Piroggi are filled dumplings. My mother's version is half filled with a stewed plum and half with quark.
Phonetically, according to my mother, they should be spelled Biroggi, but as my old Latin teacher used to say: it's spelled with a b and not with a b, with a b like Baula1, so we spell Piroggi with a b like Paula.
My mother came from Bessarabia, from the village of Krasna, which is now in Ukraine. Her ancestors were German colonists who had first settled in Poland and probably took the piroggi with them from there when they moved on to the Black Sea and founded Krasna.
For their children and grandchildren, piroggi were always a particularly tasty meal that was cooked on almost every visit. The sweet ones with plum filling were particularly popular, while the ones with cheese were healthy.
No wonder my son tried to revive this memory. He casually told me that he had tried to cook piroggi using a recipe from the internet and had failed miserably. They had all risen.
And this from a man who can prepare couscous salad or Indian butter chicken etc. perfectly!
My conscience: you're a bad mother, you didn't even teach the child how to cook piroggi!
So I promised the child (37 years old) that I would make piroggi with him in grandma's style. I had never cooked them myself but had always just helped my mother, especially never kneaded the dough. At some point, I asked my mother for the recipe for this dough: "Flour, salt and water."
"Yes, how much flour?"
"A few handfuls!" I couldn't do anything with this unit of measurement. For me, it should have been grams. Our hands also had different capacities.
So what now? Where to get the recipe for the dough? Maybe Cousin Otto could help! He's been collecting all the information from and about Krasna for a long time. And indeed, although Otto was no longer able to find his grandmother's original recipe, he did have a small recipe book on Bessarabian specialties with a recipe for “Käsknöpfle” that worked. The filling is no problem for me anyway. I still remember them well!
So, in preparation for my son's Christmas visit, I had to get everything I needed for piroggi: first of all, flour. There are at least 5 types of wheat flour on the supermarket shelves... Mummy always had type 405 at home, so type 405 it was2!
Layered cheese! Which supermarket still sells layered cheese these days! Quark, normal quark will have to do! Two glasses of plums. That's it. Everything else is always in stock anyway.
Then came Christmas and the turn of the year and the day of pirogi cooking. Knead the dough and leave to rest, drain the quark and plums well, season the quark, roll out the dough - nice and thin - cut squares for the pockets, apply the filling, fold the pockets together and seal well. Put the piroggi in boiling water and leave to stand. My son did well and everything turned out well and tasted good. A successful project. However, apart from the quark filling according to the recipe, we also used all the plums as a filling. After all, the filling is the most important thing! You can't skimp on that!
Sieve the flour onto a work surface, make a well in the middle, slowly pour the water and egg into the well and knead vigorously with the flour until a smooth dough is formed. Heat a bowl (hot water will do) and place the ball of dough in it. Cover with a tea towel and leave to stand warm for 30 - 60 minutes, do not put in the fridge! Prepare the filling during this waiting time:
Drain the layered cheese / quark through a sieve. Finely chop or mince the herbs.
Drain the plums in a sieve.
Mix the layered cheese / quark with the egg, season with salt and add the herbs.
After the resting time, divide the dough into 3 parts. Dust the worktop with flour, otherwise the dough will stick. Roll out the dough thirds thinly one after the other using a rolling pin. Cut each rolled-out dough sheet into squares, approx. 9x9 cm. Place either 1 plum or 1 teaspoon of the cheese mixture in the center of each square. Make sure that the edges of the squares remain clean and dry, otherwise the dumplings will not close!
Fold the dough squares into triangles and press the edges together carefully. Do not leave any gaps, otherwise the pockets will open.
Bring a large pan of salted water to the boil and add the piroggi. When they rise to the top, reduce the temperature and leave them to cook for another 15 - 20 minutes. Remove with a slotted spoon and keep warm.
Remove the crusts from the toast and cut into small cubes. Fry them in butter until golden brown and pour the fried butter over the piroggi.
Instead of toast, you can also toast breadcrumbs.
Done!!!
Veronika Bartel (née Bachmeier)
Daughter of Johannes and Irma Bachmeier
Mecklenburgische Seenplatte, January 2025