Pierogis

WIKIPEDIA ENTRY FOR PIEROGI

Pierogi are of virtually untraceable Central or Eastern European origin; claims have been staked by the Polish, Romanians, Russians, Lithuanians, Chinese, Ukrainians, and Slovaks. Similarity to dumplings found in the Far East such as Chinese potstickers fuels speculation, well-founded or not, that the Mongols and Persians brought the recipe to the West.

[edit]Recipe variation

[edit]Ingredients

Pierogi are semi-circular dumplings of unleavened dough, stuffed with cheese, sauerkraut, mashed potatoes, cabbage, onion, meat, hard-boiled eggs, dry cottage cheese (the last two are rather Mennonite-specific), or any combination thereof, or with a fruit filling. Mashed potatoes are the most common filling.

[edit]Cooking

They are typically fried, deep-fried or boiled until they float, and then covered with butter or oil; alternatives include the Mennonite tradition of baking and serving with borscht or with farmer's sausage and a creamy gravy called Schmauntfat in Plautdietsch, and the Polish way of boiling, then frying in butter. They are typically served with plenty of sour cream, and the savoury ones are topped with fried bacon or onions. The most popular of the Polish variety are savoury pierogi ruskie, stuffed with farmer's (aka dry cottage) cheese, mashed potatoes, and onion. Varenyky or vareniki (from varyt', "to boil") are the Ukrainian version of pierogi. One variation of the pierogi are the meat-filled, boiled dumplings called pelmeni (????????), originating in Siberia, which are very popular throughout Russia and in other parts of the former Soviet Union.

[edit]National varieties

[edit]USA and Canada

In the United States, the term Pierogi is commonly taken to mean Polish pierogi. The pirog (or its equivalent in the various Slavic languages) means pie, which can take the form of a stuffed dumpling, pastry, or two-crusted pie. In Russian, pirogi is the plural form of the generic pirog, which usually refers to a large double-crust pie and not a dumpling (pelmeni or vareniki) or filled bun (pirozhki).

By the 1960s, pierogi were a common supermarket item in the frozen food aisles in parts of the United States and Canada. Pierogis maintain their place in the grocery aisles to this day.

Many of these grocery brand pierogis contain non-native ingredients to appeal to general American tastes. Products include Mrs. T's Potato, Cheddar, and JalapeÐ"±o pierogi [1] and Trader Joe's Potato Cheddar or Chicken Pierogi.

The Canadian Prairies in particular have a large Ukrainian population, and pierogi (usually called perogy, -ogies [p??ro?gi]) are very common in restaurants and supermarkets, and so familiar that some Asian restaurants bill their pot-stickers as "Chinese perogies". Ukrainian-speakers