Need help I.D'ing old family recipes.

[Cutter John]

If anything I've learned that you can find out just about anything on this board. So I was hoping someone could help me identify an old dish of my grandmothers and maybe eventually find a recipe.

My grandmom passed away way back in '84 and was of either eastern europe or italian stock. There were two items she used to make that I loved, but have never seen or heard of elsewhere.

One was a soup made up of veggies, chicken, and bits of burger (meatballs?). The best part was she would make a batch of dough, cut them up into little pieces, fry them up and add them to the soup so they made these chewy little dumplings.

The other was sort of like ravioli, but with mashed potato inside. She'd boil them, then pan fry them (or vice versa) and serve them in a big bowl. They were oh so yummy.

The recipes sound simple enough, but I'd hate to try them without being sure of the ingredients. Has anyone ever heard of these?

 

[Canadave]

The latter sounds very similar to perogies, but I can't help you beyond that. As for the former, Italian Wedding Soup is kind of like that with the little pasta dumplings. Though usually it just has meatballs in it, as far as protein goes.

 

[RoJoHen]

The second one definitely sounds like pierogies. You can buy them in the frozen aisle at the grocery store. I would never attempt to make them from scratch.

 

[Mallory]

The second one definitely sounds like pierogies.

Sure sounds like it to me too. I had a grandmother who loved making them from scratch with all kinds of fillings ranging from sauerkraut to fresh fruit. Good eats!

 

[trampledamage]

Fourthed on the opinion that the second is perogies. I found this recipe for making them from scratch, although I haven't got round to trying it myself yet.

Potato and Cheese Perogies

 

[FPAlpha]

First sounds like normal chicken soup with what we call Tarana in the Balkans.

Basically make some dough, cut/tear it into very small pieces and let it dry in the sun (your grandmom fried them to speed up the thing probably).

Other than that it's not unusual to make some small meatballs for the soup. In Germany there's a special soup for that and a meal with Meatballs and a white sauce..

Damn.. now i'm hungry and it's still about 3 weeks until my mom comes here and i get homecooked meals again

 

[the 4th hanson bro]

I would call the second one pelmini or vareniki, but it's all the same thing. It's really not that hard to make, just time consuming.

But fun for the whole family as this old Soviet picture shows

 

[Canadave]

The second one definitely sounds like pierogies. You can buy them in the frozen aisle at the grocery store. I would never attempt to make them from scratch.

That would be something I'd love to taste, though. Perogies are delicious, and I can only imagine what they'd be like fresh.

 

[Danoz]

Sounds like perogies... though traditional Italian potato pasta (and my favorite) are gnoccis-- but that is essentially riced potato mixed in with flour and salt-- rolled into snakes, cut and dimpled and boiled.