Pierogies are the dumpling staple of eastern Europe
Just about every food culture in the world has some form of stuffed dumpling represented. Whether they be boiled or fried, the pot-stickers in Asia, empanadas of Latin America, samosas from India and hand-held meat pies of Great Britain all have one thing in common: they start out with a simple dough and some sort of filling.
Perogies can be made with a number of fillings including, mushroom and cheese, salmon and spinach and even apples and cinnamon. After the perogi are made, the dumplings are dropped into a pot of boiling water. When the perogi are finished cooking, they will rise to the top.
- Kim Kim Foster-Tobin /kkfoster@thestate.com
A simple flour, egg and water combination for the dough;
whatever you can imagine for a filling.
Traditionally, pierogies are filled with one of these
combinations: mashed potatoes, a soft farmers cheese (or cottage cheese) and
fried onion (a combination known as “Russian”); cabbage and fried onion; or a
mixture of cottage cheese, sugar, vanilla and raisins.
When I was in Poland on a culinary tour last summer, we were
served pierogies stuffed with mushrooms and farmers cheese at one sitting. A
restaurant presented pierogies filled with spinach and smoked salmon.
The filling could be any combination of sweet or savory
ingredients that you come up with or even a bit of leftovers from the night
before. I thought since it is apple season, why not apples and cinnamon with a
bit of sugar, a squirt of lemon juice and a pinch of nutmeg? Maybe even some
cheese? Put that combination inside of the dough, boil it, as is tradition,
then finish in a frying pan with melted butter and sugar.
When it came time to re-create some recipes for a photograph
for this column, I suggested to my editor that a how-to video for online might
be fun.
I thought the photographer/videographer and I set up in my
kitchen might be nice. I had done a trial run, start to finish working by
myself making two dozen mushroom and cheese pierogies in just over two hours.
Sounds like a lot, but making the filling and then the dough and rolling it out
took very little time. It was the stuffing and sealing the individual dumplings
that took the time.
Maybe if I enlisted a friend or two to help in the
preparation, the process would go faster and you could see how easy the recipe
really is to make.
That idea went over great . . . BUT we’d have to find a
larger space because both the photographer and my editor, practically at the
same time, declared my kitchen too small for such a project.
Soooo . . . thanks to Glenda Wolfe and Anne Postic for the
loan of the kitchen and thanks to my friends Linda Sellers, Tara Felder, Yarley
Steedly and Tracy Glantz for their support doing the chopping and cooking and
filling (and later eating) of the pieorgies on a beautiful Saturday morning.
Here are some tips that I found that make the pierogi
process go faster:
Organization is key. Start with the filling. You want to get
the filling done first, especially if there’s cooking involved so that it can
cool down a bit before being used.
You don’t need fancy kitchen tools. We used our hands to
work the dough. After rolling it out with rolling pins to about one-eighth of
an inch thick, we used plastic cups as cutters to cut out 3-inch discs. And
when it came time to fish the finished dumplings out of the water, a slotted
spoon or bamboo-and-wire strainer works just fine.
The dough making is the easy part, it’s the filling that
takes time. Depending on how many types of pierogies you’ll be making, if you
have the room you can have more than one person making dough. We made three
types of pierogies for the video (a total of about 60 pierogies) so I set up
three dough stations on large cutting boards on the kitchen island. We doubled
the recipe on two stations (for the savory fillings) and a single dough recipe
on the third (for the sweet filling). To fill a pierogi, place a little less
than one tablespoon of filling in the center of the dough disc and fold the
edge over to create a crescent shape. Seal the edges by folding over or crimping
with the tines of a fork.
Put a large pot of water on to boil before you start (or at
least about half-way through the process of) filling the pierogies. You don’t
want to wait for water to boil. OK, I don’t like waiting for water to boil. I’m
impatient. Since we were doing sweet and savory pierogies at the same time, I
set two pots on the stove, one for the sweet, the other for the savory (who
wants mushrooms or salmon floating in their apples-and-cinnamon?).
Enlist the family or friends and the process is faster and
more fun. With six people, we stuffed and sealed about 60 pieorgies in about 30
minutes. Of course we were chatting away and being given direction from our
photographer before noon on a Saturday so we possibly could have moved faster .
. .
When the pierogies float, they’re done. Really. Placed in
boiling water, it only takes a minute for the dumpling to rise and float to the
surface. Work in batches. This ensures that the water remains close to a boil
and that if one of the pierogies bursts open (it happens), you won’t have too
much trouble fishing everything out of the pot.
Fry them? This is up to you. You can serve/eat the pierogies
immediately after boiling or finish by frying (to just brown) in a bit of olive
oil and butter.
Finish them off. Serve savory pierogies with bacon, fried
onion, melted butter or sour cream. Sweet pierogies can be served with a dollop
of whipped cream and a sprinkling of sugar.
Pierogies
makes about 12 pierogies. Recipe can be doubled or tripled
as desired
1 cup flour
1 egg
4 tablespoons cold water
Sift flour on work surface, form a well in the center and
crack egg in center of well. Knead dough by hand, adding water slowly, until
pliable. Roll out dough on a floured surface to about one-eighth inch thick. If
the dough starts to stick to the surface or the rolling pin, add a bit of
flour. Cut out pierogies with a 3-inch cookie cutter (or inverted drinking
glass).
Fill by placing a spoonful of filling in the center of the
dough and fold to create a crescent-shaped pocket, crimping edges with a fork
to seal.
Bring a large pot of water to the boil and, in batches of
four at a time, place filled pierogies in boiling water. Remove when they float
to the surface.
Savory pierogies are traditionally served with fried bacon
and melted butter or sour cream. After boiling, they can be sauteed in butter
or oil to just brown.
Mushroom and Cheese filling
filling for two pierogie recipes
8 oz fresh mushrooms, chopped fine
2 cloves of garlic, minced
2 oz. farmers cheese (or any semi-soft cheese), diced fine
Fresh thyme, about 1 tablespoon, chopped
Olive oil and butter
Salt and fresh ground black pepper
Heat olive oil and a tablespoon of butter in a frying pan
and saute mushrooms and garlic until soft. Add fresh thyme to mushrooms and
garlic and remove from heat. Add cheese to mushroom mixture and stir to
combine. Taste for seasoning.
Spinach and Smoked Salmon filling
filling for two pierogie recipes
8 oz fresh spinach, chopped fine
2 cloves garlic, chopped fine
Olive oil and butter
4 oz smoked salmon, chopped fine
Salt and fresh ground black pepper
Heat olive oil in a saute pan. Add fresh spinach and garlic
and saute until just wilted. Add 1 tablespoon butter, stir until butter is
melted, remove pan from heat and add smoked salmon. Mix until combined. Taste
for seasoning.
Apples and Cinnamon filling
filling for one pierogie recipe
2 apples
1 tablespoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon nutmeg (a dash)
1/4 teaspoon lemon juice
optional: 1 ounce cheddar cheese, finely grated
4 tablespoons butter
Peel, core and dice apples. Heat butter in a saute pan. Add
diced apples, sugar, cinnamon nutmeg and lemon juice. Saute until apples are
just soft. Remove from heat. If you’re using cheese, add now and mix to
combine.
Optional finish: After pierogies are boiled, heat 4
tablespoons of butter in a frying pan. Saute pierogies, about four at a time,
in butter until just browned (the pierogies may puff open in the pan, that’s
OK). Sprinkle with sugar and serve warm.
Fitness: Make exercise habit stick even if you're tired, unmotivated
When you first start a new exercise program or routine, motivation is high and making your workouts a priority is easy. However, it can be hard to stay motivated after the first few sessions when you are tired, sore and/or a better offer comes along.
Everyone knows how important regular exercise is to overall health and well-being. The innumerable health benefits alone should motivate you to stay determined and persist with your program. But when that isn’t enough, here are some ideas for overcoming tiredness and staying motivated.
• First, be organized and prepared for exercise sessions.
There’s nothing worse than planning to work out and not being able to find your shoes, or realizing all your bike shorts are dirty, or that your treadmill is buried under a mound of clothes and has become a hanging rack for towels. Plan ahead, set your gear out and don’t give yourself a reason to skip it.
• Set reward goals for yourself.
Each time you meet a predetermined goal (i.e., exercising five times a week for four weeks or running a 5K) reward yourself. It’s also smart to make rewards relevant to your fitness. For example a sports massage, a session with a personal trainer or some new running shoes will keep you keen and on track.
• Find other like-minded people to enjoy being active.
Research shows that exercisers who train with others are less likely to drop out than those who train alone. Training with family and friends, for instance, can be a rewarding and motivating experience and can deepen relationships further.
• Renew your goals regularly.
Having a purpose for each and every workout makes it all feel much more worthwhile. If you don’t know why you’re doing something, you’ll most likely just go through the motions . I always tell athletes to practice with purpose. Having a goal and renewing it regularly will help ensure that all your practices are purposeful.
• Finally, cross-train, cross-train, cross-train.
Variety is the spice of life and that has never been more true than with your exercise program. Even if you love your power walking, yoga class or your favorite exercise video, don’t be afraid to shake things up now and then. Not only will you keep things fresh mentally and stave off boredom but you’ll also create a more rounded fitness program and your body will reap the benefits as much as your mind.
Salt in Your Food: The Effects on Health
In “Salt, We Misjudged You” (Sunday Review, June 3), Gary Taubes contends that decades of studies have failed to demonstrate that diets high in salt, or sodium, are harmful, and that advocates of restricting salt “essentially rely on the results from a 30-day trial of salt.”
In fact, huge amounts of evidence from animal, clinical, cohort and intervention studies demonstrate that high-sodium diets raise blood pressure, and that higher blood pressure promotes heart attacks, strokes and kidney disease.
Critics of efforts to reduce salt acknowledge that studies show those two relationships, but demand studies that directly link lower salt to lower risk of heart disease. Such studies have now been done.
The 15-year follow-up on the Trials of Hypertension Prevention found a 30 percent reduction in the risk of heart attacks, strokes and other cardiovascular events.
As the Institute of Medicine recommended in 2010, it’s high time that the Food and Drug Administration began limiting sodium in packaged and restaurant foods.
Advantages and disadvantages of butter and ghee when it comes to cooking
From a nutritional standpoint, both butter and ghee are basically made from the fats of whole milk. Although butter in the United States is almost always made from cow's milk, the ghee used for cooking in India is often made from buffalo milk. Both ghee and butter are usually 80% milk fat or greater in terms of their composition, and about two-thirds of that fat is saturated fat.
How Butter Is Made
Butter is made by separating cream from milk. Since the fat-based cream portion of the milk is lighter than the water and milk solids portion, the cream in fresh milk will eventually rise to the top of the milk over time if the milk is simply left standing. However, a centrifuge that very forcefully spins can be used to speed up this process. (When milk is centrifuged, the lighter cream will stay closer to the center and the heavier water and solid portions will fly to the outside of the centrifuge.) When cream has been separated from milk, it can be churned until it reaches a semi-solid state. That product is what we call butter.
Clarified Butter and Ghee
Clarified butter is butter that has been melted over low heat and allowed to bubble and simmer until most of the water has been evaporated. Clarified butter is also sometimes called drawn butter. Ghee is essentially clarified butter, although traditional ghee-making processes (originating in India, where ghee is very commonly used in cooking) place a focus on exact steps and specific qualities of the clarified butter. The cooking process is usually extended for a longer period of time with ghee, eliminating more of the moisture and also causing the milk solids to caramelize for eventual removal from the ghee through strainers. The highest-quality ghee is obtained when the long-simmered butter is allowed to cool and only the top-most layer is skimmed off. (That layer becomes the ghee that is considered top-quality and used in cooking.)
Health Consequences of Ghee and Butter
Research on ghee and health is limited, but fairly consistent. When ghee is consumed at levels above 10% total calories, it can increase risk of cardiovascular disease. (For a person consuming 1,800 calories per day, 10% of those calories would be 180 calories, or about 20 grams of fat, which equals approximately 2 tablespoons of ghee.) At levels under 10% of total calories, however, ghee appears to help lower cardiovascular risks, especially when other fats consumed during the day are exclusively from plants or plant oils.
Butter, like ghee, can increase risk of cardiovascular disease when consumed in excessive amounts. One research study has shown that 3 tablespoons of butter per day over 4 weeks can increase total cholesterol and LDL-cholesterol. For this reason, if you are going to cook with butter, you will want to keep the amount at a moderate level of no more than 1-2 tablespoons.
The benefits of butter at moderate levels do not yet have the same level of research backing as ghee. However, there is increasing research interest in butter as having some unique potential benefits of its own, particularly in relationship to its vitamin K and vitamin D content. This content may vary, however, depending on the diet and living circumstances of the dairy cow. (We look forward to new research in this area, especially with respect to vitamin K2.)
Types of Fats in Ghee and Butter
When comparing ghee to butter in terms of health, one reason for the more favorable past research record of ghee versus butter might be the increased amount of medium- and short-chain fatty acids in ghee. Butter contains about 12-15% of these medium-chain and short-chain fats, whereas ghee contains about 25%. (Our bodies metabolize medium-chain and short-chain fats differently than long-chain ones, and medium- and short-chain ones are not associated with cardiovascular problems in the same way as the long-chain ones are.)
Ghee Has a Higher Smoke Point than Butter
Ghee tends to have a higher smoke point than butter. For butter, smoke point is typically reached between 325˚-375˚F (163˚-191˚C). Some clarified butters also fall into this general range, but ghee usually has a higher smoke point, between 400˚-500˚F (204˚-260˚C). This higher smoke point can be an advantage when cooking at high heat since smoke point is that moment when heat damage to some of the components in a fat or oil is sufficient to become visible in the form of smoke. When it comes to our health, heating above smoke point is not a good idea with any oil or fat.
Cooking Recommendations
For persons choosing to cook in fat at higher heats in the 400˚-500˚F (204˚-260˚C) range, ghee makes sense to us, provided that it's used in moderation (no more than 1-2 tablespoons per day). Even for a person deciding to cook in fat, however, the use of butter at higher heats does not make sense to us due to its lower smoke point (325˚-375˚F/163˚-191˚C).
The use of butter and ghee at lower heats (300˚-375˚F/163˚-191˚C) may be acceptable, provided once again that both of these animal fats are used in moderation. Whether there are distinct advantages to the use of butter at lower heats versus plant oils is not clear to us from the existing research. In general, however, we do not like the idea of heating plant oils due to the delicate nature of their polyunsaturated fats and phytonutrients. Since butter has far fewer polyunsaturates than plant oils, it might provide a lower heat cooking alternative for this reason. However, the phytonutrient and vitamin content of butter would still be susceptible to heat damage, and since we have not yet seen research to confirm the health benefits of butter in lower heat cooking, we cannot recommend this practice without the benefit of more research. On our website, we offer a method of healthy sautéing that requires no fat or oil of any kind. You can visit the Cooking Healthy section of our website to learn more about this method.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)