Some Strange Culinary Habits of Ours, We the Polish People

SWEET DUMPLINGS WITH TVAROG (QUARK CHEESE)

(pierogi z serem)

One of my discoveries when I moved to France was that French never eat sweet meals, neither for lunch nor for dinner. On the contrary, some of us, the Polish people, eat such meals in the summer time, or on Fridays. I believe that this is not very appealing to foreigners. I admit that it probably is a strange culinary habit, but no stranger than to eat andouille.

I do not like those sweet meals as main courses (as I don't appreciate sweets in general), but on the other hand it is still a part of our culinary heritage, and I remember from my childhood such awkward “obiads” like, for example, rice (usually overcooked) with apples with cinnamon topped with heavy cream; noodles with curd cheese served with sugar, or a sweet version of little hooves (kopytka) served with breadcrumbs fried in butter and topped with sugar of course; sweet pancakes (naleśniki) with fruits, jam and quark. That was the reality of the eighties.

There are three Polish sweet dishes which I like to eat (however only as a dessert nowadays). The first one is a fruit soup (for example, raspberry or bilberry) made from seasonal summer forest fruits. The second one is sweet dumplings (pierogi). The third one, which is really more international, are pancakes. You will find below links to my older posts about savory dumplings, which, of course, I favor.

Sometimes I like to eat sweet dumplings. I “upgraded” a classical recipe with the addition of some classical French or English sauces as an accompaniment to this simple and peasant food. The fact is that kids do like this type of food, so sometimes I make a batch of those dumplings for my daughter. I freeze them and I just boil them whenever she wants some.

For this type of dumplings you can use typical Polish quark cheese (to find out how to make such a cheese, please check out my older post). If you are too lazy to prepare quark cheese at home you can use Italian ricotta or mascarpone, but then, adjust the amount of sugar according to your taste. In place of raisins in the filling you can add any type of dried fruits, like dates, figs, apricots, as well as chopped walnuts.

Those dumplings are easy to find in every Polish “milk bar” (as described in this post) or in every student cantina, cheaper restaurants serving traditional Polish food. Usually they are just topped with some powdered sugar, but if you make a bit of an effort and you decide to make a little sweet sauce as an accompaniment, this simple food may turn into a nice… dessert, because I do not force anybody to eat sweet meals as a main course. So, here in this post I propose to make a simple orange sauce, but you can also make a lemon curd, crème anglaise, a basic chocolate ganache or even a raspberry or a strawberry coulis.

Serves 4

Ingredients

220 g pierogi dough (make half the basic dough recipe page according to this or, by applying clarified butter as described in this post

440 g quark cheese

2 egg yolks

3 tablespoons powdered sugar

Seeds from 1 vanilla bean

35 g raisins

The rind of 1 organic orange, thinly sliced + orange juice

1-2 tablespoon cane sugar

100 ml heavy cream (crème fleurette)

1. Soak raisins in warm water for around 30 minutes. Strain and put aside.

2. In a metal bowl, combine egg yolks, powdered sugar and vanilla seeds.

3. Blanch the orange rind in boiling water, strain and put aside. 

4. Crumble cheese in a bowl. Add the egg yolk mixture, raisins and 1/3 of the orange rind. Combine thoroughly.

5. Prepare the sauce: in a small saucepan, mix orange juice with cane sugar. Bring to a boil and cook until sauce thickens. Slowly add the cream and 7. remove from heat.

6. Prepare and cook pierogi as described in the basic recipe.

7. Serve immediately after cooking with warm orange sauce.

You can experiment with other sauces, like, for example, lemon curd, raspberry coulis or chocolate ganache.

Bon appétit !

My other posts about pierogi:

Pierogi Ruskie

Pierogi with WildBilberries

Pierogiwith Lamb, Morels and Demi-Glace

Mushroom Season –Part 3