Now let’s cook
Pelmeni take ages to shape and no time at all to cook. At least there is time to talk while you shape them.
Ingredients
- 370 g minced beefput through a mincer (ready-made mince will do)
- 370 g minced porkput through a mincer (ready-made mince will do)
- 110 g onionbulb onion: the bulbs are peeled and cut
- 10 g saltfine table salt
- 1 g black pepperground black pepper
- 67 ml waterplain tap water
- 500 g wheat flourground from wheat grains
- 2 eggslarge hen’s egg, about 50 g without the shell
- 150 ml waterplain tap water
- 2 g saltfine table salt
- 3000 ml waterplain tap water
- 30 g saltfine table salt
- 1 bay leafdried leaf of the bay laurel: a spice for soups and boiled dishes
- 30 g butterchurned from cow’s-milk cream
- 1 g black pepperground black pepper
- 100 g sour creamthick soured cream made from cream and a starter culture
Method
Cut the meat for the filling and the onion into pieces and pass them through a mincer together. If you use ready-made mince, mix it with the onion, finely chopped.
Salt and pepper the mince and pour in the cold water in small portions, mixing thoroughly each time: the water should be absorbed and the filling should not turn runny. Cover the bowl and put it in the fridge for at least 1 hour.
For the dough, sift the flour into a mound and make a well in it. Beat the eggs with a fork, add water to make 250 ml of liquid, pour it into the well and add the salt. Do not taste the raw dough: it contains raw eggs. Mix with the fork, gradually drawing in flour from the sides of the well.
When all the liquid has come together with the flour, knead the dough by hand, dusting it lightly with flour, for about 15 minutes, until it is smooth and elastic. Shape it into a ball, cover it and leave for 30 minutes.
Roll the dough out thinly on a floured table and cut rounds 5 cm across with a glass.
Put about a teaspoon of filling on each round, fold the round in half and pinch the edges shut, then bring the ends of the half-moon together.
Bring 3 l of water to the boil in a large pot, salt it and add the bay leaf.
Lower the pelmeni into the boiling water in batches so that they lie in one layer, and stir so that they do not stick to the bottom. Cook until the pelmeni float, then for 5 more minutes: at least 71 °C in the centre of the filling. Lift them out with a slotted spoon.
Move the pelmeni onto plates, add the butter, sprinkle with ground black pepper and serve with sour cream.
Where this dish comes from
The name “pelmeni” comes from the Komi and Udmurt languages: pelnyan means “bread ear”. The dish is traditional in Komi-Permyak, Udmurt, Siberian Tatar and Ural cooking and became part of Russian cuisine: Russians of the Kama region, the Urals and Siberia borrowed it from Finno-Ugric peoples in the 16th century or earlier. Pelmeni are made of unleavened dough around chopped or minced meat and are mostly boiled.
