Sweet Potato and Cheddar Pierogies

Whenever I have leftover mashed potatoes I always think of making pierogies. You can fill them with cottage cheese, with bacon and cheese or sweet filling. There are endless possibilities out there, try some of them. This recipe uses potatoes, sweet potatoes, carmelized onions and old cheddar cheese. I have served them up with more onions and some sour cream.

You will need:

Dough

• 1 cup flour
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 egg
• 1/4 cup sour cream
• 2 tbsp unsalted butter- melted

Filling

• 1 small sweet potato -cooked and mashed.
• 1 small potato - cooked and mashed
• 1 onion - sliced 
• 1 clove garlic - chopped fine
• 3-4 tbsp olive oil
• 1 egg
• salt/pepper
• 1/2 cup cheddar cheese- grated

sour cream for serving 

1 onion -sliced and fried until carmelized like you make it for the filling

Step 1: make dough in a small bowl. Add flour and salt then form a well in the middle and add melted butter, egg and sour cream. Mix with a spoon until it becomes to dense to continue. Turn out contents of bowl onto counter and gather and knead for a few minutes until you form a nice smooth dough. I didn't need any additional flour but, depending on the humidity in your kitchen you may need a bit more. You are looking for the dough to no longer be sticky. Wrap in plastic and leave in fridge for 1 hour before rolling out.

Step 2: thinly slice your onion and chop your garlic. Fry in a small pan with some olive oil, salt and pepper. I usually carmelize onions by frying on high for the first 5 minutes, then on medium-low for the next 10 minutes and then back on high for the last 5 minutes. It will take roughly 20 minutes. 

Step 3: Mix your mashed potato, mashed sweet potato, your cooked onion and garlic, egg, grated cheese, salt and pepper.

Step 4: now you are going to roll out your dough. You can do this by rolling it out and cutting out a round with a cookie cutter or glass. You can also roll the dough into a log and slice even pieces which you with then roll out into circles with a rolling pin or even a wine bottle. I l prefer to roll out a log and then cutting pieces and forming a ball in my hands and then rolling out the balls into circles. This method avoids having to gather scraps and re-rolling the dough again and again which can make the dough tougher. If you find that method too difficult then use the cookie cutter method.

Step 5: add a generous amount of filling in each circle. This dough is soft and pliable so you can add a good amount of filling and still close the pierogi without having the filling come through.  If you have any filling left over you can freeze it and use it another time you make more dough. 

Step 6: boil the pierogies in salted rolling boiling water. I like to see them float to the top and then let them boil another minute. I remove them from the water and place on an oiled cookie sheet or plate and continue cooking all the pierogies you want.

Step 7: fry another onion in some olive oil, salt and pepper. Just like you did in Step: 2.

Step 8: once the onions are cooked and nicely carmelized add the boiled pierogies and saute for a minute or two. Then serve hot with sour cream.