hey dudes I'm Hilah and today on Hilah
cooking we're making mushroom pierogies
from Poland as part of my Christmas
around the world series Christmas in
Poland so I worked with a friend that I
met through the internet Marta to help
me figure out the best way to make
pierogies at home and I'm really excited
to show them with you now because
they're super delicious
so pierogies are basically dumplings
we're going to fill our Shaddai with
mushrooms but first we have to make the
pierogi dough so in this big bowl I've
got my flour and salt and then I've got
a little bit of water here and I'm going
to crack an egg in it and beat that up
together and Marta was telling me that
there's a concept called Meg I'm a
little unclear on the concept but I
think it's like it's a type of fasting
where you don't eat any animal products
during the Christmas season
so you're basically vegan I think um but
then she also told me that the egg goes
way better so if you want to keep these
vegan you can use some vegetable oil
instead of egg but the egg dojust makes
a really really nice soft dough so just
like when you're making like pasta or
anything like that we're going to whisk
this together a little bit make a little
hole in the center and then add in all
of that and then just start mixing that
up eventually we'll have to get our
hands in there okay so now once it's
kind of coming together into a ball like
this get a little bit of extra flour
here we just kind of need it in the bowl
until it comes together into a nice
smooth dough so this looks good you know
it's kind of coming together into a ball
it's not dry but it's not sticky yeah
this will be good so we just want to set
this aside for about 20 minutes to let
it rest while we start on our mushroom
filling for the mushroom filling we're
going to use a combination of dried and
fresh I've got here some moisture
mushrooms that were dried and I just
poured hot water over them and let them
sit for about eight hours
traditionally porcini mushrooms would be
used and those are also known as
bolla AR king Boley i'm not sure how to
pronounce that um it was a new name for
them that I'd never heard but I could
not find dried or fresh porcini
mushrooms anywhere here so moister
mushrooms are going to have to do the
trick for me so just want to squeeze
that liquid out I'm going to hang on to
that soaking liquid and then just finely
chop these mushrooms and lots of
different fillings are made people will
use like mashed potatoes and cottage
cheese or mushrooms and sauerkraut I
don't think they ever really have meat
in them I just want to get it really
small because the pierogi are actually
pretty small dumplings so you don't want
to have giant chunks of filling that
might break the dough later on that
looks great okay now we're ready to
saute all this together for the filling
I've got a warm skillet here I'm going
to add about a tablespoon of oil and add
some onions and I chopped up the onions
and the fresh mushrooms in a food
chopper to get them really really small
these are just some regular like white
mushrooms so we want to cook this over a
pretty high heat because we're trying to
we want to get them really soft and
browned and delectable and add some salt
and pepper in my reconstituted oyster
mushrooms okay so I'm just going to let
them sit here on the skillet to get a
little bit of color on them and then I'm
going to add a little bit of our soaking
like what I'm just going to add pour it
through a little strainer because with
dried mushrooms sometimes there can be
some grit or sand so you want to make
sure that you get don't include that
okay so I'm just going to let this
simmer or bubble like this until the
liquid has cooked off and we almost have
like a mushroom paste okay so after
about five minutes the water has pretty
much cooked off you can see that the
some of the mushrooms are started to
take on a little bit more of a golden
color instead of the grayness of
mushrooms so this looks good I'm going
to actually turn off the heat now we'll
set this aside and just let it cool so
I'll go ahead and spread it out again
we'll let it cool while we start rolling
and cutting our pierogi dough all right
so I've got my floured surface here my
little dough ball this is really easy to
work with dough because of the egg and I
just want to start rolling it out to
really really thin like maybe an eighth
of an inch and see how it when I'm
rolling it out it kind of springs back a
little bit a little bit is okay if it's
springing back too much that means you
probably just need to leave leave the
dough to rest a little bit and let the
gluten relax so you can see how thin
this is quite thin and I've got a 3-inch
cutter ideally it would not have a
scalloped edge but got to work with what
you get at people so we're just going to
start cutting out our circles so I've
got my mushroom filling here it's still
a little bit warm but it's okay I just
put it in this little bowl and put it in
the fridge so you just want to get a
pretty small amount like a teaspoon
maybe even a little bit less than a
teaspoon that right in the middle just
carefully fold it over I mean you don't
have to be too careful because the dough
is pretty tough and then pinch the edges
closed and I haven't found that you need
any kind of water to seal them but if
it's not sticking you could probably
just get your hands a little bit wet and
once you've got it sealed like this I'm
just going to go around the edges and
pinch it out a little bit to make the
edges a little bit flatter and wider to
give me a little bit more to work with
to go back in and make some little
pleats Boop kind of like when you're
pleading a pie crust or something very
very cute guys I'm going to flour my
plate here just so they don't stick to
the plate and just transfer them to a
plate okay so once you've got all of
your pierogies folded I've got some
water here that's boiling it should be a
little bit deeper but I want you all to
be able to see inside it so I'm going to
take another risk
and then we'll just gently drop our
little dumplings in there and they sink
it first and then as they cook they'll
float to the surface and this only takes
a couple of minutes and then as they
finish cooking I'm going to transfer
them to a plate and this time instead of
flowering your plate you want to just
put a little bit of oil in it so they
don't stick to the plate once they're
cooked a little bit of lotion there okay
good all right these look great so they
get kind of like like wrinkly old man
balls
sorry Poland all right so I can start
pulling them out and setting them on the
tray just try to get the excess water
off and then you can totally serve them
like this just boiled but I'm gonna do a
little extra thing to make them a little
bit fancier we're going to fry some
onions and then pan fry the pierogi so
they get a little bit crispy for our
crispy fried onion topping we're going
to do a little bit more oil butter is
also good I'll probably add a little bit
of butter later on and I've just got
some really thinly sliced onion rings
let's get these cooked and the amount of
like brownness that you want on these
little onion rings is a matter of
personal taste I think I'm gonna get
them pretty brown so I've got this over
a medium-high heat and I'm just going to
let them sit here and sizzle for a few
minutes until they're really soft and
brown and starting to get caramelized
once your onions are brown to your
liking minor samokhin hat like me maybe
a little too Brown but I never did shun
burnt food I'm going to add a little bit
of butter could use a little bit more
oil if you want to keep it Meg
and then we'll add some of our little
pierogies here and get them a little bit
brown I've got my heat down to like a
medium heat because I don't want that
butter to burn and I obviously don't
want to burn my beautiful homemade
pierogies that I just spent like an hour
making oh there we go
yeeah bleah okay I think these are ready
and there you have it I hope you like
this mushroom pierogi recipe please
check out my website for other polish
recipes and this recipe in printable
form and a little bit about poland the
country and christmas in poland and
speaking of christmas if you're still
looking for christmas gifts for your
friends and loved ones might i suggest
my cookbooks look at this one it's
called learn to cook it's for grownups
it's really funny and it's comprehensive
and look it's in print and people that
have been watching the show for a long
time you probably already have your copy
of the ebook of the breakfast taco book
but look guys it's in print now look
like this it's got colored pictures and
I wrote some more stuff about breakfast
tacos and more recipes and it's just
really nice I love it so this will be
available soon I'll let you know when
and people that subscribe to the
newsletter will probably find out first
so if you inscript subscribe to that
then I'll put a link to that also so yay
Poland Christmas presents I pretty much
just solved all your problems in one
fell swoop thank you so much for
watching I'll see you guys next time for
more Christmas around
I forgot to taste these I got really
excited okay
man those are good dang a Lang I did it
again bye guys