Perogies

Okay...here they are. The famous Chalifour Perogies, directly from Claire Chalifour, Paul's mom. How a French-Canadian from Saskatchewan learned to make a Polish delicacy is still a mystery. However it happened, they are the best around and she has shared the recipe with new generations.

For the dough:

6 cups flour

1/2 pound butter or margarine

2 eggs

3 Tbsp sour cream

1 1/4 cups water

For the filling:

3 to 4 medium-sized potatoes, peeled

2 pounds 4% cottage cheese

Salt

To prepare perogies:

1/2 pound butter

Large onion, diced

To make the dough, put flour, 1/2 pound butter, eggs, and sour cream into a large bowl. Using a pastry blender, blend till the dough forms pea-sized lumps. Pour water over dough and blend slightly with hands (you should be able to see streaks of flour). Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 1 hour or so.

To make the filling, boil the potatoes until soft. Transfer to bowl. Add cottage cheese and mash together until creamy. Add enough salt so that the mixture tastes a bit too salty.

Bring a large pot of unsalted water to a boil. Put the onion and 1/2 pound butter in a small saucepan. Melt on low heat. As the butter melts the onion will cook, not fry. Keep the butter/onion mixture on low heat.

Remove dough from the refrigerator. Cut a 1/3 of the dough and put the remaining 2/3 back in the refrigerator. Roll out the 1/3 thinly on a lightly floured surface. The dough will be sticky so work carefully and use just enough flour to prevent sticking. Using a glass or circle cutter 3 to 4 inches, cut circles in the dough. Put 1 circle in your hand and place 1 tablespoon of the filling in the center of the dough circle. Fold circle to form a crescent and pinch dough until sealed so no filling can come out. The dough must be sealed well. Repeat with remaining circles. Take the scraps from the dough and gather together and put back in refrigerator.

Add a dozen or so perogies to the boiling water and stir occassionally as they may stick to the bottom. Boil till they float to the top. Remove perogies from boiling water with a slotted spoon or strainer (Freddie likes this job because he eats the broken ones). Drain well. Once drained, put perogies in a large bowl. Drizzle some of the butter/onion mixture over them and coat so they don't stick together. Repeat the process with the remaining 2/3 dough, adding the scraps from each 13 to the scraps in the refrigerator. Use the scraps to roll one more batch (when you roll out the scraps, the dough will not roll as thinly as the other batches). As you roll the remaining dough and boil the perogies, drain them, add them to the ones in the bowl and drizzle some of the butter/onion mixture on them. As the bowl becomes filled, lay each perogie individually on cookie sheets. Drizzle whatever butter/onion mixture remains in the bowl or the saucepan over the filled cookie sheets. Put cookie sheets in freezer. Once the perogies are frozen you can transfer them (with the frozen butter/onions) to ziploc bags.

To serve, heat a large frying pan over medium heat. Add frozen perogies and sautee until nicely browned on both sides. You do not need to add oil or butter to the pan as the frozen butter/onion mix will brown the perogies and prevent sticking. Serve with sour cream and bacon bits, if you wish.

This recipe makes approximately 100 perogies depending on the size.