I Have No Idea What I'm Talking About

But I'm trying to educate myself.

It seems that I've opened Pandora's Box again, and this time, it was full of Peirogies. One mention of it, and it's cole slaw time all over again! Yep, I got a few comments, but now my inbox is full of peirogie talk.

First of all, a picture to whet your appetite:


As far as I can tell, pierogies are basically the same thing as Italian ravioli or Chinese dumplings, although most Polish folk will insist that they came up with the idea first. (Actually, the proper plural of pierogie is, strangely enough, pierogie--no 's' on the end. Kinda like deer, I suppose). Anyhow, each culture has their own variety, and although I'm quite familiar with the Italian and Chinese versions, I've never had an official Polish pierogie.

Oh, I've had my chance before, but I took a pass and did the 'cab ride of shame' instead. About 12 or 13 years ago, I went out on New Year's Eve to a bar in Scottsdale, hooked up with a nice polish gal who had me drinking waaaaay too much vodka, and after the ball dropped, I found myself at her place.

The next morning, which was New Year's Day, of course, she insisted on cooking me pierogies for breakfast. Unfortunately, I turned her down. One, I'd never heard of them before and this was long before I was a culinary adventurist. Two, I wanted to get home and watch football and such, and three, well, once the evenings activities had concluded, conversation with her revealed that behind the attractive face and well-built chassis, she was packing a metric assload of bat-shiat crazy. So I beat a hasty retreat, home in time to catch the Rose Parade.

So I never got to try a pierogie.

Marlisha was kind enough to send me a couple of links to places here in Vegas where I can get some, and the one that intrigues me the most is a place called Polonez, down on Sahara and Maryland Parkway. So it's now at the top of the list, and although I've never heard of it, seen it, noticed it while driving by that intersection hundreds of times, I *think* it may be closed--I can't seem to find much info on the internet. There's also word of a Polish deli out on the west side at Charleston and Jones, but y'all know my thoughts about going out to the west side--I've got to have a damn good reason to cross I-15. So far, besides getting some good lovin', I've only come up with three reasons to go out there--NY Pizza & Pasta, Jamm's, and Capo's. We'll see if the desire to try some pierogies trumps my inherent laziness when it comes to driving across town.

But Suzette, the one who planted the seed in the first place, seems to be an expert on the subject, and according to her, I should only eat saurkraut or potato-filled pierogies, not those fake Russian ones with meat or prunes in them. Well, I can guarantee that I won't be eating anything with prunes in it anytime soon. And those potato or saurkraut morsels should be swimming in a pool of melted butter and grilled onions.

That actually sounds pretty damn good.


But in the course of my self-education, I've found that most pierogie-mongers will indeed offer meat-filled options, in addition to the more traditional varieties. I'm also fairly certain that I can get frozen pierogies at the grocery store if I look hard enough. So I might try a few different types if I can find them at the store.

While doing my research websurfing, I discovered a great recipe to go along with them--just brown some Kielbasa in a skillet, and then toss it in the crock pot with some onions, brown sugar, and applesauce. After a few hours, serve it with your pierogies. Sounds like my next kitchen experiment...

Mikey