Russian Pies - Pirogis

[Olga]

Russian Pies - Pirogis

Various pies, rasstegais, kulebyakas and all kinds of small pasties are the Russians' favorites both during holidays and in everyday life, as well as an indispensable hors-d'oeuvre to accompany fish soup or shchi.

[Olga]

Kurniks or chiken pies were traditionally baked on festiv days. They were highlights at the royal rable on solemn occasions as early as the reign of Ivan the Terrible. The tradition to cook kurniks survives to the present day, and in many regions of Russia there is a custom to bake this kind of pie for a wedding feast. Traditionally, chicken pies were baked in the homes of both the  bridegroom and the bride. The bridegroom's pie used to be decorated with human figurines which implied the stability of the future family, and the bride's pie was embellished with flowers as symbols of beauty and tenderness.

Kurniks were usually filled with chicken meat, boletus mushrooms, rice, hard-boiled eggs and greens.

For the unleavened dough:
2 cups wheat flour
1/2 cup butter
1 tbsp sugar
1 egg
1/3 cup milk or cream
1 tbsp sour cream
a dint of salt and soda

For the filling:
1 chicken
300 g (10 oz) fresh boletus mushrooms
5 hard-boiled eggs
1 cup rice
1 tbsp minced green parsley

For the sauce:
2 tbsp butter
1 tbsp flour
1 cup strong chicken broth
1/2 cup cream
2 egg yolks

For the greasing:
2 egg yolks

Melt butter, add cream, sour cream egg, salt and sugar. Stir up thoroughly. Put in flour mixed with soda and knead a dough of consistently uniform quality. Unleavened dough is easier to prepare, it readily takes and keeps form. All decorations moulded with the use of this kind of dough perfectly retain their design.   

Boil chicken, take off meat from bones, cut it into slices and season with sauce. Boil rice, add butter, cool, add chopped eggs and greens. Stew fresh boletus mushrooms in butter and season them with sauce.

Use the dough and fillings to shape a pie. For this purpose set aside 1/4 of the dough for the top, roll the rest into a flat cake 1/4-inch thick and put into a greased mould or casserole allowing a pice to overlap the edges of the mould.  Spread the fillings over the cake in layers as follows: rice, rounded slices of eggs, shicken meat, mushrooms, rice again, etc., shaping the pie as a dome.

Roll the remaining dough for the top layer, make crosswise incisions on it to spead it more smoothly, and use it to cover the pie, brush it with egg yolks and embellish with all sorts of dough flowers. Brush the surface with egg yolks again. Make a fancy-shaped openning in the center of the dome to let out steam during baking.

Bake at 428F. When the crust is brown, the pie is done.

Kurnik is served with a sauce. To cook it, rub butter with flour, dilute with hot broth poring it in a steady thin stream while stirring and add cream. Heat the batter until as thick as sour cream. Take it off the heat and, stirring constantly, season with egg yolks.

Russian Pies - Pirogis

 

[Olga]

Unleavened dough

1 cup butter
3/4 cup sour cream
1 1/4 cups wheat flour
a dint each of salt and sugar

Rub butter with sour cream, add salt and sugar, fill in flour and knead pliable dough

Yeast dough

1 1/4 cup butter
2 cups milk
1 or 2 tbsp sugar
1 tsp salt
1 egg
30 to 50 g (1 or 1 1/3 oz) yeast
6 cups wheat flour

Prepare yeast dough using the indicated ingredients, let it rise and cook pies, pasties and other baking products.

[Olga]

For the dough

3 cups wheat flour
25 g (3/4 oz) fresh yeast
2 eggs
1/3 cup butter
1 1/2 cups lukewarm water
2 tbsp sugar
salt

For the filling

350 to 400 g (12 to 14 oz) fillet of white fish, pike-perch or pike
250 g (8 oz) salmon
1 or 2 tbsp butter
salt
ground black pepper
1 or 2 tbsp chopped parsley or dill (or both)

For greasing the surface 1-2 eggs

Prepare yeast dough, roll it into a round strip, cut it into egg-like pieces, roll them into round as large as a saucer, spread the prepared fish filling on each piece and lay slices of salmon over the filling, join the opposite ends of the dough and pinch the edges leaving the center of the pasty open. Shape the rasstegai into a boat, prick its surface and sides with a fork, brush with egg yolk, put on a buttered baking sheet and bake at 350 to 392F until brown.

To prpare the fish filling, cut a fillet, saute it in butter and season with salt, pepper and greens.

Rasstegais are good zakuska pasties. They are served with vodka and other strong drinks, as well as with fish soup, broth or tea.

Russian Pies - Pirogis

[Olga]

Russian Pies - Pirogis

Yeast dough: 1 kg (2 lb 3 oz)
For the filling: 800 g (1 lb 12 oz) meat, 3 tbsp. butter, 5 hard-boiled eggs, salt, ground black pepper, nutmeg.
Foe the greasing; 2 tbsp butter

Put the meat through a mincer or chop it by knife and saute on a pan. Then put it through a mincer again, cool, add chopped eggs and season with salt, pepper and nutmeg. Shape dough into balls of about 150 g (5 oz), let them stay for 8 to 10 minutes and then roll into round cakes, lay the filling into the center of each cake, build up a rim so that it overlaps the meat filling for 3/4 inch, leaving the center open. Brush up the dough rims with melted butter before and after baking. Bake at 392F until ready.