Russian Pirozhki

My friend, Fioleta (strange to call someone you've never met in real life your friend, but I do feel that she is) recently posted about making Russian pirozhki with meat and with apples (not together :)) and the pictures looked so good that I was inspired to try making them myself. Alas, when I clicked over to the recipes she had linked, they were in Russian. Hmph. But, not to be deterred, I devised a plan...

When Polina came over to the house for Katya's Russian lesson last week, I printed the recipes and Katya and Polina worked together to translate them for me! Then, yesterday, Kristen and Jack were both at friends' houses for sleepovers, so Katya and I continued the lesson and made the pirozhki together. I was very nervous to make them, as there were so many variables that could have gone wrong: translation from Russian to English (assisted by an eight year old), conversion from metric to standard measurements, Celsius to Fahrenheit, plus the minor fact that I've never made pirozhki before. I have eaten them before though, a couple times in Russia -- I had the apple and cherry ones for dessert at a Russian restaurant, so I could vouch for their potential deliciousness. Katya (not surprisingly, I suppose) had never tasted them before, or at least did not remember ever having them at the orphanage.

Well...against all odds, they turned out great! And, they were fun for little hands to make: lots of rolling and cutting and wrapping and pinching. Katya named all the ingredients for me in Russian, refreshed from her lesson, and we counted the cups of flour and practiced our plurals (one egg or spoonful, etc. vs. two) in Russian while we cooked. Now, if I could just. stop. eating. them.

Baked Pirozhki with Apples

For dough:
8 cups flour
2 cups milk
2 eggs
2 TBSP sugar
2 TBSP oil (Polina says Russians would use sunflower oil, but canola will also work)
1 TBSP fresh yeast (which I think means regular, as opposed to the "quick rise" yeast? Anyway, that's what I assumed, and it worked.)
1/2 tsp salt

For filling:
Apples, 1 lb.
2 TBSP sugar (I used a little more)
1-2 tsp. cinnamon

To make the filling: Peel and core* the apples, then dice. Mix with sugar and saute in a pan until starting to soften, then add cinnamon and set aside.

To make the pirozhki: Warm the milk. Add yeast, eggs, sugar and salt to warm milk and mix. Add flour and knead the dough, adding oil at the end. (I mixed/kneaded in my Kitchen Aid stand mixer with the dough hook.) Cover with a cloth and let rise in a warm place for about 2.5 hours, until doubled. Then, punch down and knead a couple times and let rise once again for 40-50 minutes. Take dough out in sections on a floured surface. Roll out thinly and cut into circles the size of a small tea-plate. Place 2-3 TBSP filling in each center, pinch closed and coat tops with egg white. Place pirozhki on a greased pan, let sit for 20-30 minutes and then bake until browned (about 20 minutes) at 350F.

Pirozhki with Meat and Vegetables:

Filling:
2 lb. meat (I substituted Morningstar grillers soy crumbles for the "meat")
2 lb. pumpkin, zucchini or squash (we used zucchini)
1/2 large or one small onion
2-3 garlic cloves
1-4 tsp. black pepper
Salt to taste

To make the filling: brown the meat in a skillet. Saute onions and garlic, shred the zucchini and add to skillet. Mix all ingredients and add salt and pepper to taste.

The dough and construction of the meat/vegetable pirozhki is the same as for the apple. We made one batch of dough and a half portion of each of the filling recipes and ended up with about 4 dozen pirozhki total.

*I edited and paraphrased the above recipes, but I enjoyed Katya/Polina's translation, e.g. for core the apples: "get rid of the middle part."

Here is the final review: