until it's all hot and goopy. ENJOY.
posted by docgonzo at 1:52 PM on March 3, 2006

Hidalgo's post has me considering using perogies in stew. I'd still get dumplings and potato without the effort. Hmmmm. I'd love to find whole wheat perogies, though, and I can't find them anywhere. I have a toddler and I don't like using refined flour, which is akin to sugar. But I love perogies and want to serve them. Perhaps the whole fried in butter with sour cream and bacon bits is a clue to why they cannot be found.
posted by acoutu at 1:53 PM on March 3, 2006

my gosh how can no one have said mixing em with apple sauce yet?! i prefer the chunky, cinnimon kind, but most other varieties work. preferably organic of course. or else fry em up, put some cheddar cheese on top until melted then dip those bad boys in ketchup! mmm MMM!
yeh, i usually boil a bit if i get the frozen kind and then fry them in a little butter like most others though.
posted by annoyance at 2:00 PM on March 3, 2006

Curry powder( Garam masala? ) in place of paprika, plus sour cream is what I've been doing with them after steaming / butter frying some frozen ones.
posted by mnology at 2:40 PM on March 3, 2006

The key is an enormous amount of garlic. Bacon, really, is missing the point — you want fried onions, garlic and sour cream.
posted by nebulawindphone at 2:56 PM on March 3, 2006

My mother eats them boiled, and will only pan fry the leftovers (with onions and bacon of course). Sigh.
posted by furtive at 3:33 PM on March 3, 2006

I buy mine frozen at Trader Joes. I cook them like potstickers -- with a little oil to brown the bottom, then add water, cover and cook for about eight minutes. I usually let the water boil off after that.

My serving choice is applesauce.
posted by ShooBoo at 3:37 PM on March 3, 2006

Some above have suggested applesauce. Sauteed diced apples also is nice. Goes well with bacon, saurkraut, onions, hotsauce, sourcream, and/or curry additions.

likewise for raisins or toasted nuts.
posted by MonkeySaltedNuts at 4:18 PM on March 3, 2006

I'm surprised nobody's mentioned fruit-filled pierogi (perogies). Here in the old country (Poland), summer-time pierogi are filled with strawberries, blueberries, raspberries and other seasonal fruit. Topped with a bit of cream, sprinkled with sugar... mmm... delicious!
posted by jedrek at 4:32 PM on March 3, 2006

Wow. I think we've got about all of the essentials covered: Heavy dairy, garlic, optional pre-frying. Yummmm. Pierogies' meaty Russian cousins, pel'meni, are delightful with just a bit of black pepper and a splash of white vinegar. But this isn't enough to cut through the bland bulk of a potato pierogie. I use a more liberal saucing with equalish parts soy sauce and vinegar, followed by a dusting of garam masala (shout-out to mnology!). Delicious. Oh, and maybe some cayenne pepper or a splash of Tabasco sauce.

I also got quite fond of one other application of potato pierogies at a little truck-stop café in the south part of Lviv (western Ukraine). The place also sold shashlik (shish kebab), which was served with thin rings of raw onion and a spicy ketchup. Potato-filled varennyky (this is just the Ukrainian version of the name) are the perfect foil for all that meat and salt/savory goodness. So I'd order both, and they'd lay the skewer across a bed of varennyky, ketchup on the side, and strew the whole thing with both fried and raw onion ... bliss. You'll need to pick your teeth afterwards, though.

Sauerkraut-filled pierogies can have no finer treatment than the ones that have already been mentioned.

The only whole-wheat pierogies I have ever seen are the ones I made myself. They were somewhat tastier than white-flour ones, nuttier and sweeter, which harmonized quite nicely with the soy treatment above. Google up a recipe and have a ball -- you can make a ton of them and freeze them indefinitely.

And, on preview, one of my favorite desserts of all time was sour-cherry varennyky, with smetana and sugar, eaten as a guest in a home in Uzhgorod down by the Hungarian border. Jedrek knows what he's talking about.
posted by eritain at 4:35 PM on March 3, 2006 [1 favorite]

butter and parmesan cheese for me
posted by poppo at 7:22 PM on March 3, 2006

I like them better when they're not fried, just boiled, and with just the sour cream (no bacon or onions). Less is more!
posted by easternblot at 8:35 PM on March 3, 2006

Ok, my dad was a chef and one of his famous dishes were pierogies. He made them lots of different ways. Fried in butter, served with sour cream, deep fried and served with applesauce, or my personal favorite, sauteed in butter and huge amounts of garlic with hot italian sausages. Onions and bell peppers thrown in. Yummy.
posted by katyggls at 9:01 PM on March 3, 2006

Wow. I don't want to pick a best answer until I've tried a few! Some of these look amazing.
posted by arcticwoman at 11:50 PM on March 3, 2006

Sour cream or apple sauce is the best, but sometimes I just go for spicy mustard.
posted by sohcahtoa at 3:18 AM on March 4, 2006

I had no idea pierogi have become so (relatively) popular in north america - I know they weren't even on the radar when we moved back to europe in the early 1990s.

This might be slightly OT, but if you're a fan of pierogi and want to try other, similar (and maybe superior?) dishes:

• kopytka - thick potato-based noodles. There's a variation named "leniwe" (literally - lazy) where the dough is made with white cheese that is probably one of my favorite dishes on the planet
  
• kolduny - somewhere between pierogi and raviolli, filled with beef and lamb (these are incredible in beet borsch)
  
• pyzy - potato-based dumplings stuffed with plums, strawberries or other fruit
  
• knedle - steamed dumplings made from potato flour
  

The Poles and Ukranians have been making potato based pasta for hundereds of years, and we've gotten quite adept at it. There's a wide selection of dishes out there to explore - most of which are extremely easy, cheap and tasty.
posted by jedrek at 6:18 AM on March 4, 2006

jedrek -
I think pierogi-love is a regional trait here in the USA... I live in SE Michigan, and there's a huge polish-american community in Hamtramck (and elsewhere around the state). We can get Dudek pierogi at just about any grocery store within 100 miles, and I grew up eating them at all my friends' houses.
posted by sluggo at 6:36 AM on March 4, 2006

They are also terrific with a potato/cottage cheese filling, then boiled and finally topped with a generous amount of melted butter and chopped onions (browned just right).
posted by clon7 at 7:33 AM on March 4, 2006

If you're still using manufactured perogies, the next step up in taste is to make your own!
posted by five fresh fish at 9:20 AM on March 4, 2006

I am in a small Canadian city and all I really have access to is good old Cheemo. My mom has made perogies before though - well, she made 300 of them the night I was born and then never made them again - so maybe I'll ask her to make some with me when I see her this summer. Watch out, in a few months I'll be posting to AskMe for perogie making tips!
posted by arcticwoman at 7:11 PM on March 4, 2006

I can't believe no one has mentioned putting balsamic vinegar on them yet. IT IS DELICIOUS! I've been eating pierogies all my life with sour cream and onions, and just tried balsamic vinegar about six months ago -- I'm a total convert now. Try it -- you won't be sorry!
posted by onlyconnect at 7:25 AM on March 17, 2006