Towards the end of last week we had grilled sea bass for dinner, a fairly frequent treat but one that I’d given a twist to with some fresh dill. What that meant was that I had most of a packet of dill left and I was wondering what I could use it for which wasn’t another fish dish. A bit of Internet searching and I settled on a recipe from delish.com for dill and cheddar pierogis as a starting point.

Pierogis are a filled dumpling popular in Poland and other eastern European countries and with similar treats found in other places around the world. The outer layer was made from butter (240g) and salt (7.5g), mixed and then combined with a liquid made of 45g unsalted butter melted in 60g water. I combined that in a food mixer and then added 1 egg and about quarter of the remaining dill (finely chopped). That helped bring the dough together and I mixed further until it had reached a smooth ball, which I wrapped in clingfilm and left to rest on the counter.

The next step was to slice and soften a medium sized onion in butter with some salt and pepper – about 10-15 minutes with some stirring to get a golden colour. While that was cooking, I also diced a couple of smallish potatoes and softened them in salted water. Drained and mashed, those became the filling mixture, along with half of the cooked onion, a bit of kefir (sour cream in the recipe), cheddar, some finely sliced cooked ham and about half the remaining dill and some salt and pepper.

I decided to use my pasta machine to roll the dough out, working on half of it at a time. I got it fairly thin, although not quite as far as I normally take pasta dough and cut out 7.5cm rounds, which had a blob of filling before brushing round the circumference with water, folding in half and pressing. That was a fiddly job. Next time, I might try the little pasty makers I’ve got to see if that speeds things up. The other important thing to remember is to be fairly stingy on the filling; if it splurges out at the folding stage, the pierogi will fall apart during cooking.

The method advised not rerolling the dough, to avoid making the result too tough, but to use the rest to make wide noodles. Pierogi and noodles all went in boiling water for about five minutes and then got served up with the rest of the mash and some reheated broccoli from the day before. Oh, and garnished with the last of the dill.

Looking back, a bit fiddly in the pierogi construction but quite simple and very tasty. One to try again and refine.