Homemade potato and cheddar perogies
Baba’s Homestyle Perogies in Saskatoon, Sask., has a charming claim to fame: It’s the only drive-thru perogy restaurant in the country — maybe even the world.
As Naomi Hansen writes in her forthcoming debut book, Only in Saskatchewan (available May 3), “owner Rob Engel claims he’s never heard of anything like it anywhere.”
Baba’s may be Canada’s only perogy drive-thru but it’s not the first. As Hansen explains, “Saskatoon’s history of perogy drive-thrus dates back to the O & O Drive-in, which operated … from 1962 to 1992.”
In Baba’s kitchen, cooks hand-pinch more than two million perogies a year. They make many different kinds, including cottage cheese, sauerkraut and Saskatoon berry. But these perogies, stuffed with potato and cheddar cheese, are their most popular.
This recipe makes 100 perogies, which doesn’t seem excessive considering Engel has seen customers eat “30 or more in one sitting.” Store them in the freezer and pull them out as needed for a quick meal; Hansen is a fan of pairing them with a farmer sausage for dinner.
The perogy is “a very, very, very classic Saskatchewan food item,” says Hansen — one she has a personal connection to. Her maiden name is Zurevinski and most of her ancestors immigrated to Canada from Ukraine in the early 1900s.
“I can’t think of a time when we didn’t have perogies at a major family gathering or holiday,” says Hansen.
Her baba (grandmother) Sylvia Zolotarchuk’s potato perogies — topped with onions, butter and mushroom gravy — are a family tradition. (She’s also made sauerkraut, prune and blueberry-stuffed versions.)
You could make perogies alone, adds Hansen, but with all the rolling, filling and pinching involved, it’s better to enlist help.
“I like that it is such a communal recipe. It’s just fun to do with other people. And it’s fun to make alongside family, friends, whatever it is. But it’s a very involved recipe: You can easily pass a few hours pinching perogies and chatting in the afternoon,” she says, laughing. “You don’t even realize how many you’ve made when there’s a lot of people there.”