Potato and White Bean Pierogi

First make the dough. In a large bowl whisk together the flour, salt, and garlic powder. Stir in the hot water until a sticky, shaggy ball of dough gets formed. If there’s still a bunch of dry flour in the bottom of the bowl or stuck all around the dough, add more water a tablespoon at a time to fix that shit. Throw some extra flour on your countertop so the dough won’t stick. Knead for about 10 minutes until a nice smooth ball starts to form. Put the kneaded ball of dough back in the bowl, coat it with the teaspoon of olive oil and stick that shit in a warm place, covered with a towel for 30 minutes while you make the filling. It can wait up to an hour and a half so it’s fine if you cook a lil slow.

Chop the potatoes up into chunks no bigger than a poker chip. It’s cool to leave the skin on if you’re all about the fiber life. Put them in a steamer basket in a medium pot over a couple inches of water. Heat that shit over a medium-low heat and steam those tubers until you can stick a fork through no fucking problem, about 15-20 minutes.

While the potatoes soften up, grab a skillet and heat the oil over a medium heat. Add the onion and sauté that shit till it starts to brown, about 5 minutes. Add the spinach, a pinch of salt, and keep cooking until the spinach is all wilted down, about 2 more minutes. Turn off the heat and leave that shit there.

Grab a large bowl and dump the beans in. Using a potato masher or a big ass spoon, mash those motherfuckers up until a smoothish paste is formed. By now the potatoes should be done so dump those spuds in and keep smashing till it kinda looks like mashed potatoes. Add the onions and spinach, garlic, lemon juice, hot sauce, and nooch and mix it up until it’s all combined. Taste that starchy savior and add more garlic, lemon juice, hot sauce, or salt depending on whateverthefuck you think is missing. To spread out the work you could make the filling a day or 2 ahead of time. It keeps in the fridge for a couple days.

Now to assemble the pierogi. Put a large stockpot of water on the stove over a medium-high heat and let that shit come to a boil while you work. Flour the counter where you kneaded the dough again and grab half of the rested dough. Roll that shit out nice and thin, about the thickness of a tortilla. Grab a biscuit cutter or jar with a mouth at least 2 ½ inches wide and cut out some circles for your pierogies. Ball up any scraps and reroll them back out. We usually get about 17 for each half of dough. Grab the other half of the dough and repeat that shit.

To stuff the pierogies, grab a small glass of water and use your finger and wet the edges of each circle. Add about a tablespoon of filling to each circle and fold that over. Seal the edges down with your finger and then crimp that shit with a fork so it looks kinda like a pie crust along the edges. Put them all on a floured baking sheet until you’re all done and ready to boil them.

To cook, drop them down in the boiling water in batches no larger than 12 at a time so those fuckers don’t all stick together. Boil them until they all start to float and the dough is cooked through, about 5 minutes. Fish them out with a slotted spoon, throw them on a plate, and keep boiling all the remaining pierogies.

Once the pierogies are all done, serve with a side of our Cheater Sauerkraut (TK2: Party Grub) or store bought and enjoy.

If you wanna do a lot of the work ahead of time, make the dumplings all the way until the dough is still raw but the pierogies are all sealed. Spray em with some oil, cover with plastic wrap, and freeze those fuckers in a single layer on a baking sheet. This will keep em from sticking together. When they’re all frozen, dump them into a plastic bag or some tupperware and store in the freezer for up to 3 months. BOOM. Tasty food as an entrée or appetizer whenever the hell you want. Just boil the pierogies for a minute or two when you’re ready to grub down.

* You can try whole-wheat pastry flour but this is one of those places that all-purpose really works best. It’s just the truth.

** One 15 ounce can, drained and rinsed, will do if you wanna save yourself some extra work. You’ve earned that much, if you ask us.