TasteRussian’s blog

You must be heard from your Russian friends that cooking traditional Russian pelmeni is more pain than a satisfaction.  But that’s not true. Russian pelmeni recipe involves only 2 steps: making the dough and making the filling. Well, assembling pelmeni is also a big step, but very interesting. Do not believe if anyone says that molding pelmeni is a pretty tedious business! It’s all about to having fun! Time-honored tradition of making pelmeni gathers all family members around the table and makes the process cooperative and interesting often accompanied by hours of songs and stories. Pelmeni can be bought pre-made in the freezer section of any Russian supermarket. They are a hearty meal that cooks quickly and easily, but most Russians still prefer the tradition of making them by hand, and Russian housewives consider it a question of honor to do so. Moreover the taste of home-made pelmeni is absolutely different. Anyway pelmeni are tasty and a true taste of Russia.

Now you have a chance to take a liking to pelmeni just following my Russian pelmeni recipe.

Russian pelmeni recipe:

Step one. Dough

To make dough we need

210 ml cold water

1 egg

1 teaspoon salt

400 gram flour

I always make dough in a bread maker, it does a great job of making dough, it’s very simple and doesn’t take more than a 20 minutes. Bread maker makes the exact consistence of dough we need to cook a good pelmeni. Very elastic, soft but not too sticky. If you don’t have bread maker sift the flour into a table. Make a dimple in the top and crack the egg into that. Add 1 teaspoon salt. Adding the cold water gradually, knead the dough vigorously 15-20 minutes.

Step two. Filling.

0.5 lb beef ground

0.5 lb pork ground

1 middle onion

Salt, pepper, spices by taste

Pelmeni filling consists of ground beef and pork mixed with ground or grated onion, salt and pepper. I prefer to add 1 chopped clove of garlic. Combine all ingredients and filling is ready.

Assembling pelmeni.

My favorite part! Cut the dough into 2 pieces, one piece cover with something (kitchen towel, bowl) or wrap in a plastic bag otherwise the dough will dry up.  Roll the dough into a long “snake” one inch in diameter. Cut the dough at one-inch intervals and roll the pieces out into circles using floured rolling pin 1/16 to 1/32 of an inch thick. Place a teaspoon of the meat filling in the center and fold the dough over, pinching edges firmly to completely seal each pelmen into a small packet. There should be no holes in the dough to preserve the flavor and consistency of the meat inside. Than pinch 2 sides of pelmen to get the final shape. I hope it would be much easier to follow step by step photo Russian pelmeni recipe than read this one!

Tip

If dough circles are still available and the filling comes to an end I also boil the circles without filling. They are too good with a sour cream to through them out.

The final step is boiling.

Boil a generous amount of water with 1-2 tsp. salt. Drop enough pelmeni into the boiling water. They are ready to eat when they floating to the top for 3-4 minutes and stay there. Take pelmeni out using skimmer.  Add 1-2 teaspoon butter. Serve with a sour cream. If you did everything right each pelmen should look as shown in the picture, without holes and with a drop of delicious broth inside. Yummy! From this amount of ingredients there should be 30-40 pelmeni, 3-4 servings.  But traditionally we make 100-150 pelmeni and keep them frozen over time so if you plan to store your pelmeni, freeze them uncooked.

Russian bliny. Pancakes but actually not exactly…

Now here’s the recipe of traditional Russian blinchiki or bliny as promised. Blinchiki or bliny (blini) Russians usually cook for breakfast and eat with sour cream or jam but blinis are also good as an appetizer .  In this case Russians make different fillings for blinis - the most popular fillings are meat, mushrooms, cottage cheese etc. etc. Foreigners know our Russian bliny in their Royal variation – with caviar but telling you the truth Russians are hardly ever eat bliny (blini) with caviar, just in case to impress somebody! There are also many blini recipe variations, somebody make blinis batter with yeast but I prefer to cook them without adding yeast. Taste is pretty similar but it’s just about to save time.  Blini recipe as well as ingredients are almost same as pancakes recipe but has some difference in preparation.

My Russian interpretation of Uzbek plov recipe.

As you might been heard, cooking the Uzbek plov is a complicated and food usually screw up. That is because it has a certain technique to it that must be practiced and mastered. However you can cook plov without any problems and taste will be pretty similar as traditional Uzbek plov.  Indeed authenticity is a notion defined in each family when Plov is concerned! The main problem is Americans or Europeans  do not have the fortune of finding a traditional Uzbek or Central Asian spices. But if you really want to cook traditional plov – cumin/ jeera and saffron is essential.  Spices are the soul of plov, plov without spices we named porridge with meat. Plov is a very delicious and satisfying dish! I know many people who contend for their own “absolutely right” recipe of plov, but I cook it as I think this dish should be as for me, as my family like it. I tasted many plov variations – with mutton, lamb, with chicken, etc. etc. cooked by different techniques but my favorite is still mine. I hope you could cook plov following my recipe without any  problems or hidden dangers and will be absolutely satisfied. I’ll also betray some secrets which should help you to cook the best plov ever!

Plov

Absolutely traditional Russian breakfast! Absolutely amazing taste! Cooking oladi will take no more than 10-15 minutes of your time but they worth every single minute! Nothing can be better on breakfast! Hot, just fried, soft inside and a bit crispy edge! It’s a best breakfast for you and your kids! Serve them with a sour cream, honey, jam or fresh berries and enjoy your breakfast! If you were in Russia and haven’t got a chance to taste Russian oladi – well, I consider you have never been in Russia at all.