The Polish Dish You Can Make With Discolored Potatoes

Traditional Polish fare is stacked with flavorous doughy comfort foods and one of the most well-known Polish dishes in North America is the pierogi. This versatile dish, simply a filled dumpling, can be stuffed with sweet or savory ingredients, with its most common version, the pierogi Ruski, packed with potatoes, onions, and cheese and served beneath a heaping of sour cream and pork. They can be boiled, sautéed, or fried and eaten as an appetizer, entrée, or snack.

Many other Polish dishes have a similar structure of thinly rolled out dough, often including a tangy potato filling. But if you've ever cooked with potatoes, you may have encountered the fluffy white centers turning to an unsightly gray color that looks anything but appetizing. Many cooks often try to avoid this discoloration, but those from Poland have created a tasty dish that specifically utilizes gray potatoes.

As noted by The Spruce Eats, kluski szare, or gray dumplings, are a type of kluski śląskie, or Polish potato dumplings, which TasteAtlas says are "characterized by their round shape and a small indentation in the center." They are very simple and consist of only four ingredients: potatoes, egg, flour, and salt. And while may look bland, Polish Your Kitchen says they are "slightly rubbery, but still soft, ready to soak up whatever flavor you douse them with."

There are a myriad of recipes on Polish food sites for this dish but most of them follow the same simple steps: The potatoes are washed, peeled, and boiled in salted water before being mixed, seasoned, and folded with flour to avoid sticking. They are then rolled into small balls, punctured with an indentation in the middle, and boiled for a second time until they begin to float (via Polish Your Kitchen).