Pirohy s bryndzou

The story

Bryndzové pirohy are half-moon dumplings filled with bryndza, the salty sheep's cheese of the Slovak hills, and Wikipedia's overview of Slovak cuisine lists them alongside bryndzové halušky and demikát. A common filling is mashed potato with bryndza, and the usual topping is bacon fried until the fat runs, with sour cream. Lubos, who writes the English-language site Slovak Cooking, says his own family did not make pirohy; he learned them from Helka, a woman who works in his father's restaurant, whose dough of mashed boiled potatoes, flour, an egg and salt is mixed by hand and rolled about 3 millimeters thick. A recipe on the Slovak portal Varecha.sk uses a plain noodle dough of flour, egg and water instead, filled with potatoes boiled in their skins and bryndza. The comments under his recipe trace family roots to Očová, Zámutov and Zákarovce, and one reader remembers a grandmother from Očová who filled pirohy with prunes. To drink, he suggests žinčica, a sour sheep's milk, or kefir. In an American kitchen, make a double batch on a weekend and freeze half for a fast winter supper.