My Husband's Family's Pierogi Recipe

It's an old family recipe. This will make a LOT. Enough to feed about 60 people. The family gets together before Christmas Eve to prepare these for the holiday feast. Here it is, in my husband's cousin's words. All filling quantities are basically "eyeballed."

Before you start the pierogies you will have to melt salt pork with onions and make sure you do it in a slow flame otherwise it won't render the salt pork juice.

Dough:
3 cups of flour
1/4 cup of Presto Cake flour
2 beaten eggs
pinch of salt
1 cup of water

Mix it all and if it is too dry take more water. Knead the dough until it is blended then put it into a bowl and plastic on top and put into the fridge. Let it set overnight.

Potatoes:
15 lbs of yukon potatoes
5 tablespoons of melted salt pork
2 blocks of extra sharp cheddar cheese (grated)

After you skin the potatoes boil them and when it is done drain the potatoes then mash the potatoes with salt pork, cheddar cheese and your taste of pepper.


Sauerkraut:
7 large cans of sauerkraut
3 tablespoons of salt pork
1 cup of plain bread crumbs

Drain the sauerkraut then put it into a large pan with the salt pork and your taste of pepper. Let that slow simmer until the sauerkraut is soft and darker. When it is done then you can put the bread crumbs in. If it is still very wet then put more bread crumbs.

My additions to the directions follow. Cousin S. wrote these down for us, and everyone knows how to do these steps:
After the filling is prepared, roll the dough and cut out circles. Put a heaping tablespoon of filling in each circle, fold over and pinch closed. It's easier to do this if someone shows you how. Make sure it's COMPLETELY pinched so there are no "leakers." The only thing worse than "leakers" is when someone mixes up which pan has the potato pierogi and which pan has the sauerkraut!

Place the pinched pierogi on a table to dry. Flip them over to dry the other side. After they've dried, boil until they come to the top. You can freeze them with melted butter (wax paper between layers) at this point, or refrigerate.

To serve, fry in plenty of butter until they're browned on both sides.