Baked Varenyky with farmers cheese or mushroom варе́ники

These cheese-filled, sour cream dough pastries were one of my favorite treats as a child. I can eat these for breakfast, lunch or dinner, or as an appetizer. The recipe came from my Jewish Ukrainian grandma Olga. For some reason my parents called them vatrushki, although if you Google vatrushki or vatrushka you will get a round yeasted pastry with a similar filling. I’m not sure what Grandma Olga called them, but varenyky (the Ukrainian word for pierogi) seems as close as I can get to what I see on the internet.

My mom, baked hundreds of these as Hors d’Oeuvres for our wedding. Now my kids and husband gobble them up as fast as I can make them.

We use the same filling as for Blintzes.  I changed mom’s recipe by  mixing nonfat ricotta cheese with the farmer’s cheese to cut down on the fat. But I still top them with a bit of sour cream. The fresh strawberries I placed on top add just the right amount of sweet juiciness to balance the filling.

Yesterday I made mushroom filled varenyky, loosely based on a Ukrainian recipe I saw in the NY Times. 

Ingredients: Makes several dozen, depending on the size

Dough for Varenyky

1 cube butter, softened to room temperature

5 Tb sour cream

1 large egg

2 cups all-purpose flour

½ tsp salt

Beat butter until light and fluffy. Add sour cream and egg and beat well. Add flour and salt and mix until dough is formed. Knead on a floured board about 12 times, until it is no longer sticky. Roll into a ball and cover in plastic wrap. Place in refrigerator for ½ an hour. Prepare the filling while the dough is chilling.

Cheese filling

1 1/2  cups farmer’s cheese

1 cup nonfat ricotta cheese

2 eggs

¼ tsp salt

1/2  tsp sugar

Mix ingredients together in an electric mixer until smooth.

Mushroom filling

2 large baby Bella or 4 cremini or regular mushrooms

3 dried shiitake mushrooms

3 dried porcini mushrooms

1 cup water or vegetable broth

1/2 tsp thyme

1/2 tsp ground sage

several grinds black pepper

1/4 tsp salt to taste

1 onion, chopped

2 tsp butter 

 

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

 

Bring broth or water to boil in a small pot over high heat.  Stir in thyme, sage, salt and pepper.

Add the dried mushrooms to the water and turn off the heat. Let them soak while you prepare the fresh mushrooms and onions.

Rinse and gently scrub the fresh mushrooms with a wet paper towel or mushroom brush and let them dry over paper towels.

Place fresh mushrooms in a roasting pan and spray with olive oil. until they are coated on all sides. Roast for 20 minutes. When they are done, ladle broth over them then add to the pot.

While mushrooms are roasting, pan fry the onions in butter until browned.

Drain the mushrooms in a strainer over the pot.

Put drained mushrooms and fried onions in food processor and run on high until they are ground up. Add some soaking liquid if needed to make it stick together. Adjust salt.

For both types of fillings: Preheat oven to 350◦

Roll out the dough on a floured board until thin, and cut with a round biscuit cutter or glass. For larger pastries, I made little balls and roll them out into circle shapes. The circles don’t have to be perfect as long as they can fold into a half-moon shape. Place a spoonful of filling in the center of each circle. Fold it over into a half-moon shape and seal edges well. You may need to moisten the edges with a bit of water on your fingertips to make a solid seal. You can press down on the edges with a fork or special edging tool.

 

Line cookie sheet with parchment paper. If you don’t have any parchment paper, spray the pan with canola oil. Bake for 20 minutes at 350◦

Serve cheese varenyky topped with sour cream and fresh strawberries. Mushroom varenyky are good with sour cream as well.

Many Ukrainian recipes call for boiling the varenyky. You can do this too with the mushroom filled ones. Place in boiling borscht or mushroom soup for 15 minutes or until done. Serve inside the soup.