A Time for Pirogi

The first few times I came across a recipe for pierogi on American recipe websites, I was surprised to discover what the Russians call vareniki in the place of actual pirogi, or pies. If this was a case Imperial Culinary Snobbery (as in, me believing that anything that sounds Russian must refer to an actual Russian dish), it was totally unconscious, and I’m sorry for it.

Anyway, January – and the winter months in general – are a great time to master the hearty Russian recipes for all kinds of pirogi. So here we come, with a round-up of three at once! The filling I have used for these recipes is classic stewed cabbage, but there are obviously a variety of traditional fillings you can use. I love a hard-boiled egg and chives filling, or some minced meat with onions, or fish and rice, and you can experiment with those, especially since you’ll have plenty of different doughs to try out.

All that said, today’s recipe is for stewed cabbage – and for three kinds of pirogi. One is fried pirozhki, made from a kefir-based dough, the second is a classic yeast-dough, kulebyaka, and the third is made with a short pastry of sorts, taken from the 1961 book for young housewives that was gifted to my mother 45 years ago by her mother-in-law.

Here we go.

To make a filling, you will need a small head of cabbage, a medium carrot, and a medium onion. You will also need something like a Dutch oven with a lid that you can close tightly.

Start off by peeling and dicing the onion and peeling and grating the carrot. Heat up a couple tablespoons of vegetable oil in the Dutch oven, add your onion and carrot, mix them together, and then let them stew while you prepare the cabbage.

Cut the cabbage in quarters, cut out the cabbage stalk and then dice the cabbage as you would for a coleslaw. Put the cabbage on top of the onion-carrot mixture in the Dutch oven, lower the heat, close the lid tightly and let it cook in its juices and vapor. It should take anywhere between 20 and 50 minutes, depending on the size of your cabbage. You can start checking after about 20 minutes, giving it a good stir, to bring the lower layers up to the top. When you feel that the cabbage has cooked, add 2-4 tablespoons of tomato paste to give it some color, mix well, then turn off the heat and let cool to room temperature. Your filling is ready.

Now for the doughs.

FRIED PIROZHKI

Take 1 cup of kefir (you may also try buttermilk or mix it with yogurt), add 1 tablespoon of sugar, 1 teaspoon of salt, ½ teaspoon of baking soda, and enough flour to form a pliable dough. Start with 2 cups of flour and add more as needed. Once you have prepared the dough (it may be a bit sticky), flour your work surface, and use a piece of dough about the size of a meatball.

Roll it out into a circle (quite thin), put the cabbage (or other) filling inside, and pinch the pirozhok closed. Prepare all the pirozhki (you should have anywhere between a dozen and two dozen, depending on the size of your dough portions) before you fry them. Heat up some vegetable oil in a pan (don’t use too much), and fry the pastries 2-3 minutes on each side, until golden brown.

KULEBYAKA

Take 50 g (1.7 oz) of warm milk and add 1 tablespoon of instant yeast. Stir. Add another 100 g (3.5 oz) of warm milk (or you can substitute warm water). Stir. Then add 400 g (14 oz) of flour, 50 g (1.7 oz) of room-temperature butter, 2 egg yolks, 1 tsp of salt and 1-2 tbsp of vegetable oil and then mix the dough.

Depending on the size of your eggs, this may form a perfectly pliable dough, or the dough may be too dry, in which case feel free to add a couple more tablespoons of water/milk/oil. Mix the dough well, place it in a bowl, cover and set in a warm place to rise. One hour should be enough. This will be enough dough for two 12x5-inch pies.

Divide the risen dough in half, lightly flour the work surface and roll the dough into a rectangle. Fill half the rectangle with your filling of choice, fold the second half of the rectangle over and pinch the edges shut. Carefully transfer to a baking tray. Use a third egg yolk mixed with water to brush all over the kulebyaka.

Bake at 375°F for about 45 minutes, but be ready to cook longer or shorter depending on how it looks. It should be golden brown.

My mother’s cabbage pie

The recipe in my mother’s book goes something like this: Take a cup of sour scream, add ½ cup of butter, some salt and baking soda, and mix to create a dough. It doesn’t even mention flour. Like so many recipes, it requires the cook to work “by feel.”

That said, take a cup of sour cream, add ½ cup of room-temperature butter, a teaspoon of salt, half-teaspoon of baking soda, and start by mixing in 2 cups of flour, adding more until you again have a nice, pliable dough. Don’t worry if it sticks to your hands a bit, you’ll use more flour to roll it out.

Divide the dough into two approximately equal parts. Roll out either a circle or a rectangle, depending on the mold you’ll use (or don’t use a mold at all, simply creating a rectangular pie and placing it on parchment-lined tray), place it into the buttered tin, so that you have some dough going up the sides. Put in your filling, then cover with the second piece of rolled-out dough and pinch closed.

Use kitchen shears or a knife to make a few slits in the top layer, to let the steam out as the pie cooks.

It should take about 45 minutes in 375° oven.