Krakow is a very old city that has been mentioned as far back as 1,000 years ago. It survived despite experiencing three episodes of looting, burning, and devastation by the Mongols in the 13th century. Then things improved dramatically with increased fortifications that included a moat and replacing wooden ramparts with 6 foot wide and 30 foot high stone walls, numerous towers, and improved iron gates.
St. Mary’s Church dates to the 15th century. It has two huge towers with the taller one manned continually by lookouts.
Live trumpeters continue to announce the hourly counts.
We learned much more about the ancient country this morning.
Our guide Tomasz briefed us about Adam Mickiewicz( died In 1855)- a Polish poet, dramatist, essayist, publicist, translator and political activist. He is widely regarded as Poland’s greatest poet. He died, probably of cholera, at Istanbul, where he had gone to help organize Polish forces to fight Russia in the Crimean War. Russia has much experience in waging war. In 1890, his remains were repatriated from France to Wawel Cathedral here in Kraków.
Tomasz shared numerous other legends and historical facts around the history and architectural details around the largest central square in Europe.
There are 135 Churches in the city, with 25 of them in Old Town.
Wawel Castle is an astounding gem, still drawing hundreds of thousands of visitors a year. Dating back 1000 years, there are crypts on the grounds where royalty have been buried, including an 11th century king, and the tomb of St. Stanislaw.
Krakow was the capital of Poland until a massive fire in 1596 burned it to the ground and the capital of the country was moved to Warsaw.
After resting up after lunch Roy and walked fast clip for 40 minutes to a corner table in an outlying restaurant to take a 5 pm Pierogi making class. I decided to wear my “I’m only here for the pirogis” shirt for the occasion.
Our chef, Maria, greeted us at a corner table of a small, busy restaurant that Roy and I walked to in about a half hour from our AB&B apartment. She had everything prepped for us : cheese/potato and dessert spiced grated apple fillings, flour,oil, sauteed onions, salt and pepper.
She provided us an English recipe via email. Here it is:
Pierogi ruskie (Dumplings with cheese and patatoes)
Proportions are for 20-30 pierogi. You may increase the measurements, but it will be easier at the beginning to practice with the smaller batch of the dough
Ingredients
Cheese-potato filling:
– 300 g potatoes
– 250 g farmer’s cheese (quark or ricotta)
– 1 tablespoon butter
– 3 tablespoon oil (sunflower or vegetable oil)
– 1 chopped onion
– salt and pepper to taste
Dough:
– 2 yolks of eggs
– 150 ml of hot water
– 40 ml of oil (Sunflower or vegetable oil) – 250 g of the wheat flour
Preparation:
Filling:Put the potatoes in a pot and add just enough cold, salt-water to cover them. Bring to a boil and cook until the potatoes are soft, about 20 minutes.
While the potatoes cook, melt the butter and oil over medium heat in a large pan. Add the onion, cooking until the onion turns translucent, about 2 minutes. Lower the heat and continue cooking about 10 minutes. Add salt and pepper to taste and set aside to cool.
When the potatoes are soft, drain them in a colander and lightly press out the remaining moisture. Let them to cool. Mash cold potatoes and add the cooled onion mixture and the cheese. Mix everything and season with salt and pepper to taste.
Dough:
Mix the flour with yolks and oil. While mixing, slowly add water part by part. Knead the dough – not too much, dough should have soft texture. Roll thinly as you would roll pasta dough. You will use a rolling pin here. Cut out circles with the top of an inverted glass. . Place spoon of filling on one side. Fold the other side over the filling and pinch to seal. The pierogi will be the shape of a half circle. Boil pierogi in salted water. Serve with fried onion.
I made quite a mess with the sticky dough but quickly learned to add more flour before kneading the sticky mix.
We got to eat our creations after successfully boiling them after they began to float after about 5 minutes. they were delicious.
I hope to make more soon. Especially after Maine blueberry season comes to town.
We learned that fresh pierogis are always served boiled and that it is acceptable to fry leftovers after they were initially boiled.
Pierogis and also be frozen individually then put into freeze bags. You are advised not to freeze them in an uncooked lump!
Walking back to our rooms, Roy and I were very content after learning more, and seeing ( plus eating ) much today.
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