Mennonite Cottage Cheese Perogies (Wareneki)

Having to go gluten free two years ago was a hard mental shift for me. There is a sense of loss and a grieving that takes place, both for the foods you feel you can not have anymore and also for the loss of simplicity in preparing meals/food and shopping. And so, its taken me a while to get past that frame of mind and get more daring at trying favorite foods of the past and trying to turn them into favorite foods of the present!

This last weekend, I decided to take the leap and try to make wareneki (a Mennonite perogy made with a dry cottage cheese filling). Since I am a glutton for punishment, I had a time constraint due to taking a long time for errands earlier in the day, and my husband had invited his Mennonite mother and brother for supper! So I had to get it figured out quickly AND not have my first try flop!

I had seen a few members of the Celiac group I am part of on Facebook mention that using sour cream for the moist dough ingredient has good success in making perogy dough, so I knew I'd use that in my dough, but wasn't sure that I'd have it be the only ingredient. I looked in my old Mennonite Treasury of Recipes cookbook to see what ingredients were used their recipes. When I noticed that some recipes use egg yolks in the filling and egg whites in the dough, I decided to use egg whites in the dough--I did not want to waste the whites, as I was planning to use the yolks in the filling as I used to do. And so I ad libbed by combining the multiple recipes in the book and using my favorite cup for cup gluten free flour (Bob's Red Mill).

So now for the part that you've actually been waiting for, the recipe...

Wareneki

Dough Ingredients:

-4 cups Bob's Red Mill Cup for Cup gluten free flour

-2 1/2 cups sour cream

-1 teaspoon salt

-3 egg whites (save the yolks for the filling)

Directions:

Step 1: Mix the ingredients into a smooth dough.

Step 2: Set aside for 10 minutes (it needs this time to soften and get stickier which is a quality needed when handling the dough later).

Filling Ingredients:

-600 grams (750 mL) of dry cottage cheese curds

-1 teaspoon salt

-2 tablespoons cream

-3 egg yolks

Directions:

3) Mix well and set aside.

4) Knead the dough well until it is smooth

5) Roll out dough fairly thin on a floured board/counter.

6) Cut dough into 4 inch squares (if you prefer the larger sized Wareneki--you can feel free to make them whatever size you are used to).

7) Add 2 teaspoons of filling to the center of the wareneki (1 teaspoon for smaller sized wareneki). Take care not to overfill as it makes it harder to close the wareneki.

8) Wet the edges of the dough with water from a pastry brush or your finger. If your dough begins to appear to crack as you work with it, a light application of water from the finger will smooth it closed nicely.

9) Fold the dough over diagonally to form a triangle and press the edges closed.

10) At this point, you can place the excess wareneki that are not needed for your meal onto a parchment lined cookie sheet and into the freezer to flash freeze. Once frozen, place into a plastic freezer bag for future use. This recipe WILL make more than you can eat in a single meal. When I am going to the effort of making a time intensive food, I like to make multiple meals worth at one time, to save time on future meals.

11) Place small batches of wareneki into boiling water to cook. They will sink at first and will rise to the top as they cook.

12) Remove from the boiling water, place into a serving bowl and brush with butter to keep them from sticking.

Wareneki is typically served as a side for farmers sausage with "Schmauntfat" (cream gravy) on it. Since thats how we eat it, I'll include the recipe for that as well.

Schmauntfat (Cream Gravy)

Ingredients:

-2 tablespoons butter

-gluten free flour to make a roux

-salt to taste

-1 cup cream (or more depending on the consistency of gravy you like)

-1 onion diced (if desired)

Directions:

1) Melt butter in saucepan. If you like onions in your schmauntfat, you can saute them during this step.

2) Add flour to make a roux (what that looks like is a sopping up of the butter by the flour, like a thick paste).

3) Add the cream and salt and whisk while heating through. Keep whisking while it thickens to the thickness you prefer. If it get too thick, just add more cream to thin it out. Remove from heat when it reaches desired thickness.

4) Spoon over wareneki and serve. This is also excellent over homemade noodles or store bought noodles or pasta!

And so, there you have it! My recipe for gluten free wareneki! My mother in law said it tasted good, Alvin said it tasted really good and Megan (my gluten free food critic) said it was a 10/10! I may try using this dough for making other types of perogies in the future since I now have a dough that works (like the potato filled or sauerkraut ones, or maybe the fruit filled dessert ones). Now that I've conquered this recipe, I'll add it into our main course meal rotation. Are you going to give it a try?