Pierogi with Bilberries

Serves 4

Ingredients

440 g pierogi dough (click HERE for the basic pierogi dough)

300 g wild bilberries (Vaccinium myrtillus)

1 tablespoon flour

200 ml sour cream or thick natural yogurt

1 tablespoon powdered sugar

2 tablespoon butter

3 tablespoons breadcrumbs

Preparation

Sort out the bilberries and remove all rotten fruits and remaining leaves.

Put the berries in a bowl and delicately mix them with flour; do not mash the fruits.

In a small saucepan, melt butter; add breadcrumbs and fry on a very small flame until gold and crispy. Put aside.

Mix cream with sugar, and put aside.

Prepare pierogi with the berries, and cook them as described in the basic recipe LINK.

Serve immediately after cooking.

Sprinkle with cream and breadcrumbs on top (warm them up right before serving).

I have a sentiment to wild bilberries, as I spent tons of hours in my life picking them up in the summertime. Besides, I like them a lot. They are best fresh, just collected in the morning. Such an opportunity is of course not common nowadays, as I do not live in Poland and even when I visit Kraków, the last thing I think about is to jump into a car at 5 a.m., and drive several kilometers to find a forest, and the fruits. I buy my berries on a local market from local women, who come regularly from outside Kraków. The berries are still cheap, much more than in France, as all other wild fruits, where I cannot afford them to buy in wholesale quantities.

I like these berries the most with just a bit of thick, natural yogurt, some vanilla grains and a pinch or two of sugar.

And, of course, in pierogi, as a filling.

I am a great fan of pierogi, but not a huge amateur of fruits. In Poland, during summertime, people cook a lot of pierogi with various fruits inside. Those with wild bilberries I like the most. As a dressing, except for cream or thick yoghurt, I always add a bit of breadcrumbs delicately fried on a frying pan with freshly melted butter - this is so unhealthy, but awfully tasty!

You can find those pierogi in the summertime in nearly every bar mleczny (“milk bar” - a type of quick restaurant, about which I will write later), cantina, pierogarnia (a type of restaurant carrying only pierogi) as well as better restaurants serving traditional food.

Those pierogi may be eaten cold, as a dessert, but then the dough, in my opinion, is too tough, and I prefer them just cooked, served hot.