Homemade Pyrohy

[coolJ]

I made a batch last night for supper, they turned out pretty good for my first time making pyrohy from scratch. I served them boiled (just until floating), and some of them were a little tough around the edges, but the ones I took to work for my lunch break, and deep fried, were really nice, not tough at all, any suggestions as to why the boiled ones would be tougher than the deep fried ones?
One more question, do pyrohy have to be blanched before freezing or can I just make a bunch, bag 'em and freeze 'em ?

[Mezzaluna]

CoolJ, are these similar to pirogies? I'm guessing it's a pasta-type dough with a meat, veg, or cheese filling. If so, you can freeze them without blanching. I helped some Russian visitors to my school make about 800 little meat-filled dumplings, and they froze them all before cooking. They tasted fine. I made some at home and froze them portioned in bags, and they were fine for about 1 month. After that, they became freezer burned.

[coolJ]

Hi Mezz,
I didn't know there was any difference between pyrohy and perogie, I thought perogie was an english translation for pyrohy. What I made was exactly what I would normally call perogies anyway.

[Greg]

Actually, you're both right. There's a bunch of different spellings for perogies, depending on the speller's country of origin (Polish, Russian, German, etc.)

[Pastachef]

That's very interesting Greg. I have a girl at the sorority that says they are pierogies and are a Polish food. All I know about them is that they are sooo good

[Mezzaluna]

I'm guessing this is another one of those foods that transcends borders and languages, like stuffed leaves (cabbage, grape, lettuce, etc.). Spelling? Who cares! They all taste good when lovingly made. My two Jewish grandmothers, one was Russian, the other Romanian, constantly argued over the names of foods. The dishes were as identical as they could be, given that they came from different cooks' kitchens. Incidentally, their name for the little dumplings was "pirogen". When boiled in soup and made with noodle dough, the dumplings are called "kreplach", sort of Jewish wonton.