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:
