Sweet Potato Pierogies with White Wine, Garlic and Fresh Chives

I've just recently finished reading 100-Mile Diet: A Year of Local Eating by Alisa Smith and J.B. MacKinnon. It was fantastic. I loved the way it was written, I loved their honesty and I loved the idea of letting the season control your diet. That being said, I eat one banana daily and consider mango to sometimes be the absolute best part of my afternoon. I could, however, relate to the grieving stages they went through during their largely unsuccessful quest for wheat. Their experience has also left a few ideas floating through my daydreams. For example: I have big plans on harvesting dandelions this spring, and their sangria will surely accompany me while the sun freckles my skin in the upcoming summer months (stay tuned for recipes).

Potatoes, on the other hand, for their high yield and excellent storage properties- 'tis always the season. More than once they mention a pierogi-making party. These sound way more fun than my first attempt at gluten-free pierogies. Unlike their parties- which paint a picture of laughter, friends and wine- mine was more of a solo frenzy of boiling water, patting, scooping, scraping and frying in a cloud of flour for three hours. My dough-encrusted glass of wine went largely untouched and forgotten during this process- always the sign of a recipe that needs serious work in my eyes. Oh, and I learned afterwards: if you're going to freeze them, hold off on cooking them. My memory kicked in much too late. Right, like when I was a kid and I would pull them out of the freezer, drop them in boiling water and fry them. You mean, those weren't already dropped in boiling water and fried ahead of time? I didn't really think that one through. Good thing it wouldn't yield a huge batch. Good thing it wouldn't feed me a dozen times over, and I wouldn't have to endure defrosting, re-frying, and watching them fall apart for about two weeks on and off. Well. I wouldn't make that mistake a second time. And I was determined to make these calmly and organized enough that my glass of wine would not face such shameless neglect.

I made these unnecessarily large, firstly because I was a bit paranoid of breaking the dough, and secondly because I was low on patience near the end. Whatever their dimensions, they were pretty satisfying. The little dish of chipotle mayo did the best job it could as an accompaniment- but if you can eat sour cream (or a vegan sour cream), or salsa (or tomato-free salsa), it is sizeably suggested (see what I did there?).

Sweet Potato Pierogies with White Wine, Garlic and Fresh Chives 

Ingredients

For the dough:
3 1/2 cups all-purpose gluten-free flour, plus 3/4-1 cup for flattening pieces of dough (can be any kind of GF flour- this part is just to keep it from sticking to your counter and skin- again, I used Bob's Red Mill)
1 1/4 cup water (preferably from boiling the potatoes, for added starch)
1 potato, washed well

1 tbsp flax, 3 tbsp water (for egg replacer) 

For the filling:
1 white onion, chopped
3 medium cloves of garlic, peeled, crushed and minced
1/2 tbsp olive oil
2 medium red potatoes, washed well
1 small to medium sweet potato (about 1 cup chopped), washed well
1/4 cup fresh chives, chopped
2 tbsp fresh italian parsley, chopped
1/2 tbsp nutritional yeast
1/4 cup dry white cooking wine

Directions 

Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Cut potato and sweet potato into large chunks to shorten cooking time. Boil for approximately 10 minutes, or until potatoes are soft and you can easily penetrate them with a fork. Remove from heat, drain water into a separate bowl.

Measure out three tablespoons of the hot potato water into a dish and whisk in the flax. Set aside to let thicken.

Meanwhile, mash one potato for your dough in a mixing bowl. Add 3 1/2 cups of all-purpose flour and slowly stir in the potato water. Once the flax mixture has cooled to room temperature and thickened to a gummy consistency (similar to egg), stir into the dough mixture. You may need to use your hands to make sure the potato is spread throughout the dough.

In a large saucepan on medium heat, fry onion, olive oil and garlic for approximately 5 minutes. Add to strained potatoes with white wine and nutritional yeast and mash (either by hand or using a hand blender). Once you have your preferred consistency, stir in the fresh herbs.

Heat up a large pot of water and bring to a boil. You will need this soon.

Now, Spread a couple of tablespoons of flour on a clean surface, on a clean surface, like a counter or cutting board. Scoop out a large spoonful of dough, or about the size of an egg, and flatten it out until it is about 3/4 cm in thickness. Be really generous with the amount of flour on your hands for this. Once you have a flat, round shape, scoop about 1 tbsp of your potato mixture onto one side. Make sure you leave enough dough on the opposite side to be lifted over your mixture - this part can be tricky at first. Use a spatula to gently lift one side of the pierogi dough up and over the filling so that it reaches the other side to touch. Press down along the outer edge with your fingers or a fork.

To cook them, drop them slowly in your boiling pot of water and boil for 3-5 minutes, depending on the thickness of the dough and size of the perogie. You will know they are ready when they float up to the surface. Remove them from the pot of water, and place them in a greased frying pan on medium heat. Now it's up to you to decide how long to cook them for - I like mine rather crispy so they cooked for approximately 7-10 minutes on each side. If you're keeping some- freeze them separately before boiling or frying in freezer bags. Be careful that they don't touch while you lay them flat- the dough is really sticky.

This recipe yielded about 18 large pierogies, so about two dozen regular-sized morsels.

There are a lot of steps to this recipe and so it can be seen as labour intensive- and I now, more than ever, understand the author's point of having a party take place at the same time. Maybe I will start doing that for other recipes. If they take longer than two hours, it becomes the night's theme. I can see the potential now:  gluten-free pita bread party... vegan tomato-free cabbage roll party... does anyone want to come yet? Or have you all left already...