Let's be clear, pierogi is not a Thanksgiving food. But you may notice that in some spellings of the word (like the one used in the previous sentence), it has the word 'pie' in it.
That's not a sorry joke. The Slavic origins of the word pierogi, or pirogi (as it is also commonly spelled) yields the translation "pie." Really, they're dumplings but consider them little Slavic pies, too, and they become an eminently appropriate Thanksgiving dish.
My mother-in-law Barb Zakrajsek is, in both name and temperament, the perfect person to teach me how to make pierogi for this Thanksgiving. Zakrajsek, that's Zuh-GRY-shek, is a Slovenian name. Her family, several generations back, came from the heart of Old World pierogi country.
And she grew up on the Iron Range of Minnesota, the wild northern stretch of that state, in Chisholm, a town over from Bob Dylan's Hibbing. That sparse, formative land gave her the punctilious steel needed to pinch out 80 perfect pierogi for her thimble-thumbed son-in-law.
"Now I know why my mother was always yelling for us, 'Can someone come help me pinch?'" Barb says now. "It's tough pinching out pierogi. It wears down your fingers."
Barb grew up the second-oldest of four kids. Her older brother hated pierogi ("We were fine with that. More for the rest of us.") and two younger sisters, who still ask Barb to make them pierogi when they get together. Her father owned a music store in Chisholm and played clarinet in a traveling big band on weekends. Her mother made the pierogi.
The Zakrajsek family recipe makes what would be considered traditional pierogi, stuffed with saurkraut. Like crepes, you can stuff an infinite number of both savory and sweet things in pierogi. It's really the cook's choice. Other traditional filings are mashed potatoes, mushrooms, and curd cheese.
"No meat, though, that's the Catholic thing about this. We always had it during Lent."
To start, a batch of unleavened dough is rolled out on a countertop, which is then cut into squares the size of playing cards. A dollop of filling (in this case, canned saurkraut sauteed with onions and pepper) is put in the middle of each square.
"Don't use too much and make sure it can all fit in the middle," she says. "Because the dough has to close all the way around it."
Then, the pinching. If a meringue is all in the beating of its egg whites, a pierogi is all in the pinching of its edges.
"Get some flour on your fingers so the dough doesn't stick to them. Pinch hard, stretch it out. Don't be scared you'll rip the dough, it will stretch."
In this case, the juice of the saurkraut can also be used as a kind of mortar, moistening the edges to better stick together like the tongue of an envelope.
Barb pinches with the dexterity of a weaver setting her loom or a fisherman tying his knot. She makes neat triangular pies, plump in the middle, dimpled on the edges, doughy arrowheads that fill up a baking rack in minutes.
"You have to pinch them closed or they'll open up when you boil them and all is lost."
She says this in the direct, non-judgmental, you-better-do-this-right-because-I've-already-explained-it way any Midwestern child will recognize. As we go, she reviews the pinched pierogi I've made, picks them out, and re-pinches them fully shut.
After that, set a pot (two pots if you have them) to boil and dump in several pierogi at a time. Boil them for ten minutes.
"This is a cheap dish but a labor-intensive one," Barb says as she swipes at streaks of flour on her blouse. "Don't wear anything you like because it will get dirty. And don't clean your house and then make this. Do it the other way around."
Back in Chisholm, her mother cooked pierogi on Saturdays because that was the only day of the week she had time to do it. Barb herself was once also very busy being a public school principal and then later one of the first female school superintendents in Minnesota. For a time, her mother continued to make pierogi for her and the three daughters she was raising on her own.
"To me, it has almost become like a delicacy," she says now, watching these Thanksgiving pierogi boil. "My family had it for celebrations, big occasions. It was such a part of my childhood."
After the pierogi boil, remove them from the water and allow them to cool. From here, you can saute them with onions and butter. Or do what we do on this holiday: put them in the fridge overnight to be cooked the next day right before Thanksgiving dinner. If you freeze them, they'll keep for months.
These pierogi come out of the water mostly intact, save one errant dumpling that spilled open while boiling.
"In a batch this big, that's inevitable but really," she says, bringing her fingers together in a final pinch, "these came out really well. It'll be a taste of pure heaven."
It's an endorsement that makes a junior pierogi-maker's heart sing with pride.
The Zakrajsek family pierogi recipe:
For the dough: 4 cups flour, 2 eggs (beaten), 1 cup warm water, 1 tsp salt, 2 Tbsp oil
- Sift flour, combine with salt, oil and beaten eggs. This will make a soft dough.
- Roll out the dough thinly on floured surface. Cut into 3" squares.
- Place 1 tsp of filling on each square.
- Fold into triangles and pinch edges.
- Boil gently for 10 minutes.
- Top with chopped onions and saute in butter.
Kyle Palmer is married to a Minnesota girl. He is also KCUR's morning newscaster and reporter. You can follow him on Twitter @kcurkyle
