Hi! I'm Russian. I should correct you. I see varEniki on the picture, not peirogi. Well, peirogi are indeed pockets of dough stuffed with all manner of delicious foodstuffs, but we bake them in the oven. And varEniki are also made of dough stuffed with potato or mushrooms or TVOROG (dairy food) or even fresh cherry. We boil them, not bake. VarEniki came to Russia from Ukraine.

I'm making pelmeni today and seeing as I've got a jar of sauerkraut, I may well try this out. I'm trying to stock up my freezer for the winter which is only now starting to rear it's ugly head with some lovely flooding.

VarEniki, now I will deffinately be trying that, maybe with cheese.

Yum, Emma! These look fantastic! Bookmarked.

The best pierogies I've ever made were with potatoes and the Momofuku scallion oil. SO GOOD. http://momofukufor2.com/2010/10/pierogi-recipe/

My Ukranian great-grandmother taught my mother how to make pierogis, which were always stuffed with a mixture of mashed potatoes, cream cheese, and onions, then boiled, and served with melted butter and/or sour cream. They've been our traditional Christmas Eve meal since I was a kid. :)

FWIW, we never did the skillet crisping, but I tried that later in life and LOVE it, so that's usually how I do it now.

Also, amusing aside, when my brother was little, he didn't like the filling, so my mom would always make a handful of "flatties" for him with no filling. I thought he was crazy for eating plain boiled dough!

My Wisconsin Polish farm family makes them this way: boil them up (because of course my grandmother would have already premade several hundred and stored them in the freezer for a quick meal), then add them to a skillet in which breadcrumbs have been browned in about 2 sticks of butter. make sure they are well-coated in the breadcrumbs. eat 4 platefuls. I've never seen anyone else make them this way, but it is serious comfort food to me.

@titatatte - Thanks for the explanation! Baking them sounds like more deliciousness. I can't wait to try!

My Slovack mother calls them 'pirohi' and makes two kinds; potato with cheese (usually American for its sharp taste and meltiness), and lekvar, which is prune butter (sweet and tart and sooo good). They get boiled and served with melted butter, with and without onions in it, on Christmas Eve. The dough she makes, the pasta part, is so thin and light and airy that baking would ruin them. Sublime.

My Polish family has been making these forever. Our version isn't heavy or doughy, much lighter dough is made and the peirogis themselves are MUCH smaller than the ones you find elsewhere. My favorite filling is a mix of farmers cheese with a bit of sugar. Boil them and pan fry them with butter and onions. In the summer we would make them with blueberries and other fruits.

We spelled it perogie, and we stuffed our with mashed potatoes onions and lots of cheddar cheese. When money is tight we make a bunch of these and eat them for lunch and dinner, as a result my mum can't stand them anymore.

Oh and we make our way too big, my grandma gets mad at my mum for this(they don't get along anyways though)

I grew up eating Mrs. T's and still keep a box of the potato & cheddar in my freezer at all times. My grandparents live in the next town over from where they're made, so it's always fun to look at the freezer section of their local grocery store and see a huge selection of flavors and different brands for sale. I'm just lucky to get the cheddar and onion varieties here in Texas where only a small percentage of folks seem to be familiar with them.

I've never tried making them though. Tempting, since I could make my own flavor combos.

My mother-in-law generally makes sweet dessert pierogies. Blueberry, farmers cheese with golden raisins and cherry are the ones she makes most often. She serves them with a homemade caramel sauce on top. Fantastic.

For savory, I got through college on Mrs T's potato and cheese that I fried with kielbasa and Frank's Red Hot. I love getting kraut-and-kielbasa pierogies at the local Polish festivals as well.

I make these all the time from scratch, although have been known to buy frozen for those times when time counts! Just recently tasted Pelmeni for the first time - they were yum!
I also have a polish cooking blog if youre looking for more recipes... including pierogi

http://polishcooking.blogspot.com/

I must also add that the plural of pierogi in Polish is.... Pierogi not pierogis! Just had to say that :)

I grew up eating pierogi (we called them pierogies, however incorrect that might be) in Pennsylvania Dutch country. So when I moved to Texas, I couldn't believe that nobody down here had ever heard of them. Luckily the stores here sell Mrs. T's, which are passable, though a far cry from the fresh brands we used to buy from the deli case back East.

For the first time ever I made pierogi (there are so many spellings that I will just use the one here) for last Christmas. Ever since my Baba passed away it was a lost art in my family but I think my rendition was pretty good for a first try. I was so happy that I got the taste close and the thickness of the dough was pretty darn close.

Check out my blog to see what they looked like and for the recipe I used.

Oh and we never use ground beef in ours, we always stick to a simple potato filling.