Several people asked about using wild blueberries and/or frozen blueberries. I tried making them with supermarket frozen tiny wild blueberries (Wyman brand) and it didn't work well -- the dumplings weren't very juicy. That being said I think the problem wasn't the fact that they were frozen, but the fact that the berries weren't all that good. If you have good frozen berries, I think it could work. As soon as you shape a few dumplings move them to the freezer. Frozen berries will defrost quickly and will start to ooze. It's very important to not let that happen until the dumplings are in the pot. Also keep your frozen berries in the freezer except for what you need for a few dumplings.
Pierogi are great. When it comes to fruits, I find strawberries and sour cherries the best choice. Certainly, they are a bit easier to make than ones with small fruits inside. But nothing prevents adding currants or blueberries as decoration! After that just a spoon of fresh sour creme and a lil bit of powdered sugar and voilà. By the way stupid question- are there sour cherries in the United States? Here in Poland there are two types- 'wiśnie' (sourer) and 'czereśnie' (sweet), both translate to... 'cherries'.
Yes, we have sour cherries in the US, but they are almost never available in supermarkets But there is one farm in the Boston area that grows them and I hear they are a lot easier to find in Michigan. Sour cherry varenyky are amazing, but I figured blueberries will be a lot easier for people in the US to find and they don't require pitting ;)
@@jjforcebreaker yes here in Michigan sweet cherries are grown famously in Michigan and the State Washington. Look for Black cherries or "Ranier" cherries. Sour pie cherries aren’t usually sold fresh, but you can usually find them in the grocery store canned specifically for pie filling, called tart.. they are sold frozen and canned. Or try going to a farmer’s market.
For those who are wondering how this sweet dish can work as a main dish I have a suggestion to start your dinner with thick heavy soup and finish dinner with this sweet “second” round. In Eastern Europe people ALWAYS have a soup at first and continue with second dish. Soup can be potatoes soup, broccoli, beans. It will fill you enough to be good for long time.
Oh yes, we always started any meal with Russian borscht at my grandparents house. Not with beets, but the “real” Russian cabbage borscht as my Grandma would say
For adding acidity to a dish without adding liquid, try powdered lemon or lime. TruLemon works well. Pure Myers lemon powder is available. BTW, a bit sprinkled on avocado helps prevent browning if you're going to store it (for up to 24 hours) wrapped in plastic.
Oh my god, I remember eating these when I visited Poland a few years ago. They were served with a vanilla sauce and I could have eaten them for every meal 🤤🤤🤤
In Hungary these are filled with fresh plums, cut in half, filled with cinnamon sugar. The dough has added cooked potatoes and are shaped into small balls. Once cooked, they are rolled in breadcrumbs, slightly browned in butter, adding a little sugar or syrup on top. Yumm!
Some additional tips from Poland: after cooking those dumplings there is no need to mix them with butter like it's shown on the video - it is easy to mess it up. In my family the cream sauce was always on the table and everyone could put as much as needed. If you need that butter just melt some on the pan separately. Take pierogi out of the water on a big plate and let the family take pierogi from that plate on their own plate - you will notice a lot of water left on the first plate. Seriously - it makes a lot of difference. Oh, and use the fork to eat those. Puncture it first to avoid pierogi squirt, then cut it in half and dig in :) Smacznego
my Polish grandmother made these with blueberries from her own garden. She also made a sour cream sauce sweetened with sugar. Those are my favorite summer memories!
My Polish grandmother would make these when blueberries were in season. She would freeze them for Wigilia. (She also made cabbage and potato pierogi) We also lived in Massachusetts back then. What a treat to have delicious blueberry pierogi in December! Thank you for this memory!
Amazing! When I was growing up, a girl from across the street used to babysit my younger sister. The girl’s mother was originally from Ukraine, and she always made and sent along berry pierogis with cream sauce in the summer! I always crave them and very few people where I live are acquainted enough with Eastern European food to even know what they are! Thank you so much for posting this, Helen! I will be trying to make them!
In the Czech Republic we make fruit dumplings (ovocné knedlíky) too, but they’re closer to knödel, and we usually serve them with melted butter, tvaroh (farmer’s cheese) and powdered sugar dusted on top😊
My ex boyfriend’s mother was a daughter of Slovakians and she made wonderful boiled dumplings of whole small plums wrapped in a dough made of ricotta cheese and flour. She said her mother would have used Farmer’s cheese, but she couldn’t find it in America, but the ricotta worked fine. The dumplings were served with buttered, toasted breadcrumbs and sour cream. Do you know what these dumplings are called? They were so good! She only made them in the fall when the prune plumbs were in season.
@@kelleyforeman I did some digging and I think they’re called “slivkové gule/knedle s tvarohom” (Slovak for plum dumplings with tvaroh[farmer’s cheese]). I did find this, which looked promising: www.czech-stuff.com/czech-fruit-dumplings-recipe/. They do say it’s for Czech dumplings, but honestly it’s just a name, the dough doesn’t care what you call it. For the tvaroh/farmer’s cheese, I would check out Helen’s video on how to make farmer’s cheese from ricotta or even from scratch; also, I think the flour is just all-purpose. I don’t know why semolina is mentioned in the instructions, when it’s not even mentioned in the ingredients, so I think it’s okay to omit that. And I think then you just fry up some breadcrumbs. Some of the other recipes had more of the flour or more of the farmer’s cheese, so I think its okay to play with the proportions until you find what works for you, but I’d first try to recreate the recipe and see how it turns out, cause ingredients are really different in different countries, so maybe you will need less or more of something. Hope it works out!!
Oh, thank you! That goes look similar to what she did. I will try it when the plums are in season in the fall. It is so good and a surprisingly easy meal. Like Helen, she would make it for dinner for the family. It was too good to only eat as dessert!
Oh, thank you! That goes look similar to what she did. I will try it when the plums are in season in the fall. It is so good and a surprisingly easy meal. Like Helen, she would make it for dinner for the family. It was too good to only eat as dessert!
Oh, thank you! That goes look similar to what she did. I will try it when the plums are in season in the fall. It is so good and a surprisingly easy meal. Like Helen, she would make it for dinner for the family. It was too good to only eat as dessert!
My best childhood memories were in my Russian Grandmother’s kitchen while we made Verenyky. To answer your question, we had potato and cheese verenyky for the “main” course, and for dessert, we had raspberry and saskatoon berry for dessert! Everything was drenched in fresh melted butter, but full cream and butter was served with the fruit ones. My grandfather would take us kids to pick all the wild berries along the Saskatchewan river. She used the old school mason jar lids to cut the dough. I was allowed to use the scraps of dough to make “dinosaur” objects and bake in toaster oven for a snack while waiting for supper! God I’m going to make verenyky for New Years!
I'm in love with your channel, Helen. You're fantastic! Абсолютно обожаю. Я жил в России один год и чувствую глубокую ностальгию с вашими рецептами каждый раз я смотрю ваши видео. Разрешите пожалуйста маленький секрет между нами: я думаю, что ваши рецепты намного лучше, чем 100% традиционные русские рецепты. Обнимашки всех из Испании ❤️✨❤️
Made this yesterday with frozen blueberries, worked great- I did put them in the freezer as I shaped them. My mom used to make these with a cottage cheese filling. Thankyou for this recipe!
Made the a few days ago for a late Mother's Day dinner. At first I was thinking maybe adding a bit of rosemary or allspice, but I trust you too much. Your recipe is absolute perfection as is! My only regret is that we had just two meals of leftovers. Pan-fried in butter, of course. This was only my second time trying to make pierogi...and the first things being successful. I no longer fear making them. While I have the kitchenaide pasta roller, I easily found my groove with just using a rolling pin and will continue hand rolling. Thanks to you, we no longer live in a pierogi desert!
Hello Helen from Canada. I love watching your videos especially the ones from Russia, and other Slavic countries. Although I was born in Poland, my mother was Bialo Rus (White Russian) and she would always make pierogis with blueberry and plums in the summer. A few years ago, my husband and I were fortunate to visit Moscow and St. Peterburg for 2 weeks and we enjoyed the food tremendously especially the potato salads with peas, carrots and beets served as a first course. The apptizers (zakuski) went down very well with vodka also!! Thank you. Jasha
i've been curious about these for so long! if i had a bigger kitchen i would give this a go :) living vicariously through you, now. speedy recovery for your arm!
We made this today and absolutely loved it! We used frozen blueberries that we picked a few weeks ago. An amazing recipe that gets better with practice of the technique.
Oh my god I absolutely love вареники I actually made them last week with blueberries and strawberries but I used my moms recipe but now that I see you have a recipe for them I definitely need to try them again using your tips and methods thank youuu for your amazing recipes and I hope your arm gets better soon ❤️
I am not sure about varenyky, but the classic pierogi dough is made without eggs at all. In my family, the recipe is: 1kg of flour, 1/2l of hot water (boiling at best, if your hands can handle that), 1/3 of a slab of butter or margarine (which are 200g in Poland), melted. Pour water into flour, and slowly add the melted margarine/butter. Then work the dough fast (if you do it for too long, it will harden), let it rest tighly covered for 30 minutes (e.g. in a plastic wrap). No flouring before resting and before rolling! That is enough for about 70-80 pierogi of moderate size. This is the best dough for pierogi, especially the ones that are easier to open up and spill the filling into the cooking water (small fruits or sauerkraut&mushrooms are notorious for that).
These look amazing! Thanks for your dedication to sharing this recipe with us, and thanks to your family for adding their hands to the effort and keeping you in good care. Wishing you a speedy recovery!
Thank you for this video. I hope your arm heals quickly; fractures are no fun. Tajin seasoning might help with acidity, as it's designed to highlight fruit flavour.
I simply love the way you are and your fantastic food, i get wildy inspiring, both do what you do but also find new ways based on your ideas, thank you her from Denmark!
I cooked these last night and they were delicious! Although it took me quite some time to make them all, now I have more in my freezer for the next fix :) Thanks for this recipe!
Try gently mixing blueberries, sugar, and 1 Tb cornstarch together in bowl. Then you can add lemon juice to make tart. Cornstarch absorbs the liquid and makes smoother filling. Works well with frozen berries too. I like to add dash of vanilla to sour cream and sugar, mix and let sugar dissolve, then top varenyky.
Get well soon! Looks delicious! I have tried a (kind of) sweet pasta recipe in Zagreb, called Strukli. It is filled with cottage cheese and baked, and served sprinkled with sugar, and it’s delicious! I’ll try to make this one!
I just this weekend made sour cherry ones from the Kachka cookbook by Bonnie Frumpkin Morales. She has a recipe based on Dried sour cherries and cherry syrup thickened with starch, but I got by with dried cherries, jam and starch slurry just fine. They were delightful, and I was just speaking to my mom about dried blueberries being used for them. That could be interesting to see that take on those vs. these fresh ones!
I have some blueberries I picked at a blueberry farm a couple weeks ago. There are some good ones left. I'm going to make these tonight and freeze them.
I'm mad I only watched this in October, but I'll have to remember it for next year. Northeastern German idea for fall with similar vibes is potato dumplings with pear soup, which is my whole family's favourite when you visit grandma during summer hols.
ohhh, try using sour/morrelo Cheries, they are called wisnie (pronounced vishnie) in eastern europe Poland,Hungary, Turkey, Azebejdjan. They are absolutely to die for. I know there is a big orchard somewhere in Canada growing them so you might be able to source them. and it is the right growing season now. I am salivating now with my childhood memories floding back.
I tried this tonight and wow! This was an amazing dish if you love tart blueberries!!! She is right in saying it's not too sweet. In fact, it's less sweet than something like pancakes. In addition, I didn't feel like I needed a dessert after eating these. The sauce is somewhat savory if you don't add much sugar. Also, she's right when she says the berries are important. I tried a test with some regular berries (though from a farmer's market) and the mix was not very flavorful. Look for tart berries! There are many kinds of blueberries and the smaller they are, the more tart they seem to be.
Where I live most fruit and berries have to travel. What grows here is raspberries, strawberries and a small wild berry called a saskatoon, a kin to a huckle berry. Aii the fruit and berries are my favourite but here, apple is most aften used. Thank you for posting now a whole new crowd as been introduced to a great meal.
Hi Helen! Watching u right now, love this dish. Have you tried citric acid to correct acidity without adding moisture? I use it for everything, specially when adding to fruits or veggies to prevent oxidation or when I’m out of lemon juice. Does wonders on guacamole. Might just work for this too! :)
I haven't tried it, but it's a great idea to investigate. My concern in how to control the amount. I am guessing that each dumpling would only need a tiny amount. Adding some to the entire batch of blueberries might not work because it will probably all fall through to the bottom. That's the same reason I don't toss the blueberries with sugar and instead add sugar to each dumpling. I've never worked with citric acid before. Might need to get some and play around with it.
@@helenrennie I just saw your reply! Actually citric acid isn’t that strong, I believe you won’t have any issues controlling the amount. Think of it like salt or sugar. At least the one I got looks just like white refined sugar, the regular type, not powdered. Get some and you’ll love it, I’m sure. You can even sprinkle it on stuff, like cookies. When a crystal hits your tongue you get that sudden acid spike, just like when you taste chocolate sprinkled with Maldon salt or similar ones like Fleur de Sel. It’s quite fun to play with =D. Hope you find it useful!
"Come on, American! The idea of eating a sweet dish as the main course should be right up your alley!" Helen, you are not wrong and you know Americans too well. Toooo well.
I unfortunately never liked cherry varenyky because they ended up weirdly salty. I want to make it work though because cherries are my favorite fruit & I love savory varenyky.
I made these last night in a non perfect environment. I also couldn’t add the sugar cause my friend is a diabetic so I added toasted walnuts and I didn’t use sour cream because my husband hates it so I melted butter and had room temperature heavy cream spiked with vanilla. In general was an interesting desert. I think next time I might make a blueberry cream sauce or fresh blueberries on top as it just wasn’t enough blueberry flavor for me. Thanks for the recipe though!
Great job trying a new recipe in an imperfect environment. Blueberries and walnuts with no sugar sounds like a tough situation to be in. Walnuts will add bitterness, so if you are skipping sugar, they might make the situation even worse. Since sugar is added into each dumpling, you can make some without sugar and some with and keep them separately. Then you can cook the ones without sugar first so that you don't contaminate the water, and then cook the ones with sugar. Adding the sugar will really help with boosting the blueberry flavor. I also love your idea of a blueberry sauce!
I am surprised that the wild frozen blueberries were not juicy. I lived right near Wymans where they have acres and acres of wild blueberries and are the sweetest best product frozen. They are famous for them and sell them all over the place. Maybe the ones you got were frozen for a long time. It's all I can buy where I am now and they make exceptional juicy and sweet blueberry desserts. When I make the varynkys I will get regular high bush blueberries since you said that is what you use.
I tried making them with supermarket frozen tiny wild blueberries and it didn't work well -- they weren't very juicy. That being said I think the problem wasn't the fact that they were frozen, but the fact that the berries weren't all that good. If you have good frozen berries, I think it could work. As soon as you shape a few dumplings move them to the freezer. Frozen berries will defrost quickly and will start to ooze. It's very important to not let that happen until the dumplings are in the pot. Also keep your frozen berries in the freezer except for what you need for a few dumplings.
Helen. Best wishes and prayers for your healing. I was raised Russian Orthodox but the only fruit Pierogies around here are Lekvar. Sadly only popular with the elders. I had heard of the sour cherry from some Romanians. Thanks for the varyniki blueberry recipe. I will be making them soon
I grind my own organic grain into flour and I use no eggs and no sugar. Instead of sugar I puree some date and put a bit in each varenyk. Raspberry with that bit of date for sweetener is very good.
I love the look of this recipe Helen. I will probably have them with English custard and scoop of vanilla ice cream on top Can I ask Have you ever done a recipe for German sausage I've been looking for a good recipe I had a scroll through your videos but didn't spot one Thank you so much for sharing your knowledge with us home cooks Regards Bob
@@helenrennie Thanks for your reply and once more thank you for your videos I really enjoy them and you tips and tricks are so helpful Kindest Regards Bob
thanks Helen for another wonderful video. Have you ever tried using wild blueberries- the tiny sweet ones like from Maine? Unfortunately where I live now, they can only be purchased frozen. Have you used frozen berries? I want to make these right away and I am drooling watching you cut into varenyky. Hope your hand heals up quickly. Xo
Sweet pasta? That sounds... Weird! But as you say, dough works in most flavour combinations, so why not? And when something sounds weird to me, I almost invariably have to try it. How else will I know if I like it or not? So I will be trying these out next week when I visit my mum. Not with blueberries, but with whatever berries she has in her garden; something a bit tart would be a nice, soft entry to sweet pasta, I think.
