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Rolled potato-chive dough for pierogies

Narrative, Part 1

This pierogie was taken from TopChef Miami’s 3rd episode, when Dale reinvented chicken and dumplings. Andrew took care of the filling; I was in charge of the dough and pierogie assembly.

I’ve been petitioning for a long time for homemade ravioli. Andrew warned me about it, but I was stubborn—and the pierogies were my chance! The dough was fashioned out of making instant potatoes (!), whipping them with eggs, and then folding it into flour to make a dough, which was kneaded, rolled out to a quarter inch, and then stamped with a 3 inch round cookie cutter. These were brushed with water (not egg white, to my dismay), filled, and then tined together.

Actually mixing the dough was easy, even fun, due to the instant mashed potatoes. The chives (we used green onions) were a pain, as I had to cut through them with the cookie cutter—so note to self: mince chives more finely. The first batch was painful and awkward because I didn’t have enough flour on the dough before cookie-cuttering them. The next three times around, I put on plenty of flour, and the whole process went more smoothly.

I really cut down firmly on the cookie cutters and then rotated them vigorously to release the dough circle from the rest of the rolled dough. That way, it wouldn’t get so near the rest of the dough that I couldn’t roll them out. After pressing firmly and shaking for the whole roll of dough, I removed the excess and put it aside. A floured spatula removed the round from the counter, and then I tossed the round back and forth in my floured hands before brushing it with water. The tining process was sticky: you have to have the patience to make sure the area to be tined is well floured.

What I Learned, Part 1

1. Seriously overflour the dough until it’s a joy to work with.
2. Shaking the cookie cutters to free the dough round from the dough was quite the good idea, as was reflouring the discs by passing from hand to hand.
3. Tining with the fork was obnoxious, and I need a crimped pastry wheel.

Narrative, Part 2

The cooking process was supposed to involve boiling, then pan-frying. We didn’t trust our amateur pastry crescents to boiling, so we made a test-boil, in which the pierogies at length broke in half and spread chicken-celery filling all in the water. Ick.

We settled on baking them and then frying them. We baked the ~36 pierogies on parchment on two different racks for about 15-20 minutes, which we later learned was overdone, as it made the dough kind of stiff. The frying went beautifully, a little bit of butter over medium-high/high.

The result was really excellent, but had some problems. They needed more filling, as the surface to volume ratio went against us here: the bigger, the better. Next time, we’ll try 4 inch rounds. Andrew’s watercress-cream puree was fantastic (better than we expected, but extremely messy), as was his Romesco sauce (always a treat) and my fresh cream/sour cream whip. We should definitely use that trio, if possible, for our fancy dinner party.

What I Learned, Part 2

1. Don’t overbake pasta: let the frying finish the work
2. Parchment paper will save the universe one day; just you wait.

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