By Shel Zolkewich (@shelzolkewich)
Perfect Pierogy Bake
WINNIPEG — The secret to a really delicious perogy is all in the dough. It must be salty enough to add a certain something to the dumpling, but it also has to be willing to take a backseat and let the flavours of the fillings shine through. Most importantly, it has to be tender. Really tender. Manitoba-made Perfect Pierogies gets high praise on all counts.
From production headquarters in Garson, Perfect Pierogies offers three varieties—potato and cheddar, cottage cheese and sauerkraut. They’re all fantastic but I have a soft spot for the sauerkraut version because, well, it’s hard to find a good sauerkraut perogy these days.
The traditional way to cook perogies is the boiling method. Bring a pot of salted water to a boil, drop in the frozen perogies and reduce the heat so you have a gentle boil. When the perogies float to the top, give them three to five minutes to cook through. Drain and serve with butter, sour cream, fried onions and bacon.
Leftover perogies can always be pan-fried to a golden brown, but there probably won’t be any leftover. To serve a crowd, try a perogy bake and add you favourite ingredients such as chopped peppers, cooked hamburger or diced onions.
Perfect Pierogy Bake
- 1 dozen Perfect Pierogies (your favourite flavour)
- 1 can cream of mushroom soup
- 1 cup milk
- ½ teaspoon dried parsley
- ½ teaspoon garlic powder
- ½ teaspoon black pepper
- 1 cup shredded cheddar
- ½ cup chopped green onions
Preheat oven to 350F. Coat the bottom of a casserole dish with non-stick spray. If you’d like to do this in a cast iron fry pan, be sure to liberally coat the bottom with canola oil. Layer in frozen perogies. Set aside.
In a bowl, combine cream of mushroom soup, milk, parsley, garlic powder and pepper. At this point, you may want to add one cup of browned sausage meat or half a cup of cooked bacon.
Pour mixture over perogies. Cover with foil. Bake at 350F for 30 minutes. Remove foil, turn oven to broil and broil for 10 minutes or until perogies get a little bit of colour. Remove from oven. Top with cheese and green onions. Serve with sour cream.
Manitoba Ingredient:
Perfect Pierogies
