An Ear of Dough: The dish that tamed Siberia

By Yelena Utenkova

Considering Russia's unique geographical position as bridge between Europe and Asia, it's only fitting that one of its classic national dishes is pelmeni a food with its history in Russia's eastward expansion and its origins in that quintessential continental divide, the Ural Mountains.

In the 17th century, Russian explorers crossed the Urals and set about taming Siberia. They soon took notice of a local dish consisting of unusual pies with meat filling. They were called pelmeni, which in the language of the Komi-Permyak tribes means "ear of dough" because of their more than passing resemblance to this organ.

Pelmeni are more substantial in size than their Chinese or Korean counterparts. Clearly Siberians, in their daily struggle for survival in a harsh climate, valued foods which were nourishing, easy to prepare and stored well.

Just as they did 200 years ago, Siberians always take a sack of pelmeni when they go hunting in winter forests. When they're hungry, they simply melt snow in a pot and drop the pelmeni into boiling water. In a few minutes these are ready to eat. And the hunters get two dishes for one - the pelmeni themselves, and the broth for a first course.

Pelmeni were usually made in huge quantities at the beginning of winter, enough to last through the following spring. Convenient snow drifts made storage simple. The whole family took part in the process, even the men (for whom it was considered shameful to do any other kind of housework).

Today, you can buy mass-produced pelmeni in food shops, but real connoisseurs will tell you these don't compare with the homemade variety. There is even a saying about people who lead disorganized lives and do not tend to the domestic that they'll "have to eat pelmeni out of a packet."

Pelmeni have long been close to Russian hearts. At the end of the 19th century, a little known writer from Nizhny Novgorod even wrote a long poem devoted to them. Among other things, he criticized the great Russian poet Alexander Pushkin for not writing a single line about pelmeni.

There are many different types of pelmeni nowadays, and if none of these satisfy you, you can invent your own filling: it could be vegetable, mushroom, fish, or even tvorog (curds) or fruit (in fact, pelmeni with sweet fillings are called vareniki). The best known, however, is the meat-filled, Siberian variety. If you want to try these, beware -- they are so delicious that it is easy to get carried away and eat too many. There is even a legend about an argument between two Siberian merchants over who could eat the most pelmeni -- the outcome proved fatal for both.

So, if you decide to try Siberian pelmeni, restrain yourself!

Here's the Recipe:

Ingredients for the filling:

3/4 pound beef

3/4 pound pork

1 onion

2-3 cloves of garlic

2/3 beaker of milk

salt and pepper to taste

For the dough:

2 tumblers of flour

half tumbler of milk

1 tsp. vegetable oil

1 egg

1/3 beaker of water

salt to taste.

Mince the meat, onion and garlic. Add salt, pepper and milk and mix together. For the dough, mix the water, milk and salt. Pour the flour in a heap onto the table, and add the milk and water. After mixing, add the oil. Cut the dough into three, equally-sized pieces. Roll each one into a tube the thickness of a finger, cut each into pieces the size of a walnut, then roll each piece into a very thin flatcake with a  diameter of 1.5-2 inches. Put some mince in the center of each flatcake (quite a lot, but not so much that you can't seal up the dough). Then fold the dough in half and join up the edges to seal them. You should now have an "ear of dough." Put the pelmeni into boiling water and boil them until they come to the surface. They are served hot with sour cream, vinegar, or in beef or chicken broth.