Hi Carrots ”˜N Cake readers! It is such a pleasure to be able to do a guest post on Tina’s blog, since my quest for a healthy lifestyle began with me stumbling on this blog last summer. After lurking through the foodie community for a while and seeing the immense support and inspiration that exists here, I decided to start my own, Healthing It, a blog dedicated to documenting the good, the bad and the ugly of breaching the paradox: a healthful balance of nutrition and fun in college.
Although I go to school in Massachusetts, my hometown for the past decade has been Brooklyn, NY. My grandmother always reminds me I’m at home by cooking traditional, Eastern European meals, bringing me back to my childhood in Ukraine.
My grandmother lived through a war and a manmade famine in her lifetime; thus, limited and frugal resources guided creativity in her kitchen. Her recipes are simple and lack the standard measurements found in today’s cookbooks, a reflection of the cultural differences. I’d like to share her fantastic recipe for cabbage “pierogies” with you.
Grandma’s tip: Ukrainians and Russians have a different name for what Americans call pierogies. To us, pierogies are actually small pastries that can be made with potatoes, meat or cabbage or sweet fillings, such as jams and fruit. When you want to buy “pierogies” in a Russian store, they are known as vareniki. It is difficult to trace the origins of the food to a place more specific than Eastern Europe, so the name story is complicated. You can learn more about the history of this food here.
Cabbage Pierogies Vareniki
Ingredients:
½ a medium cabbage
1 medium carrot, diced into small pieces
1 medium onion, diced into small pieces
½ cup of pickled cabbage or 1 teaspoon lemon juice
2 cups all purpose flour
1 egg
water, as needed
salt
2 tablespoons butter
1 tablespoon olive oil
Directions:
1. Take the cabbage and split it into smaller sections, as shown.
2. Chop the cabbage into small pieces. Set aside.
3. In a large pan, melt the butter over medium heat. Place the diced onion and diced carrot into the pan for a few minutes, until the onion is medium brown. Increase heat to high and put in the chopped cabbage. Stir occasionally. Add either the ½ cup of pickled cabbage or the lemon juice. The mixture is ready when the cabbage has browned as well.
Grandma’s tip: Make sure to use butter (or substitute), not any sort of oil to fry the cabbage. This ensures that the cabbage has a sticky consistency for filling the vareniki later on.
When you are done, your filling should look similar to this:
4. Set the cabbage aside. To make the dough, mix 2 cups of flour with the egg and a pinch of salt.
5. Mix it with your hands, adding water as needed to roll into one big ball
End result:
6. Flour a surface and roll out the dough, approximately the size of a medium pizza pie.
7. Take a small glass (my grandma uses a shot glass) and cut out circles from the rolled out dough.
Grandma’s tip: To make sure the dough doesn’t dry up as you work, put the excess pieces of it in the shot glass and turn it over.
8. Folding the cabbage filling into the actual varenik takes practice. There are various techniques. My grandmother uses the “half fold” method. Take the circle of dough into your hand as such:
9. Take a teaspoon of cabbage filling and put it in the circle, then fold over the side you’re holding between your fingers to meet the end of the other. Pinch it shut all the way around.
10. My mom uses a different technique, stretching the circle of dough over the cabbage filling by placing it in the center.
Make sure that when you are pinching the varenik shut, you go around twice in both directions. This ensures the cabbage stays inside.
The end result:
11. Now you’re ready to prepare the vareniki and eat! You can also stick these in the freezer and eat them later on. To cook, wait for the water to boil and add the vareniki with a pinch of salt. Stir occasionally. They are ready when they float up on top, in no more than 5-8 minutes.
12. Meanwhile, heat up a tablespoon of olive oil on low heat. Once the vareniki are ready, drain them and mix the heated olive oil in (this prevents them from sticking and intensifies the flavor).
Serve with sour cream and enjoy! If you have any further questions or comments, you now know where to find me! Thanks for reading!
