We kept referring to this dish as the pierogie in Poland. We kept delaying trying it until we had some cooler weather. As the 2011 Food and Wine Festival drew to its last weekend we had a cool day on Friday. So we decided to try a couple of items that always begged for cooler temperatures. When we actually walked up to the booth, it was not the pierogie that was featured but the kielbasa. Officially, Poland called this dish: Kielbasa and Potato Pierogie with Carmelized Onions and Sour Cream.
Kielbasa can be made with pork, beef, turkey, horse, lamb, veal or bison (according to Wikipedia). As best I could tell this one was pork but given how little flavor it had it could have been turkey. We eat pork products regularly. It is our second favorite meat behind fish/things that live in sea water. The kielbasa was just ok. It had been lightly grilled and left to sit out. Thus it was not warm and not cold – it didn’t know what it wanted to be. And like I already mentioned, not much flavor.
The carmelized onions were about the same temperature as the kielbasa. However I think they added sugar to them. I like carmelized onions but these were as sweet as a dessert. And with the temperature issue – nah.
As far as the pierogie, I’m no specialist. I’ve only had pierogies a few times and I’ve generally had little opinion other than I like the fried ones better. The fillings can range from sweet to savory but the most popular in the US (per Wikipedia) are fresh white cheese, potatoes, and fried onions. I think this may be what they were going for? But I could only taste potato. I mean some potato ground up in pastry – how much can go wrong? Well, this one was not even warm, it was cold like it had been refrigerated. The potato could have been mashed potatoes from a bag and the pastry had zero salt (it is unleavened) making it basically flavorless. But the way they drizzled the sour cream is pretty. Ok, there, I said something nice. But I should add that Wikipedia says in Poland sour cream is traditionally served only with sweet pierogies. Savory ones are typically topped with bacon fat which would add lots more flavor to the unleavened pastry.
Needless to say I was quite disappointed that one of the colder weather foods was such a bust…
nick
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