Cabbage Pyrohy for Christmas Eve

Another traditional dish made for Christmas Eve dinner is Sauerkraut pyrohy.  These pyrohy have always been my favorite and especially delicious reheated. 

Using the same recipe dough that I did for the cottage cheese I made 4 dozen of these dumplings.  My Mom always made the shape of these dumpling by pinching the ends together to get a circle shape. The shape is much like the Italian Tortellini shape. 

The sauerkraut is drained and washed. A step my Mom always did as she felt the store bought Sauerkraut was too bitter and salty. 

Drain and squeeze out as much moisture as you can as easier to make the dumplings if the filling is dry.

Soften finely chopped onion in a drizzle of Olive oil and then add the sauerkraut to sauté.

Yes, a lot of pinching that needs to be rechecked before freezing as the dough does relax and the seams need to be checked and resealed tor the dumplings will open when boiling to cook.  Trust me after all this work the last thing you want to see is the filling floating as you cook the dumplings!

These are frozen on a cookie sheet pan.  Cover the pan with saran wrap and each layer.   My Aunt Marion laughing commented that life is so much better with Saran wrap.   Sprinkle a dusting of flour on the base and on each layer of dumplings.  Another time that a shaker with flour is most handy.  When the dumplings are frozen, repack into ziplock bags. 

Pyrohy.. Ukrainian dumpling

While in Northern Manitoba, I made pyrohy for my  brother and used the following recipe
for the dough.  Everyone has their favourite recipe, but I have found that this recipe of 4 ingredients that my Mom used is the best.  Each one of my Aunts has their favourite dough recipe with some variation, using some thing in the recipe to make a soft dough, from sour cream, baking powder, eggs to different temperatures of water.  I have found that I have been most successful using very hot water and by letting the dough rest!  Everyone agrees that the dough must sit to relax!

4 cups of flour
1 3/4 cups of hot water.. I think I used 2 cups!
1/2 tsp of salt
1/4 cup of oil.. in this case it was olive oil

Mix everything together and let rest covered for about 1/2 hour.

This recipe made 90 pyrohy for me, but it depends how thin you roll the dough out.

Divide your dough in half, cover the rest of the dough so it will not dry out.  Sprinkle flour on your working area and roll out the dough.  There are cutters you can use, but a glass will work just as well.

Near the end of my Mom's cooking career, she wondered why she had routinely cut out circles when 3 inch squares were more efficient and less time consuming! The shape would still be a triangle

My Mom's  filling was very traditional.. in the spring, she only used dry cottage cheese and dill, the rest of the time, she used cottage cheese and potatoes.. The sauerkraut that you buy needs to be washed to reduce the acidity, then squeeze it so it is dry.. you can also fry up the cabbage with some finely chopped onions.

If your filling is too wet, it is difficult to work with.

My brother enjoyed the filling very much in this batch of pyrohy.. He thought they were the best I have made.  I think because of the ricotta cheese which is very light and sweet tasting, thus the ricotta is closer in taste to homemade cottage cheese.  I used a container of creamed cottage cheese, a container of ricotta cheese and 4 medium potatoes.  The potatoes are first boiled and then mashed. 

Now here is a nice twist that one may want to try as a filling, sweet potatoes and cheese. 

The importance of pinching these dumpling securely is necessary so you don't lose your filling in the boiling water.  I usually line up the formed dumplings on a clean tea towel, which may need to be floured, depending on how moist your dough is.   Then I will again check the dumplings by pinching the sides again before placing them to freeze on a cookie sheet

In the above picture,  I freeze the dumplings on a floured saran covered cookie sheet and then repackaged in Ziplock Bags.  The Dumplings can also be cooked at this time, but after making about 7dozen of these babies, Im usually  ready to pack it in..

If pre cooking the dumplings in salted water, you need to have melted butter ready to toss the dumplings so they don't stick.  When cool they can be packaged in Ziplock bags to freeze.

My aunt pre cooks the dumplings before freezing them and then reheats them by boiling them again.

My other aunt, also pre cooks them before freezing but microwaves them to reheat. This she says is does by watching the dumplings very closing.  My other aunt felt that microwaving the pyrohy made them tough!

To test taste your dumplings, you can also just fry the uncooked dumpling in oil.. Much like the Gyoza or Japanese pot stickers!

Peroghies,Pyrohy, dumplings by any other name!

 My Mom's dumplings have become legendary as everyone remembers how tender, pump and delicious they were.  As a young kid, I could never understand why anyone would want to eat potatoes and dough!  Even the homemade cottage cheese that was part of the filling with the potatoes was not to my liking! Pyrohy were a common dish especially at holidays and during lent.

Everyone in my family especially my Irish husband loved them the first time he tasted them at my Mom's house!   My Mom kept my deep freeze filled with these dumplings! Until that one Christmas, I no longer had any and mixed up my first dough!  Yes, only water, flour and oil are the three ingredients in the basic recipe! I realized I was in trouble.. I had never really paid any attention to how they was made.  My aunties and Mom's friend came to my rescue! However, everyone had different recipes from adding an egg, adding sour cream, adding Baking powder,  lukewarm to cold water, the list goes on!!

For a couple of years, my sister has been visiting in November and it become a pyrohy bake off using different dough recipes.. All the different recipes of dough seemed the same, difficult to roll out,  yet the results tasted the same!

This year after reading the article about Baba's Beauties from the Edmonton Journal and how the ladies had to adjust the basic recipe and going by feel, I decided to increase the amount of water used in the recipe and also to use hot water almost boiling water!  To my surprise the dough was tender, especially easy to roll out and work with! Although the dough was a little sticky, a little flour corrects this.

 Here is my Mom's basic recipe, that has been tweaked.

6 cups of flour
2 3/4 cups lukewarm water
pinch of salt
1/4 cup of oil

 I increased the amount of water to 3 cups and used very hot water. I also increased the amount of oil to 1/3 cups

In my head as I rolled out the dough, I kept hearing "By George I think she's got! from my Fair Lady in "The rain in Spain"

Yesterday I ran into an elderly woman who was widowed last summer and was telling me of her preparation for the traditional Christmas Eve Dinner and how difficult it will be without her husband.  I mentioned to her that I had finally had success in making the dough for the dumplings.. Without even batting an eye, she asked if I had used hot water! Interesting!