Pierogi.

Hello, good afternoon,

another day, another bread filled with something. This time: pierogi. Yay!
I’ll give you the basic recipe for the dough, you can come up with a filling yourself (I humbly suggest the ‘stuff from the fridge that kind of has to be eaten’ filling, a classic).

Ingredients:
makes 12

1 3/4 cups flour
1/2 tsp. salt
3/4 stick unsalted butter, very cold
1/2 cup sour cream

1 egg yolk
2 tbsps. milk

Directions:

In a bowl, mix flour and salt. Add butter in cubes and knead into crumbles, add sour cream and knead into a ball of well combined dough.

Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and put into the fridge, for at least 30 mins.

In the meantime, make the filling. I filled mine with chicken and leek, which I cut fairly small and fried for maybe 5 mins. in olive oil, then seasoned with salt and chili flakes. In any case, the filling shouldn’t be too greasy, runny, or moist. I think the little dough pockets will bake best with a rather ‘dry’ filling, so they won’t get soggy.

Preheat your oven to 400°F.

Divide the dough into 12 equal parts. Roll each portion into a circle roughly 0.2 inches thin. Place about 1 tbsp. of filling on each circle, and pinch the rims together. Make sure they are squeezed together well! Place the pierogi on a papered baking sheet.

Whis together egg yolk and milk; brush the pierogi with this mixture. Bake for about 25 mins., until golden brown. Let them sit for a couple of minuted before serving. They taste great hot, warm, and cold.
Enjoy!

See how nicely the dough puffs up? It has a really nice flaky texture, too, and the sour cream adds a tart touch, very nice. So basicall, this is nicely nice all around.

The sun came out this afternoon, and spring is in the air. Nice!
Have an awesome weekend.
xoxo, F.

More Couscous (with Chicken and Chorizo)

Hello,

it’s Friday, hence a new recipe. Another couscous recipe from Donna Hay! Yay!

I’m not much of a meat eater (as the recipes I have posted here probably show), so this dish containing not one, but two kinds of meat was a challenge for me. Not to cook, it’s super fast and super easy, but to eat. But I liked it, and I will make it again, although I will add at least one vegetable. The original recipe actually calls for fresh spinach leaves, but they are not in season, so I left them out, and I think maybe red bell peppers or even potatoes would work well in this. Here goes:

Ingredients:
serves 2

1 onion, halved and sliced
1 chicken breast fillet, chopped
1 chorizo sausage, sliced
1/2 teaspoon chilli flakes
2 cloves garlic, crushed

1 cup couscous
1 cup vegetable stock
1/2 cup water

a handful of green olives, chopped

Directions:

In a large pan on high to medium heat, fry the onion, chicken, chorizo, chili and garlic until the chicken is tender (the sausage will loose enough grease, no additional oil needed) and light brown, about 7-8 mins.

Add the couscous; stir. Add the veggie stock and water and let bubble on low heat for about 2 mins., until the couscous is soft. Stir well.

Before serving, add the olives. Serve with green salad and beer (that’s how we did it). Enjoy!!

Have a good weekend, everyone. We are expecting rain, but I don’t care. I have many books to read and movies to watch and cups of hot chocolate to drink…

xoxo, F.