Chocolate with salt

You can call the dish a fusion of Polish and Italian cooking. Nothing new of course, I had a very similar dish once in an Italian restaurant in Windhoek, they obviously served instead of pierogi ravioli. 
Close enough, I thought and that's how I've got the idea.
Would I have known, how much work it would be, I guess I would have ordered some takeaways from the mentioned restaurant. And don't think, I don't like complicated, time consuming dishes. I do. Well, not at the moment. Not with a toddler and baby to look after. But I did it and it was delicious, even if the tomato sauce was a bit too sour. Will I cook it again? Most definitely - when I have enough time and patience.

I grew up with pierogi, for me it's THE Polish dish. I love them, no matter if filled with cheese and potatoes (russian), sauerkraut and mushrooms, just mushrooms or meat. They are also very tasteful with fruits or with chunky cottage cheese for dessert. They are also called dumplings or polish ravioli.

I remember my whole family standing in the kitchen sticking the pierogi together. And last week I also remembered, why all of us helped - it takes for ever to get them done. Beside the meat being cooked three ways, cutting out the dough and sticking the pierogi is so time consuming. I'm sure every Polish housewife and cook laughs at me now and does them on their head, but since I'm doing them maybe twice a year, it's a never ending story. But said that, it's worth it!
Ingredients (2-3 servings)

The filling

300 g minced beef
1 small onion
1 garlic clove
marjoram
five spice
salt
pepper
oil

The dough

250 g cake flour
250 ml hot water
1 small egg
1-2 tbsp oil
salt

The sauce

1 tin tomatoes
1 small onion
1 garlic clove
marjoram 
origanum
sage
thyme
rosemary
basil
salt 
pepper
sugar
100 ml cream
200 ml beef broth
olive oil

Fresh Parmigiano 

First we need to prepare the filling for the pierogi. I used an already minced beef, but in Poland you cook a piece of meat and mince it then. I don't have the machine yet, so I had no other option. If you want to mince your meat yourself, you need to buy a piece beef shoulder, that is a nice base for a broth at the same time.



 Put the meat in a pot or casserole, cover with water and spice with salt, pepper and five spice. Take half of the onion, roughly cut it and add to the meat. Bring to boil and cook till soft. 
Put a sieve over a bowl and decent drain the meat, catching the broth for later.
Dice the other half of the onion and chop the garlic finely. Heat some oil in a pan and fry the onion and garlic till translucent. Add the cooked meat and spice with marjoram, five spice, salt and pepper to taste. You should spice it generously, as it will be cooked again and will also be covered by dough. 



Fry it on high heat till it gets a bit of colour.
Put aside to cool.
Start now the sauce by pouring the tinned tomatoes into a food processor, mix till it's nice and smooth. Fill the tin half with water and swirl, to get the rest of the tomato sauce mixed with the water.
Dice the onion, chop the garlic clove finely. Wash and chop the herbs. Alternatively you can use dried herbs or even an Italian Herbs premix - that's what I mostly do. 
Heat some olive oil in a pan and fry the onion and garlic, till translucent. Add the herbs except the basil and fry quickly. Pour in the processed tomatoes, the water in the tin and the beef broth, that was left from the meat cooking. Spice with salt, pepper and sugar. The sugar amount depends on the acidity of the tomatoes. Bring to boil, reduce the heat and let it simmer till nicely reduced and thick. Add at the end the cream, stir and taste, season when necessary.

While the sauce is simmering, we finely start with the dough. 

Put the flour in a bowl, add a pinch of salt, the egg and mix all with a mixer. Add now the hot water and mix till you have a smooth dough. 
Take half of the dough to roll out and put the other half in a cling foil aside.
Roll the dough as thin as possible and cut out circles with a big glass. Collect the rest of dough and put to the other in the cling foil for later. As you can see on the picture, I'm not very good in rolling out the dough, at least not thin. So I'm cutting my rather thick dough out and roll it thin with my small roller.



Depending on the size of your dough circles, put 1-2 tsp of mince into the middle and fold down the dough into a crescent.



Stick the edges together with your fingers and place on a sheet of baking paper. Cover with a dump cloth. Repeat till you're out of filling.

Bring a big pot of salted water to boil and cook the pierogi in batches for 2 minutes after they appeared on top. Remove with slotted spoon on the baking paper again. Be careful, they don't stick to each other. When all cooked, layer on a plate and pour over the tomato sauce. Sprinkle with fresh basil and Parmigiano.