Paliushky (палюшки, lazy potato-curd dumplings)

The lazy thing about paliushky is that they ask for no folding, no pinching, no little ceremony. The dough is mashed potato brought back to life with dry curd cheese, flour just enough to hold it, then cut into short little fingers and dropped into salted water. They come up pale and soft, then the onions catch them: golden, sweet, sticky at the edges, loud with sunflower oil.

Where varenyky make you sit down and fold, these let you feed a table before the room gets cross. In the west, especially Halychyna and the Carpathian foothills, they belong to potato country and to kitchens that never wasted a cold boiled potato. Aunt Nadia's note in the shoebox says "not too much flour, Lesiu, or you make erasers," which is rude and correct.

The whole dish rests on dry, cooled potato. Hot wet mash drinks flour greedily; cold dry mash needs less, and less flour keeps the dumplings tender. Mix until it sounds right under your spoon, a soft scrape rather than a paste, then stop. If one breaks in the pot, you haven't failed. Fry more onions. Sit down.