It's difficult to live with a Russian person and try to make mostly vegetarian food. Even if it's the most delicious vegetarian food you can imagine, they eventually catch on. One thing I know pleases even the most voracious meat lovers is pierogi, however. Long a favorite of mine, especially made by the hand of Chuck Platter. He has spent many devotes years as a student of the wares at Odessa, the beloved East Village Russian diner famous for its non-ambiance and best of the Soviet Union delicacies. With my fractured foot, I tonight ordered Mike to the supermarket for the various components of this dish, and our conversation over dinner wandered to how we could improve upon the basics. Our method was simple:
1. Brown in olive oil to the point of even burning a little (rather than caramelizing) one large onion.
2. Add pierogi to the pan and brown evenly as possible. We bought just a store bought package, which I actuallly love for their noodle consistency skin
3. toss in two big handfulls of fresh spinach, some diced garlic, salt and pepper (pan should have enough oil in it to deal with this addition nicely)
4. Serve with sour cream!
It was great, comforting, satuasfying, but I ask you, friends, family, what else can one do with this dish? Here were a few of our thoughts:
-make compound sour cream (is that a thing?) with herbs such as dill, or take it in a south Asian direction with curry powder and chile oil?
-make a spiced/baked apple topping that would provide a more complex sweetness
-beets?
-what else?
Of course any vegetable would work in place of spinach. When your garden (or your friend's garden) is overflowing with squash, for example, this is a great vehicle.
ReplyDeleteWe used to have this dish, or variations of it, a lot, using the pierogi you can buy in the frozen section of any grocery store. It's a perfect, well-balanced, economical, quick-to-prepare, meal.
This would be fantastically unhealthy, but you could add ricotta or farmer's cheese to the filling.
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