Pierogi - POLAND

I've been trying to think of a theme for Vegan MoFo over the last couple of days, I wanted to choose something I won't get bored of, that will allow flexibility in what I'll want to cook and eat over the course of the month.
I thought about the type of recipes I'm usually interested in and seen a pattern that they are usually alterations of dishes I've seen while travelling and wanted to try but that always contain meat or dairy.
And so a theme was born.. 

Global dishes with a vegan twist

PIEROGI - POLAND

Todays country of choice is Poland. Never been there, always wanted to, so here we go..
Pierogi is a Polish form of a homemade dumpling, filled with various stuffings, boiled then sometimes fried. 

Although one of the tradition Pierogi fillings is cabbage and mushroom, unfortunately it's not vegan - it's quite often made with animal fat and eggs in the pasta (Boo!).

Luckily for me, I happen to work with a few Polish chefs and asked them to show me how to make Pierogi without using any animal products.
Ok I'll admit, it takes a little time and it definitely helps to have a pasta machine handy, but if you don't you can just roll the pasta by hand and get a work out whilst you do it.. bonus.

Ingredients:

2 cups Pasta flour
1 cup warm water (add slowly and stop once its made a firm dough)
1 tbs olive oil
2 cups chopped mushrooms
2 gloves garlic
1 onion
1 jar of sauerkraut

Instructions:

Lets start with the dough. Simple recipe, grab some pasta flour, a pinch of salt and warm water, mix together, really knead that dough until your arms get tired. Place it in the fridge while you make your filling.

For the filling you'll want to pick up a jar of sauerkraut (sour cabbage) from your local Polish store, chuck it in a pot with about a cup of water and simmer. 

In a separate pan, heat a little oil, saute the onions, add garlic and chopped mushrooms and cook until mushrooms are tender. Add the sauerkraut once all the water has simmered away.

Set aside and once it has cooled chopped it up finely so that you have a nice wee minced up mix of goodness, season with salt and pepper.

Now you want to roll out your pasta (super thankful at this stage for the pasta machine at work) til it's about 1/2 cm thick, use a cookie cutter to cut the pasta into circles, feel free to make them as big or as small as you fancy.

Place the filling in the center and fold over to make a semi circle. Press the edges firmly shut.

Boil the Pierogi for 3-4 minutes. After they cool you can lightly fry them or just serve them as they are. 

There are many different things you can serve Pierogi with, I went with fried onions, and they were delicious, they only disappointing thing about Pierogi is how fast they're eaten.