Pierogi ruskie with golden onions and cucumber salad
90 min · 31 g protein · 555 cals / serving
Poland's best-loved dumplings: thin, tender pasta half-moons filled with peppery mashed potato, tangy curd cheese and sweet onion, boiled until they float and topped with soft golden onions and a cold spoon of something creamy. The curd here is fat-free quark, so the filling can be generous, and a dill and cucumber mizeria goes alongside.
Ingredients
Dough
- 2 cups all-purpose flour, plus a little for rolling
- 1 egg
- scant 1/2 cup warm water water
- 1 tsp canola oil
- 1/4 tsp salt
Filling
- 1 lb 2 oz floury potatoes russet potatoes, peeled
- 1 1/4 cups quark, drained in a cloth; or dry farmer cheese (twaróg), crumbled
- 1 medium onion, finely chopped
- 2 tsp butter
- 3/4 tsp salt
- 1 tsp black pepper
To serve
- 2 small white onions, thinly sliced
- 2 tsp unsalted butter
- 3/4 cup + 2 tbsp skyr, or thick Greek yogurt, in place of sour cream
- 2 tbsp fresh chives, snipped
Mizeria
- 2 large cucumbers, very thinly sliced
- 1/2 cup + 1 tbsp nonfat Greek yogurt
- 2 tbsp fresh dill, chopped
- 2 tsp lemon juice
- a pinch salt
Steps
- Drain the quark in a sieve lined with a clean cloth for 30 minutes, squeezing gently at the end, so the filling is firm. Boil the potatoes in salted water until very soft, drain well and mash or rice them. Meanwhile soften the chopped onion in the butter over medium-low heat for 10 minutes, until golden. Mix the hot potato with the quark, onion, salt and plenty of pepper; it should taste well seasoned. Cool completely.
- Mix the flour and salt, add the egg, oil and warm water and knead 5 minutes into a smooth, soft dough. Cover and rest 20 minutes. Roll it out thinly, in two batches, to about 1.5 mm, and cut 9 cm (3 1/2-inch) rounds; reroll the scraps once. Put a heaped tablespoon (about 22 g) of filling on each round, fold into a half-moon and pinch the edges firmly closed. You should get about 32.
- For the mizeria, salt the cucumber slices, leave 10 minutes and squeeze out the liquid, then stir with the yogurt, dill and lemon juice. Chill.
- Cook the sliced onions in the butter with a splash of water over medium heat for 12–15 minutes, until soft and golden. Boil the pierogi in batches in plenty of salted water; once they float, give them 2–3 minutes more and lift them out with a slotted spoon.
- Serve the pierogi with the golden onions spooned over, a dollop of skyr, chives and the mizeria alongside.
Good to know
My pierogi open when they boil. Why?
Usually a little filling or flour on the edge. Keep the edge clean, press it firmly, and do not overfill; a moist fingertip along the inside of the edge helps it seal.
Can I fry them after boiling?
Yes, that is the other classic way: a few minutes in a hot pan with a spoon of butter until golden in spots. With a tablespoon of butter for the whole batch the score goes from about 58 to 55.
Can I freeze them?
Freeze them uncooked on a floured tray, then bag them. Boil straight from frozen, adding 2 minutes.
Alternative
Per
- Calories
- 93
- Protein
- (23%)
- 5 g
- Fat
- (14%)
- 1 g
- Carbohydrates
- (63%)
- 15 g
- of which sugar
- 2 g
- Fiber
- 1 g
- Sodium
- 130 mg
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Computed from the ingredients with our published formula, not yet kitchen-tested. How
As written, 2222 kcal goes into the pot and 2648 g of ingredients comes out as about 2400 g of food: 93 kcal per 100 g. Cooking moves water and energy density is the score's biggest lever, so the dish is scored as cooked, not as an average of its parts. Every ingredient links to its food page, with the same data and score. The label's percentages are each macronutrient's share of the calories. The full formula.