Lentil pierogi: meat-free, cheap, with a filling that binds itself
Red lentils cooked down to a thick paste with deeply browned onion, marjoram and smoked paprika. It needs neither egg nor cheese: the collapsing grain binds the filling on its own. A Lenten dumpling as filling as a meat one, and fifty of them cost very little. A soft, elastic hot-water dough.
Your own work in that: 2 h.
- Filling 30 min
- Dough 15 min
- Dough resting 30 min
- Shaping 50 min
- Cooking 25 min
Step by step
0 / 8 done
Cook the lentils to a paste
Rinse the lentils in a sieve until the water runs clear. Cover with 550 ml water, bring to the boil, skim and simmer uncovered over low heat 15 minutes, stirring towards the end, until the grains collapse completely into a thick paste.
Ingredients: 250 g red lentils · 550 ml water · 3 pcs onions · 4 tbsp oil · 3 cloves garlic · 1 tbsp dried marjoram · 1 tsp smoked paprika · 1½ tsp salt · 1 tsp black pepper
TipThe filling wants <b>red</b> lentils, not green or brown. Red lentils have no skin, break down in a quarter of an hour and bind themselves, so the filling holds together in the dumpling without egg. Green ones would stay loose and fall out of the pierog.
A quarter of an hour, grains fully collapsed
Dry the filling out
Once the lentils thicken, keep cooking 3–5 minutes, stirring constantly, until a spoon drawn across the bottom of the pan leaves a trail that does not flow back. Transfer to a bowl and cool.
TipThis is the most important step in the recipe. A moist filling wets the dough from the inside and the seam opens in the pot, however well you sealed it. The filling should be thicker than seems reasonable: it firms up further as it cools.
The spoon leaves a trail that stays open
Brown the onion deeply
Dice three onions finely and fry in 4 tablespoons of oil over medium heat 12–15 minutes, until deep golden, not merely translucent. Add the crushed garlic for the last minute. Stir into the cooled lentils with the marjoram crushed between your palms, the paprika, salt and pepper.
TipLentils on their own are mild and earthy. Most of the flavour of this filling comes from onion browned longer than usual and from smoked paprika, which stands in for bacon. Taste and season boldly: the dough will take some of it away.
Fifteen minutes, deep gold, not translucent
Knead the dough
Put the flour and salt in a bowl, pour in the hot water with the oil and mix with a spoon. When it is cool enough to touch, knead on the counter 8 minutes into a smooth, soft dough. Wrap in film and rest 30 minutes.
Ingredients: 500 g plain flour · 250 ml hot water · 1 tbsp oil · 1 tsp salt
TipHot water partly gelatinises the starch in the flour. That dough is pliable, rolls thin without springing back and doesn't split over the filling; cold water gives a firmer, rubbery one.
Smooth and soft after eight minutes
Roll and fill
Divide the dough in 3 and keep the rest under a bowl so it doesn't dry. Roll one piece to 2 mm and cut 7–8 cm circles with a glass. Put a heaped teaspoon of filling in the middle of each.
Two millimetres, 8 cm circles, a heaped teaspoon
Seal firmly
Fold each circle in half and pinch the edge from the middle to the corners, pushing the air out. The edge must be clean: flour or filling on it and the pierog opens in the water. Lay them on a floured cloth, not touching.
Middle outwards, air pushed out
Cook in batches
Bring a wide pot of salted water to the boil and lower to a gentle simmer. Drop in 10–12 pierogi, stir once from the bottom. When they float, cook another 3 minutes and lift out with a slotted spoon.
They float, then three minutes
Serve with fried onion
Slice two onions into feathers and fry in oil until golden. Spoon the onion and its fat over the pierogi. Freeze the rest raw on a tray, then bag them; cook from frozen a minute longer.
Ingredients: 2 pcs onions · 3 tbsp oil
Golden onion straight from the pan
Before you start
Pan-fried
Fry yesterday's boiled pierogi in oil 3 minutes a side. The lentil filling then reads almost like a meat one.
With buckwheat
Half the lentils and 150 g cooked buckwheat: a looser, more assertive filling. Add one more tablespoon of oil so it still holds.
The filling crumbles
The lentils were undercooked or not dried enough. Return the filling to the pot and drive off moisture for 3 minutes, stirring, or add a tablespoon of breadcrumbs and chill it 20 minutes.
Nutrition
per 100 gStep photos are computer-generated from the recipe.
