A Rollicking Good Holiday Chicken

T

he holidays are a time for ornate meals. While we generally like to offer less complicated recipes here, we couldn’t resist offering this traditional Russian pie for your holiday enjoyment. In reality, this recipe is much less complex than it looks at first glance; if you can roll out a bit of dough and make pancakes, you won’t have the least bit of trouble with kurnik.

Kurnik has long been a “must” dish at traditional Russian wedding parties, and this version—zalikhvatsky (literally, “rollicking”)—has a festive, almost excessive quality. Its thin outer layer of dough conceals a tasty, layered filling of chicken, eggs, onions, mushrooms, and rice, separated by light blinchiki. Served hot, it is a real treat.