Tuesday, December 30, 2008

You'll Wish You Had Smellovision for This One!

One of the wonderful things about having my parents come visit is that my Mom can teach me how to make things. You already know that I have never cooked a whole turkey - and although we won't be fixing that situation during my parents' visit, I did accomplish some other things... like making pie!

Mom and Jo's pies

Look closely... which one was made by the person who bakes for a living and which one was made by the person who was so awkward at putting the top crust on that it ripped and the holes had to be patched in with pastry leaves...? Mom assured me they will taste the same.

And then we made pudahha (or perogies, as some people call them). Of course, I have made pudahha before - it was required child labour in our house growing up - if you wanted these for dinner, you had to take part in the filling, folding, and pinching. I have even made pudahha all by myself once - but it is back-breaking that way and much more fun if you have cohorts.

First you drive the cat crazy with the smell of bacon frying:

Frying the bacon

Once the bacon and onion has been fried almost crispy, you add it to your mashed potates, reserving your potato water (you will need it for the dough). Season with salt and pepper until it's perfect (this will require much tasting of the potato filling). Then make the dough in your food processor - it is a combination of flour, salt, oil, and potato water. I'm a little embarrassed to say at this point that Andrew gave me the food processor about 5 years ago and yesterday was the first time it was out of the box. In my defense, I have had very small kitchens ever since and it's not easy to store these things.

Then you roll out the dough and slice it one-hand width thick in both directions to make squares:

Slicing the Pudahha dough

Stretch the dough out a bit, fill with the potato mixture, and then pinch all around to make triangles. Freeze what you won't eat, and boil the rest for 8 minutes.

Pinched Pudahha

Serve with melted butter and onions... (okay, my mouth is watering right now)

Finished Pudahha

I meant to take a picture of the pudahha on my plate, but suffice to say, they weren't on the plate very long.

But I have about 7 dozen in the freezer!

12 comments:

turtlegirl76 said...

Oooh, aside from the onion factor, those look so good!

Trillian42 said...

Oh, yum. I LOVE pierogies. I've never made them myself, though - I really should one of these days.

kemtee said...

Mmm. Pierogies. With lotsa cheese.

WANT.

Norm Deplume said...

I'm so very hungry for fried dumplings right now. And bacon. I'd be hungry for pie too, but I ate the last piece of apple struesel pie from Christmas for breakfast this morning.

Bezzie said...

Oh freakin' yum!!! Dr. MS and I were talking about how every culture/region seems to have their own version of these. And how delish they all are!

I thought the pie with the fancy leaves was the pro one!

Beverly said...

Mmmmmm... bacon. Those look so yummy.

And your pie looks just fine. I'm sure it tasted good too. I've been making apple pies since high school, with some "interesting" results. They may not always look good, but they taste great.

Discoknits said...

Not you aswell!!! I just came over from Bezzie cookie-blog! How's a girl supposed to trim a few pounds when her knitsters keep tempting her with sweets-a-plenty!!!

Your leafy pie looked great btw. I remember my own mom used to put leaves on pies all the time (to use up the pastry and make it look pretty :0)

tara said...

Yup, pies looks very tasty. Apple? The pierogies bring back memories for me. I made 1.75$ an hour making those in jr high.

IrishGirlieKnits said...

MMMM....delicious!! And love the freezer full too!

Anonymous said...

I can't wait for mom to come to my house too... Mom's pies are the best (and what can beat homemade perogies??!!)

Oh, and thanks for the pic of mom's arm!

Unknown said...

You are the ONLY other person (besides the people in my family) that I have heard call perogies puddaha! Do you know the origin of the word? I am having a hard time finding anything out about it.

Jo said...

Cassandra - is your family Ukrainian Canadian like mine? This is from the Wikipedia article on perogies:

Although called varenyky in standard Ukrainian, speakers of the Canadian Ukrainian or Rusyn dialect refer to them as pyrohy, which can be misheard pedaheh or pudaheh by Anglophones unaccustomed to the rolled-r sound, or alveolar flap. This is due to the history of Ukrainian or Rusyn (Ruthenian) immigration to Canada, which came predominantly from the former Austro-Hungarian Empire.