Poland diaries : The wonderful world of pierogis !

I let out a little squeal of delight earlier this evening when Nigel Slater: Eating Together featured pierogis. Having just spent a week in Poland, I am now desperate to try making these little Polish versions of ravioli. Before we'd even got out of the airport in Warsaw, we had tucked into our first plateful of pierogi, which I immediately blogged about. I should have waited a bit longer before sharing the recipe though because later in the week, we were taken to a fabulous restaurant in Gdynia called Pierozek which specialises in pierogi, serving a multitude of varieties.

They made that first airport plateful look rather pathetic and very soggy ! Our favourites were these so-called Russian ones (pierogi ruskie), filled with mashed potato and cheese (Polish cottage cheese but you could use cheddar too) then topped with crispy fried onions.

We also had spinach filled ones, the ground meat ones that we tried at the airport and chicken ones, stuffed with chicken, paprika, onions, chives and a little bit of rice. Nigel Slater's Polish friend also mentioned a traditional sauerkraut and mushroom filling. They are really versatile though so you could try other combinations.

We finished off our meal with a plateful of sweet dessert pierogi. This time they are made using shortcrust pastry and stuffed with cherry or apple filling. They're basically pierogi-shaped little fruit pies.

If I lived in Gdynia, I'd eat here all the time ! They're really cheap (the banner out the front of the restaurant says 16 zlotis for 10 dessert pierogi - that works out at the princely sum of £2.80 !) and the restaurant is really lovely and very family-friendly. Definitely one to check out if you ever end up in Gdynia !

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Fancy trying out some more Polish cuisine? How about Bigos,Zurek or Golabki?