Every year I make pierogi (Polish dumplings), kielbasa, and golabki (stuffed cabbage)for Thanksgiving and Christmas. So I decided to do it this weekend. I got pics for some of the steps, but not all.
Basically you make dough, and some stuffing. For the stuffing I used mashed potatoes, with cheddar cheese and grilled chopped onions.
Here are the onions cooking.
I used a pasta maker to roll out the dough.
Last Christmas I got a pierogi maker. Basically you roll out the dough, lay it across the template, add the stuffing, add another layer of dough and use a rolling pin across the template. The sharp edges press the layers together and cut into shape. It can make 18 at a time if you cover the whole template with dough. But since I was using the pasta maker my dough wasn't wide enough to cover all 3 rows. So I did the 2 outer rows.
Here is a pic with one row with the stuffing added and the other with the stuffing and the top layer of dough.
Here is a pic after I rolled the template. In the bottom I removed the extra dough.
After you remove the excess dough, you just pop out the perfectly formed pierogi and don't have to hand press the edges.
Then you boil a pot of water. You throw in the pierogi and remove them when they rise to the top.
Since I am going to freeze them, I take them out and run them through a cold bath.
I then dry them off and put them on a rack. I use the racks from the Bradley. When I have a full rack I put the rack in the freezer.
After they are frozen, I take them out and off the rack. I usually put 6 each in a small zip lock vac seal bag. Then put the bags in a 2 gallon bag. Here they are bagged and tagged.
When its time to eat, just take some out, fry them up with some butter and onions and enjoy.
1 down, kielbasa and golabki to go.
