Hot pockets

I never knew my maternal grandmother; she died when Mom was still a teenager. Dad's mother, on the other hand, lived with us on the farm until after I left for college. So I grew up much more in touch with the Slovenian side of my heritage than the German/English/Polish side. I was surprised and pleased, then, the last time I talked to Mom, to hear that she'd come across one of Grandma Flick (nee Lubinski)'s recipes for Pierogis. Asked her to copy it down for me.

Polish Peerogas (Cheese Pockets)

For the dough--Makes 6
2 C flour - 1/4 teasp baking powder - 1/2 tsp salt.
Pour enough cold water to make a stiff dough as for pie crust--divide into 6 pieces.
Roll out flat. [with a nice little drawing of a circle]

Fill with this: Take 20¢ worth of cottage cheese. Mash fine with spoon and add 2 eggs and 2 tablespoons sweet cream. Salt and pepper to taste. Add 1 small onion chopped fine or cut up green chives very fine. Take a tablespoon of this mixture and put it in the center of a circle. Fold it in the middle and seal pinch the ends shut first, then the middle.

Have a kettle of boiling water which has been salted till very salty. Add pockets in to it and boil 10 min. Take them out carefully, so they don't break and add to a frying pan full of grease half and half butter. Fry a little. Add butter and all in a dish. Serve hot.

As you can see, there are issues. How much water? How much is 20¢ worth of cottage cheese? What kind of grease?

Okay, water first. I whisked together the flour, salt and baking powder in my stand mixer bowl, then installed the dough hook. With the mixer on low, I dribbled cold water into the bowl from a measuring cup, stopping when it started looking like stiff bread dough (not pie crust), about 3/4 cup. Let it run and knead for another two minutes, then pulled it out.

For the cottage cheese, I turned to the internet. If you Google "cost of cottage cheese in 1950," one of the hits will be a historical economics paper with tables of the cost of a variety of staple foods from locations including Butte, Montana, and Kansas City, Missouri. Sixteen ounces of cottage cheese cost, around average, 20¢.

For grease, I assumed bacon grease, though as I planned to make them for last Friday's supper, I opted for browned butter instead. (It's still Lent, even if Easter services are cancelled.)

It was kind of a disaster.

The dough was fine, rolled out to corn-tortilla sized disks. The filling had... problems.

I suspected that a full recipe of filling would be way more than needed, considering you were to only put a tablespoon in each pocket, so made half a batch. Used green onions instead of chives, which was fine, but it was so runny. I ended up putting two tablespoons in each pierogi, still have some left over, and it was hard to keep it from running out of the dough while crimping the edges. It occurred to me afterwards that 1950 cottage cheese may have been dry curd, and adding the cream to modern wet curd cheese was perhaps unnecessary.

They also grew enormously in boiling--who would think a quarter teaspoon of baking powder would have such powerful leavening? I ended up with pockets half the size of a dinner plate.

I also made a few mistakes of my own. Since I was so busy last Friday, I made and boiled the pierogis Thursday night, left them on a sheet pan in the fridge until Friday. Uncovered.

So yeah, they were kind of dry and leathery coming out of the brown butter. Still pretty tasty, though, with a side of braised shredded cabbage and carrots with a little balsamic vinegar.

They actually reminded me a little of ravioli, grown to enormous size. I wondered what they'd be like in a tomato sauce. And if Grandma Flick would ever forgive me for trying.

Pocket change

So I decided to try a few changes to my Polish Grandmother's Pierogi recipe. First of all, I'd make them half the size. Second, I'd try to dry up the filling a little. Third, I'd pervert the course of European history and serve them with home-canned tomato sauce.

I mixed up the dough as before; divided it into 12 balls. Rolled and stretched each into 5-inch disks. Filled each with a generous tablespoon of filling. Sealed and crimped.

They looked much more dainty than the last batch, plump and pretty. They still swelled up surprisingly in the boil; six were more than enough for supper. I put the rest in an airtight container, uncooked, in the fridge. I've got some butter and bacon grease, so maybe we'll try the traditional version tomorrow night.

For sauce, we used a quart of home-canned tomato sauce from last summer--I use Roma tomatoes, green onions and mushrooms, basil, oregano and bay leaves. For tonight, I simmered it in a 12-inch skillet with a clove of crushed garlic and about 12 shakes of red pepper flake. Served with a little parmesan on top. Delicious!

So, my final version of the recipe:

Grandson Frank's Pierogis

Dough:
2 cups flour
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. baking powder
3/4 cup cold water

Filling:
8 oz. (half a tub) cottage cheese
1 egg
1/4 cup shredded parmesan
2 green onions, chopped fine
salt and pepper to taste

To Fry:
Butter and bacon grease

Whisk together the flour, salt and baking powder in a stand mixer bowl, then install the dough hook. With the mixer on low, dribble cold water into the bowl from a measuring cup, stopping when it starts looking like stiff bread dough. Let it run and knead for another two minutes, then pull it out.

Put cottage cheese into a mixing bowl and beat with a whisk until curds start breaking down, getting creamy. Whisk in egg, parmesan, salt and pepper. Stir in onion.

Fill a 12" saucepan half full of cold water. Add a couple of teaspoons of salt. Turn heat on high and bring to a boil.

Divide dough into twelve equal parts. On a floured rolling sheet, roll and stretch one into a circle about five inches across. Put a generous tablespoon of filling in the middle of the circle. With a pastry brush, brush water along half the circumference. Fold the dough over, pressing out surplus air and sealing together. Crimp and fold the edges pretty, and set aside on a sheet pan. Repeat until all dough and filling is used up.

By now, the water should be boiling nicely. Turn the heat down a little bit, and carefully put six pockets in the pan, keeping them separate, and checking with a wooden spoon to be sure they're not sticking to the bottom. Cover the pan and time 10 minutes. About half-way through cooking, uncover and flip them over. After 10 minutes, remove, drain, and cook the other six. (Or, I suppose they can be frozen for later? Heck if I know.)

Fry in a hot skillet with a half-and-half mixture of bacon grease and butter. Serve hot, drizzled with bacon-butter.

(Or immerse them in a pan of simmering marinara sauce, cook five more minutes, and serve with grated parmesan.)

Serves six.