I got this recipe from my friend Elsie who has been making perogies for generations. She too got the recipe from her mother and her mother before that. As usual, the recipe said "add enough flour to make a soft dough". Her daughter Lorrie, who is also one of my dearest friends, took the time to measure each ingredient out to make it perfect so she can pass the recipe and tradition on to her children. Elsie says, the best recipes are the simplest recipes, and she was right! In our grandmother and great grand mother's era they didn't have the luxury of rich ingredients available to them at all times. These ingredients make a soft and elastic dough and I did not have one perogy open while boiling. Follow the recipe exactly and you won't have any trouble. Thanks Lorrie for perfecting the ingredients amounts saving us all the trouble of figuring out what a soft dough means.
NOTE: This dough has no dairy in it, there for it has a bit more of a "chew" or "bite" to the texture when you eat the finished product. Using dairy like milk, cream or sour cream makes the dough more tender and has a softer bite to it.
- 8 cups flour
- 1 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 2 3/4 cups hot water
- 3/4 cups oil
- In a large mixer with a dough hook attachment add 8 cups of flour to the mixing bowl. Can easily be done by hand if you don't have a mixer large enough to make dough.
- Heat the water til it is almost too hot to touch or hot water from the tap.
- Add the oil and the hot water to the flour, knead the dough for about 5 minutes in the mixer or ten minutes if you are doing it by hand.
- Let the dough rest for at least an hour or more on the counter.
- Divide into 4 balls to make the rolling of the dough easier to manage. Cover the remaining dough with plastic wrap to keep from getting a dry outer crust.
- On a lightly floured surface, roll the dough thin, cut in circles or 3 inch squares.
- Place the prepared perogies on parchment lined cookie sheets. Can be frozen at this stage if you desire. Once completely frozen place them into ziplocked bags.
- To cook, have ready a large pot of boiling water. Place perogies into the water without crowding too much and boil for a few minutes. Once they float to the top boil another 3-5 minutes. If you are cooking them frozen, cook about 8-10 minutes.
- This amount makes about 15 dozen 3 1/4 in circles.
For 1 recipe of dough, I used 2- 650 gm containers of dry cottage cheese (3 cups), mixed with 2 eggs, salt and pepper (optional) as desired.
Tip - I use a round cutter to make cottage cheese, cut 3" squares for the potato and cheddar cheese filling and shape them into a triangle, and shape the squares into rectangles or squares for the fruit filling, so there is no guessing as to what they are filled with. Plus cutting them in squares means no rolling and re rolling.
For filling ideas check out Kathy's suggestions here.
Try to pinch them a little fancy for that special someone, or if you have four options of a variety of perogies.
