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I have not had a reuben sandwich in ages! My husband ordered a reuben sandwich at the Enjoy Centre not long ago and he had no choice but to share. My mouth is watering as I am writing this entry; the flavour of the sauerkraut and hot smoked meat together, the heat from the mustard and sweetness of the sauce came together deliciously!
I began to conjure up ideas for a perogy recipe. Let’s just get into it, shall we?
A traditional reuben is made up of rye bread, a filling of sauerkraut, caraway seeds, smoked meat or corned beef, swiss cheese and a thousand island sauce or Russian sauce, a sauce with a base of mayo, ketchup and horseradish. There are variations on the Russian sauce and I made a basic sauce using what I had in the fridge. I did not add caraway seeds because I do not like them at all. My late great Babcia would flavour her sweet sauerkraut dishes and beef stews with the seed and I would always pick out each and every little seed. Yes it did leave behind the seed flavour but I could not stand to bite into the actual seed! The meat I used was a smoked kielbasa that I purchased from a local Polish deli shop known as Hunter sausage.
I decided to bake the perogy to be able to hold the filling in and have the texture of rye sandwich bread.
Rye Perogy Dough
- 2 cups all purpose flour
- 1 cup rye flour
- 2 tsp. baking powder
- 1 tsp. baking soda
- 1 tsp. paprika
- 2 tsp. salt
- 2 eggs
- 3/4 cup warm water
- 1/4 cup olive oil
- 2 tbsp. melted butter
- 1 egg with a little water for the egg wash
- 1 round link of smoked kielbasa, diced
- 3 cups store bought jar of sauerkraut, chopped
- 1/2 onion, chopped very fine
- 150ml of beer ( i used a lager that we had on hand, but a darker ale might be a better choice to add more depth and flavour. With the lager, once cooked down with the filling the flavour was reminiscent of white wine, which could also be used in place of beer)
- fresh cracked pepper
- slices of swiss cheese (slices will be placed on perogy dough, upon which the filling will be added; I just used a marble cheese that I had on hand; swiss cheese will add much more flavour; maybe a smoked gouda can be added in future?)
- 2 tbsp mayo
- 1 tbsp ketchup
- 1 tbsp sweet chili sauce
- salt and pepper
- creamed horseradish; I used a roasted beet and horseradish sauce that I had made at Easter time. In Polish it is called cwikla (pron. ch-vee-kwa). Goes great with meat sandwiches and on hard boiled eggs.
