Great artery-clogging food
Now for some clootie dumplings with slumpie
and extra butter of course
Now that the dust has settled on the ultimate sliced-pork butty controversy - a furious debate prompted by our Bauernfrühstück v bacon sarnie deathmatch - we feel it's time to crack a few cold ones and head out into the sunshine for another culinary clash of titans. We've been enjoying a particularly fine summer over here at …
Whenever I've had pierogi - usually the meat variety - it has not come with chopped fried onions, but with chopped fried bacon as a garnish.
As I usually consume them in Krakow, I suspect this might just be the proper way ;-)
BTW, if you are little worried about your arteries, you can just boil them, garnish with fried bacon and eat them. The last frying stage optional.
and commence on the synthesis?
I presume that after drawing up a comprehensive list of the finest nosh, El Reg will identify the critical success factors and combine them all into a brand-new world-conquering neck-filler. Eggs Vulteros? Patatas Registrado?
Surely the evidence is already in man?
We apply Occam, we note the bacon buttie already exists, we chow down.
No doubt the red sauce heresy will rumble on but these so called alternatives will fade rapidly as people realise you actually have to BOIL THE FRIKKIN SPUDS!
Jesus, there are INGREDIENTS in some of these things! You have to LEAVE STUFF IN THE FRIDGE OVERNIGHT! There is the very real chance of WASHING UP!
My local multi-lingual supermarket provides ready-made pierogi suitable for sticking in the freezer until a suitable hunger moment presents itself. The obligatory English translation on the packet charmingly explains that the contents are:
"part-made food product edible after heat treatment"
Lovely!
(Though as a Yorkshireman, with the firm belief that the phrase 'too much mashed potato' is a grammatical impossibility, my vote is for the spuds on this occasion.)
...that the Pierogi was just going to be a "mash-pasty", but then you do weird things like first boil it and then deep fry it (was that step invented in Scotland?). I'm sure that has a delicious potential to clog your arteries with all the retained oil.
In my youth I cheerfully added a tin of corned beef into the pasty for a "hash pasty" - addition of chilli, garlic and other spices was known to happen, but I only ever baked it.
I have happy memories (although my waistline and arteries don't) of a chippie in the village of Guardbridge (near St.Andrews, in Scotland), back in the late 70s, that used to deep fry everything, including the pasties and meat pies. In lard of course. To be fair, they did cut the steak pies in two and drain the worst of the fat out before serving. But, washed down with a bottle of Irn Bru, beats nectar and ambrosia any day!
I must agree about more protein needed. Also, where is the grease!! Granted, there is some on the bacon, but I am not talking about a few drops here or there, I am talking about an amount of grease that would make the BP Oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico proud (over here in the states there are regions where bacon grease is a food group), and properly coat the stomach. Now you may be saying that the frying of the pierogi will give you some, but if you have properly heated the oil, it should soak in very little, so more grease is still needed.
As for the health effects of the grease and salt, let’s remember this is not supposed to be health food. You are eating this after you have assailed your liver with an amount of alcohol that could be used to disinfect all the equipment in a large hospital, so the health ramifications should not be a worry.
Paris because the grease helps keep her coat nice and shiny.
As I see it you've got cheese and onion in mashed potato empanadas and bits of fat(*) in spicy mashed potato naked.
Why not just throw everything together and using proper bacon to have spicy bacon, cheese, onion and mashed potato empanadas.
I'm going to try this at the earliest possible moment.
(*) As far as I'm concerned pancetta is just a way for pork farmers to offload their bacon fat to peasants by giving it a fancy name and telling them how exotic it is.
Lester,
A friend of mine's in-laws are Latvian. They cook something they call pierogs. So they seem to have got pluralised from pierog the English way. But it seems to be more of a bread roll with bacon in it than a deep fried potato pasty. I can't believe you missed such a perfect opportunity for bacon consumption though.
This is the death match that is going to send me to the kitchen I think. Trying paprika in mash sounds quite nice - but I'm definitely going to give pierogi a go. This is a bank holiday weekend, perfect time to try...
Yep that was exactly what I was thinking. Post-pub one shouldn't be capable of throwing together something that actually involves making pastry!
I will agree that some of the dishes sound fab but seem more like day after hang-over cooking to me. What happened to the theory that the food should be able to be made while drunk? Classics from my past include a version of corned beef hash (throw broken up contents into a frying pan & stir now & again) or fried bread with a hole in the middle into which you break an egg so that fries too (ideally in butter not oil) - both quick & easy, involve no measuring & very little effort with the added advantage of being high in both protein & fat.
Well, in that wayward part of Russia, which now calls itself Poland ;-) they seem to have grown somewhat confused about what is pirogi.
Firstly, proper pirogi are baked, never boiled/fried - only the street vendor cat&dog meat variety was done that way and it wasn't ever considered proper pirogi.
Then, as far as the filling is concerned - mashed potato is just one (and not the most popular) type. Also if you do mashed potato pirogi, add at least some fried onions and mushrooms, otherwise your guests will seriously underwhelmed.
Minced meat, chopped cabbage or cabbage/sauerkraut mix, boiled egg and spring onions, salmon and rice are other widespread combinations and, in general, you can experiment with anything you like.
Sweet varieties can be made with apple, berries (bilberry, cherry, strawberry, raspberry), quark and raisins, poppy seed & walnuts, rhubarb filling, to name but a few.
Sałatka (seriously, look this up - it's awesome)
Bigos (of course - cooked for the 3rd day is best)
Gołąbki (no actual pigeons harmed in the making - just meat wrapped with cabbage - but delicious)
... or just stick some sliced kołbasa on the BBQ. (careful, it falls through the grill.)
Just saying' :-)
Yum.
I suppose that people eat dumplings nearly the world over. My favourite would have to be Japanese-style gyōza. Mix up minced pork, cabbage (finely chopped, lightly salted, then squeezed to remove moisture), spring onions, shrimp, ginger, garlic (all finely chopped or minced) and sesame oil and for the filling with just plain flour and water for the wrapping. There are as many ways to cook these as pierogi, but I think the best is to fry them first in a very small amount of oil then put a small amount of water in the pan and cover it so that the steam cooks everything. Remove from the pan when all the water evaporates and serve with a mix of soy sauce and chilli oil.
Besides tasting delicious, they look great too if the edges are pleated properly (very fiddly to get exactly right, unfortunately).
On reading the article, my first thought was that pierogi look like Chinese Jiaozi (See http://chinesefood.about.com/od/dimsumdumplings/r/jiaozi.htm) which are usually boiled, but can be fried. The come in an almost infinite variety of fillings a mix of mined port and prawns is popular but mushrooms, spinach, pine nuts make a vegetarian version. My wife sometimes uses carrots and fennel leaves to make them. The one filling I haven't seen is potato and cheese as cheese is non existent in Chinese cookery.
The Chinese do a variety of variations on this theme varying the thickness of the wrapper with xiaomai/huntun(wontons) having the thinnest wrapping; xiaomai are basically open topped wantons, and baozi (steamed bread) which is basically a bun with a meat or bean paste filling in the center. Other variations include the way the dumpling is shaped. I've seen some shaped like rabbits to appeal to children.
Still sticking with the bacon sarnie (Finnish Girlie's left hers in the 'fridge with a bite taken out), but I'm a man, not a mollusc. (She doesn't like those, either - Bearded Clam phobia, maybe?)
Anyway, I'll give these a shot! Finally, a use for the pasta machine I bought 12 years ago, and has yet to be taken out of its box.......YES!
an alternative pierogi variant - stuffed with fruit. Usually strawberries. Or blueberries. With some sort of cream and / or sugar topping.
Alternatively (2) the basic salty variant mentioned in the article, but fried in butter. With sour cream, no sugar this time ;)
actually they do offer two types of pierogi in the UK supermarkets (yeah, one of them with the "heat treatment". And, as it happens, the more expensive brand is not too bad. The other one... too bad ;)
Regards,
pierogi-muncher