Well, I used up last week’s sourdough rye starter to make pancakes, and they were amazing. Forget the bread, make these instead. You have to make part of the mix using your sourdough starter the night before you want them, but it’s no hardship. There are lots of recipes online – try to find one that uses a little sugar (or just add some yourself) and melted butter.

Meteorologically speaking, it’s spring on Sunday, (did you know that Met Office workers went on strike this week? http://tinyurl.com/qzt99xr. It’s because their pay has been frozen… ), though the forecast looks wintry for the first half of the week, at least: http://tinyurl.com/p82l6j5.

So, for this reason, and because it’s been London Fashion Week, hooray for Gareth Pugh’s Boadiceas, http://tinyurl.com/oarvgnj, who clearly prefer their meat on the bone and raw, we thought we’d eat dumplings while we have the excuse.

Goodbye Joe, me gotta go, me- oh my-oh

It’s best to get friendly with the people from your local Sklep and ask how your pierogi should be approached. There are lots of different types, with fillings that include cabbage, cheese and plums – not all in the one dumpling. I would have cooked these in water, like ravioli, but that would have been altogether wrong. You fry them in a not-too-stingy quantity of butter for about 7-8 minutes, until they go nicely brown and crispy, a bit like gyoza. Don’t move them around too much, or they won’t crisp up – just keep the heat gentle and turn them over once or twice.

These pierogi have a smoked sausage and potato filling, according to the packet, and they’re coated with herbs – dill and thyme – and yellow mustard seeds. The dough wasn’t too hefty, the golden crispy bits on the outside were delicious and the coating gave added interest. But these things are cheap, as you can see from the impossible-to-remove yellow label, so I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised that the filling was on the scanty side: you could just about detect a sausage flavour and potato texture. So they won’t make a substantial meal: not even much use for a quick kids’ tea – mine was hollering for more and threatening to report me to Jamie.

However, I think I may just have found the perfect beer snack…..