Food at the Heart
Originally published in Issue No. 23, Spring 2022
Art, Love, and Life in Agatha’s Almanac
A close-up shows an aluminum pot, surely years old, bubbling on a stovetop. Weathered hands enter the fr...
This recipe is transcribed from a phone call between Agatha Bock and her niece, the artist Amalie Atkins. Any gaps or steps a novice perogy maker might find to be idiosyncratic in the recipe demonstrate the deft intuition and sustainability that Bock brings to all her artful cooking. Made with years of wisdom and using homegrown ingredients, these perogies are a family favorite. Bock serves them with two sauces—homegrown rhubarb and a white sauce—plus farmer’s sausage and a simple spinach salad. Amalie shared that she recently made the salad herself to accompany the dish in a family gathering. “I added beets, hemp seeds, chocolate balsamic oil, coconut oil, shallots, and I wish I had added candied nuts and some pomegranate seeds to be extra festive but ran out of time, then tossed it all with the spinach. It was a nice twist on the usual.” The most important side for the perogy, though, no matter what salad or sauce, is love.
Ingredients
SERVINGS: Makes 3 dozen perogies
For the dough:
- 3 cups flour
- ½ cup sour cream
- ¼ cup oil
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 cup warm water
For the filling:
- 1 tub dry cottage cheese (homemade cottage cheese if you can find it)
- ½ teaspoon salt, pepper to taste
- 1 egg yolk
Preparation
Mix together and form dough.
First freeze the cottage cheese, then mix with the Mixmaster mixer. Beat the cottage cheese for 5 minutes with the Mixmaster to take out the lumps, adding in egg, salt, and pepper.
Take the plastic/wax paper from a cereal box and lay it out. This type of paper works best. (Wax paper is okay.) Roll the dough between two sheets of floured paper. Cut circles using an old pineapple can.
Put in a bit of filling and close it up. Don’t get any cottage cheese filling in the seam or the perogy might break open.
Bring water to a boil. Put the perogies in. When they float, they are done.
Eat them right away. If not eaten right away, add butter or oil so they don’t stick together. You can make a rhubarb sauce to go on top or whatever you want.
For the rhubarb sauce: Cut up rhubarb and cook with a bit of sugar.
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