I have not been back to the multi-cultural community kitchen for a long while. This is because Minoo is having new groups of people, mostly new immigrants and she’s demonstrating very basic recipes which I had mostly covered in the blog already.

Out of the blue, Minoo asked me if I would like to come to the Gilmore Park Church Community Kitchen because one of the member is going to demonstrate a couple of Ukrainian recipes. Of course I’m more than happy to attend. It’s always nice to learn from another culture.

For this kitchen, Joe (the gentleman in the above photo) demonstrated how to make Potato Perogies and Borcht soup. Thank you, Joe for sharing with us.

Minoo served the Potato Perogies with a simple greens salad.

Ingredients

Dough

• 3 cups flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup milk
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 1 egg, beaten

Filing

• 3 large potatoes
• 1 small sweet onion, finely chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 400g cheddar cheese, grated
• 2 tablespoons butter

P/S:

• missing from the photo are the potatoes. onion and garlic;
• ingredients not for this recipe are the lemon juice, ground pepper, half & half

Source: Joe

Instructions

Warm milk with butter just to melt the butter. Let cool. Add milk mixture to a beaten egg.

Combine flour and salt in a large bowl. Make a well in the center. Pour milk and egg mixture into the well slowly while mixing with a fork. When the flour comes together into a dough, turn it onto a floured board and knead into a smooth ball.

Place the dough into a container and cover with a towel and let stand for one hour.

While waiting for the dough to rest, peel potatoes and cut into chunks. Boil the potatoes in boiling water until soften and drain.

Meanwhile saute chopped onions and garlic with two tablespoons of butter until onions are soft and lightly brown.

Place the hot potatoes into a medium bowl. Add grated cheese and sauteed onions and garlic. Cover to allow cheese to melt with the residue heat of the potatoes. Mash the potatoes mixture with a potato masher. Allow the mash potatoes to dry out a bit.

Take a teaspoon of the mash potatoes and roll into a ball. Many hands help to accomplish the task quickly.

When the dough has rested, divide it into 4 portions. Take one portion out to roll on a floured board while keep the rest covered so that the dough will not dry out.

Use a round cookie cutter (about 2″ in diameter) to cut out rounds of dough. The unused portion can be combined with the other dough for rolling out again. Lightly flatten the cut out round with a rolling pin.

Place a potato filing into the center of the dough and ensure that there is room at the edges. Pinch the edges shut to prevent the filing from spilling out when cooking. Place the perogies on a tea towel so that they wont stick.

Bring a big pot of water to a boil. Salt the boiling water. Place the perogy, one at a time into the salted boiling water while continuously stirring the water so that the perogies will not stick to one another. Cook the perogies for 8 to 10 minutes. Remove with a slotted spoon.

Place the perogies on a large platter. Drizzle with some melted butter so that the perogies will not stick to one another.

Serve with sour cream with chopped chives.