Dumpling Days

Full disclosure—I may have a perogy problem.

My devotion to these little dumplings is rooted in childhood memories of my grandmother’s steamy kitchen and her tender perogies filled with potatoes, cheese, mushrooms, and even plums. We slathered them with sour cream, doused them in buttery fried onions, and ate them with smoky garlic sausage on the side. It’s my definition of comfort food.

Such is my penchant for these Eastern European staples (pyrohy, pierogi, varenyky), I’ve even followed Alberta’s Perogy Trail, touring Edmonton’s Willy Wonka-esque frozen perogy factories, visiting “living” Ukrainian museums where costumed docents cook dumplings, and driving dusty backroads to see the world’s largest perogy, a towering 27-foot perogy-on-a-fork sculpture in the tiny town of Glendon.

In my family, perogies turned up at both everyday dinners and holiday celebrations. The delayed Orthodox (a.k.a. Ukrainian) Christmas in early January was always a time to create, and consume, perogies. So gathering to pinch perogies in midwinter makes perfect sense.

Perogies with buttery fried onions and sour cream.

At Bella Montgomery’s Perogy Pinchers of Victoria cooking classes, you can learn about making perogies, island-style, year round. “We started small, with ten or 12 people, and now routinely have 25,” says Montgomery of the hands-on, two-hour classes she runs at various community centres, church basements, and other venues around town. “I bring the dough and we mix up the filling and learn to pinch perogies.”

When Montgomery moved to Victoria from the prairies, she started making perogies, using her own family recipe, as a way to stay connected to her Ukrainian roots. Many of the others who join her perogy classes have childhood memories of delicious dumplings, too. But, like me, they don’t often take the time to make perogies.

That’s because the job of pinching perogies—like making Chinese dumplings or samosas or any other fiddly food—is best when it’s done collectively. Many hands make light work, as they say, and many hands make many perogies, tasty treats that can be frozen and saved to eat another day.

“It makes it a heck of a lot easier,” says Montgomery who recalls family perogy-making sessions, turning out “50 or 60 dozen at a time” for holidays and other events.

Which is the other attraction to today’s perogy class—everyone arrives with their mixing bowls and baking trays, with the promise of leaving with their own perogies to take home.

Making perogies is simple, less recipe and more technique. There’s a basic dough to mix, a filling of seasoned mashed potatoes, often combined with shredded cheddar or sautéed onions, and that’s it.

Every grandmother has a slightly different twist. Montgomery uses sour cream and flour (no eggs) in her tender perogy dough recipe. When I was a kid, we sometimes added mashed potato to the dough, too, for a soft, almost gnocchi-like wrapper.

Others prefer their perogies with a thin, translucent skin—a pre-made egg roll wrapper can stand in for hand-rolled dough to save time, just make sure to wet the floury edges to get a good seal.

The mashed potato and cheddar cheese filling is probably the most popular today, but you can also find perogies filled with sautéed mushrooms and sauerkraut, cottage cheese, even meat or fish.

Don’t use too much filling. It’s important to make sure the edges are clean so you get a good seal or perogies may burst open when boiled. A three-inch diameter perogy holds about a teaspoon of filling. Pinch gently, says Montgomery, pressing the edges shut with the pad of your thumb after folding the dough over the filling. (Traditionally, perogies were never sealed with a fork or metal utensils to guard against puncturing the dough.) Put filled perogies into boiling water, with a touch of oil and salt, and stir gently with a wooden spoon until they float to the top, then remove carefully with a slotted spoon

The origin of the perogy (pierogi) is debatable—dumplings feature in Slavic cultures, from Ukraine, Poland, and other points across Eastern Europe — but thanks to early immigrants from these parts of the world, it’s a peasant food that’s found its way into our food culture.

Today, perogies are as ubiquitous, and Canadian, as poutine and Nanaimo bars, with chefs riffing on the dumpling for breakfast, lunch, appies, and dinner. You’ll find local food trucks that specialize in perogies; restaurants like Victoria’s Sült Pierogi Bar with diverse perogy fillings and toppings (think barbecue tofu, kimchi and black bean, or mango and chipotle chicken tinga); perogies with eggs for breakfast; even PierogiPizza topped with garlicky cream, bacon, fried potatoes and cheese at Fifth Street.

According to my vintage copy of Traditional Ukrainian Cookery by Savella Stechishin,published in Winnipeg in 1957 and the last word on the topic, varenyky (her nomenclature),should be “tender and with a thin coating of dough.”

It’s interesting to note that Stechishin’s traditional recipe has only four ingredients but afull page of instructions for mixing, kneading, rolling, filling, and cooking the dumplings.

So gather your friends, your family, and your kids and host a perogy party. Practice makesperfect when it comes to pinching perogies!