What can I say? I promised one more meal from the famous Italian Roasted Chicken and here it is. Yes, I found a way to incorporate the chicken broth into homemade pierogi. I follow food guide at About.com’s Eastern European food section, Barb Rolek, on her Facebook fan page. I asked her for a recipe using the broth. At first she gave me a soup, but then I noticed she posted a recipe for pierogi dough using chicken broth/stock. My husband loves pierogi with onions as much as I love spaghetti and meatballs and he isn’t even Polish! To say he is a fat and happy guy is an understatement. Ok, so he’s not too fat but he is happy or was last night when we ate. He took leftovers for his lunch today so he’ll be happy again today.

Typically when I undertake the making of homemade dough, I have my boys here to help but they were off to a conference and I went it alone. I did very well. It was easy but time-consuming. Once again I’ll call this a “labor of love” because I will only labor like this for those I love.  I know I’ve come across many recipes on food blogs for homemade pierogi and many call for sour cream and some oil in the dough. This one calls for those things and chicken broth. Enough blabbering, on to the recipe and pictures. I decided to take some step by step pictures this time around. My poor camera was covered in flour by the end.

Homemade Pierogi Dough by Georgia

Filling recipe follows

• 4 cups sifted all-purpose flour
• 2 large eggs
• 5 tablespoons sour cream
• 3 tablespoons vegetable oil- I used olive oil
• Pinch salt
• 3/4 cup chicken broth

Mix eggs, sour cream, oil, and broth in a large bowl. Add salt to sifted flour and slowly add into the liquids. Mix until you have a workable dough.Turn out on a floured surface and knead until smooth. Cover with plastic wrap and let rest at least 10 minutes. (I let mine rest for about 45 minutes while I did some dishes and made the filling. ) I used a board knife to divide the dough into quarters and using one section at a time begin rolling the dough. Make sure you keep the unused dough covered when you are rolling out the dough. Roll the dough until it’s about 1/8 inch thick. Using a 4 inch round cutter, I used my teapot lid since I don’t have biscuit cutters, cut out rounds and place them on a floured tea towel. Gather scraps, reroll and cut out as well. I made these in batches of 12 then filled them. Directions for filling the dough rounds are after the filling recipe. This recipe gave me 4 dozen pierogi.

Pierogi Filling

2 pounds peeled and cubed red potatoes, can use russet

1 medium onion diced

4 oz. shredded sharp cheddar cheese

1 cup ricotta cheese

1/4 cup sour cream

salt and pepper

Boil potatoes until soft. Mash and add in cheeses, sour cream, salt and pepper. Carmelize onions and add in to the filling. Taste and adjust seasoning. I would say the consistency is just a tad drier than mashed potatoes. Let cool to room temperature before using. You might have a little leftover so either freeze or just eat it like we did.

I used a small scoop to fill the pierogi. Also use an egg wash, 1 beaten egg plus 1 tsp water, to brush the dough rounds so they will seal. No one wants to lose the filling during the cooking process!

Fold in half and pinch closed, like a pie crust or like ravioli. Phil was home by this point and clicked a few pictures for me.

Lay the finished pierogi on a floured towel.

Boil a pot of salted water and drop these into the boiling water, only cook about 6 at a time, don’t crowd them. When they rise to the surface, cook 3-4 minutes. Remove with a spider and drain on a flour sack towel. Serve or keep warm. Here they are with some carmelized onions after boiling.

You could take them from the water and put them into a pan of melted butter and fry them. They will crisp up nicely. This is how we like them best, topped with the onions and sour cream.

Like I said, Phil was a happy guy, less happy about me taking his picture after a long day at work. Poor guy broke a knuckle in one finger on Thursday so it’s not easy being a mechanic with a splinted finger!

I sure hope you will give this a try. I completed my personal challenge to stretch a whole chicken into at leat three meals. I follow another money-saving blog on Facebook and they called this “rubber chicken” since you stretch it so far. I still have a few cups of broth to use for soup or other recipes. So it’s plain to me that I’ll get more than 3 meals from one chicken.